Trois mille ans d’écologie indienne. Penser autrement la nature by Annie Montaut

Publisher's summary

Since its distant origins, Indian civilization has continuously intertwined the idea of human with that of the cosmic order and its components: water, forest, earth, and fire. The ecological thought and struggles of contemporary India, which form the core subject of this work, thus extend the ancient speculations on the inseparability of nature and culture.

A result of millennia of experience, current agroecological practices are attentive to the interaction of the actors and the specific environment in which they work: one does not take care of an element, whether water, plants, or soil, without simultaneously considering its usage and the fair, moral, and material retribution of those who care for it.

These practices strengthen the bond between humans and the environment: this bond of friendship, rather than predation, highlights the values associated with the feminine and the role of women working on the fringes of affluent society. The lessons to be drawn from this "ecology of the poor" are not only relevant to India but to all countries today facing the degradation of their vital environments.

Annie Montaut is Professor Emeritus of Hindi/Linguistics at Inalco and a member of the Centre for South Asian and Himalayan Studies (EHESS-CNRS); she is the author of numerous books and articles on Indian linguistics and modern culture, including Le Hindi, grammaire linguistique (Société de Linguistique de Paris, Peeters) and L’Esprit de la nature: Raza (L’Asiathèque). She has also translated around thirty Indian works, including Hind Swaraj. L’émancipation à l’indienne by Gandhi ("Poids et mesures du monde", Fayard) and Ret Samadhi by Geetanjali Shree (Éditions des Femmes), a novel that won the 2022 International Booker Prize. She has also been a resident of the Institut d'études avancées de Nantes.