Sunday, August 25, 2002		Books

Mapping the future of geography
N.K. Oberoi

Voice of Concern
by Anu Kapur, National Association of Geographers, India and Concept Publishing Company, New Delhi, 2002, Pages 428, Rs 995.

KNOWLEDGE institutionalised in the form of courses at university and college level suffers from inertia and a fair amount of conservatism. Due to lack of initiative and inventiveness within the ‘fossilised’ academia, many disciplines are on the verge of extinction. Geography, which has the distinction of both a discipline of science and humanities, despite its expansion in terms of greater number of departments opening up all across the country, faces crisis of survival. In the wake of rise of new and highly specialised disciplines such as environmental sciences, space technology, meteorology and social anthropology, the space of ‘conventional’ geography is continually shrinking.

In the book under review, Anu Kapur, a young and dynamic Delhi-based geographer, compiles the presidential addresses of various heads of Indian Geography Congress to underscore the shifting paradigms of geographical research in India over time. Geographers in the post-80s seemed to question the theories and models of development that their predecessors had espoused. There is an emphasis on mapping regional atlases by taking inputs from culture and area-specific ecological features. "Regional development is eco-development, observes Moonis Raza. He however, does not endorse the idea of decentralisation as a panacea of all Third World problems; he instead proposes "integrated differentiation" as the appropriate strategy of development. A. Ahmad goes on the extent of underlining the need of re-inventing Indian geography — a geography which evolves its own culture-specific terms and tools of evaluation and analysis.

The title of the book Voice of Concern is rather enigmatic and is full of semantic possibilities. At one level it brings geography close to the discourse of active human concern, positive ethical choices and eco-friendly developmental strategies. Geography is not an impersonal statement of the empirical researcher, it is an empassioned plea for preservation of environment conducive for the material, moral and spiritual growth of human beings. P.D. Mahadev looks at geography as discipline for "sustainable heritage".

Almost every president of the National Association of Geographers, India, expresses concern about the growing marginalisation of geography as a subject in Indian academia. The fear of geography being appropriated by environmental sciences lurks at the back of each conventional geographer today. There is a pressing need to expand geography to include allied disciplines like digital cartography, remote sensing, space technology etc. While geographers like R.P. Mishra lay emphasis on inviting research; students from the disciplines of pure sciences for advanced geographical research; geographers like S.M. Alam insist on reading geography in the light of changing political, economic and administrative policies.

If the concerns expressed in the book are any measure of inner turmoil, geography as a discipline is poised for breaking new frontiers of awareness — frontiers that go beyond the mere physical and the statistical. In its effort to contribute to the good of humanity, geography is today concerned with human, ecological and cultural dimensions of the natural landscape. Even the possibilities of the virtual space, sometimes called "third space" fall under the purview of the new-age geographer.

The book is a rare document that not only showcases the causes and concerns of one discipline of knowledge, it sets standards of introspection for other institutionalised disciplines also. It is a wake-up call not only for the geographers, but for the entire academia cutting across various disciplines. It is time for other disciplines that are still basking in the glory of their past reputation, to share the voice of concern that the book articulates in rather measured and analytical terms.