Haines, Daniel;
(2024)
Recovering the status quo: tipping points and earthquake aftermaths in colonial India.
Disasters
, 48
(1)
, Article e12602. 10.1111/disa.12602.
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Abstract
Scholars debate how far natural hazards cause or catalyse political change. This article builds on recent scholarship on tipping points and social contracts to argue that two case studies of historical earthquakes in 1930s British-colonized India invite a focus on the dynamics of cooperation and conflict between state and non-state actors. Officials of the colonial state and its nationalist rivals cooperated after one earthquake even though they otherwise bitterly opposed each other. Cooperation broke down after the second, just one year later. Yet in both cases, officials and nationalist leaders shared a broad vision for Indian society, which pushed both sides to actively seek to recover the social and economic status quo ante, preventing potential tipping points from crystallising. These case studies reveal how and why highly fraught social contracts can survive major disasters. The colonial state's transient and reactive approach to disaster governance continued to impact on post-independence India.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Recovering the status quo: tipping points and earthquake aftermaths in colonial India |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1111/disa.12602 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1111/disa.12602 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Disasters published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of ODI. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | colonialism, critical juncture, disaster politics, earthquakes, India, Pakistan, South Asia, tipping points |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Inst for Risk and Disaster Reduction |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10173576 |
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