Taking Stock in India and Pakistan: A Review

Summary

This review article critically assesses the state of geographical scholarship in India and Pakistan shortly after partition, using ten recently published works as a lens. The purpose is to take stock of both the discipline’s academic standing and the regional, economic, and historical geographies that were emerging. Methodologically, Spate provides a detailed, comparative evaluation of monographs, atlases, and surveys, highlighting their contributions, methodological weaknesses, and the institutional constraints under which they were produced. Key findings reveal a discipline still struggling for full university recognition, burdened by inadequate libraries and uneven training, yet showing genuine progress through dedicated societies, journals, and a small but growing body of rigorous research. The reviewed works vary markedly in quality: while some suffer from careless data, unrealistic planning assumptions, or compilatory approaches, others—such as Deshpande’s regional monograph on Western India, Chatterjee’s cartographic analysis of Bengal, and Thomas’s survey of basic industries—represent substantial achievements. Spate concludes that despite immaturity and “culturable waste” in research coverage, the foundations for a modern geographical tradition in the subcontinent are being laid, with vast untouched areas and problems awaiting investigation. The review thus offers both a snapshot of post-1947 geographical endeavor and a programmatic call for greater field-based, integrative scholarship.