Download - India's Enviornmental Past Essay
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India's Environmental Past
Shifting Ground: People, Animals, and Mobility in
Indias Environmental History
Interest in matters related to environment and
ecology has generated critical debate and
investigation for over three decades leading to a
rapidly expanding discourse. There has been a sharp
increase in environmental concerns and activism
leading to research interests in the twin stories of
the human impact on natural environment and
environments manifold influences on humans.
The discussion, though providing major insights, has
often been in segments that focus on one aspect or
theme at a time such as land, forests, wildlife,
people, biodiversity or simply the environment,
often invoking stereotyped, rigid periodisation of
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history. Such ideas presuppose that there is a
natural environment which is separate from the
people who live in it. In such an understanding
culture can appear as an epiphenomenon or
commentary on that environment. Moreover, the
understanding within the conventional scheme of
periodising history as
ancient/medieval/modern/contemporary creates
artificial and pervasive divides between natural and
humanistic disciplines and prevents connections
that are significant and necessary to be established.
Artificial and Pervasive Divide
Shifting Ground: People, Animals, and Mobility in
Indias Environmental History demonstrates the
limitations of these sharp divides. It brings together
a host of essays that ask critical questions about
Indias environmental past and the way it has been
approached by scholars. Debunking the idea of a
primeval, pristine forest cover, analysing the
dynamics that shape humananimal relations and
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examining the conflicts created by post-
independence projects of rural development and
conservation, it investigates various aspects of
environmental studies and juxtaposes them with
social history, history of science and technology,
and history of trade and culture.
Providing social contexts of environmental history,
the volume ventures into new analysis of historical
processes by which people, animals and social or
physical mobility affect the environment, ideas of
nature, its conservation and protection.
Acknowledging the contribution of Guhas (1989)
pioneering work and the scholarly tradition of
environmental history in India, the editors comment
on the epochal changes and the upheavals in the
ecological landscape as well as on its scientific
analysis and the trajectory of Indias environmental
history.
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Environmental History
Scholars of Indian environmental history have
engaged in significant debates, yet many have been
inclined to view the past as tabula rasa. For
instance, works such as that of Beinart and Hughes
(2007), Kumar et al (2010) eruditely trace the
complex connections of British imperialism and
ecological processes. But as the editors of the
volume under review observe, they trace these
connections without engaging with the longer range
histories of the lands or peoples. It is not only
desirable, but also imperative, they argue, to
develop a dialogue that cuts across different
periods of history. The objective should be not
merely to historicise environment, but also to
contextualise it in longue duree and emphasise a
wider perspective, a dialogue, perhaps a synthesis
and a smoother understanding of developments
and transition of knowledge. This will help
appreciate the millennia-long history of Indias
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ecosystems and their interface with human desires
and ambitions, triumphs and failures.
There is enough textual and archaeological
evidence that suggests that the premodern was not
idyllic, harmonious, and benevolent. It was not
static either, but a stochastic process of
environmental and related social changes. It is
necessary, say the editors, to stress that India
should not be viewed in isolation from the larger
Asian landmass or the world of the Indian Ocean in
ecological or historical terms. There were often
zones of continuity and transition, with Central and
West Asia in the West and South-east Asia in the
East. Historians of late have pointed out that
substantive shifts were the result of connected
ecologies and histories. This has served as a
corrective to an ahistorical back projection of the
present frontier. Andre Wink (1996), for instance,
has observed that the transition from one form of
livelihood to another was not unilinear or
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completeways of eking livelihoods did not exist in
pure form.
Much of Indias environmental history, at least till
the year 2000 or so, focused on forests. In
environmental social sciences, forests have held
precedence over other ecosystems. This is partly
because forests are significant natural resources.
But the precedence accorded to forests also owes
to another reason. Forests are also contested
spaces with a number of humans crowding it. It is
replete with people urged by the desire to leave
their imprint on the landscape in different and
mutually contradictory ways. The forest, as the
authors observe, could be re-natured in a variety of
ways. Romila Thapar (2001), for example, studies
different versions of Sakuntalam to trace the ways
in which perceptions of the forestwhere they
were projected to remote placeschanged over
time. She also shows how powers of kings over
forests changed over time. Nonetheless, the editors
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argue, there is a need to critically understand the
notion of primeval forest. It is necessary to
reintegrate the agrarian environments in a more
holistic manner and see the forest and cultivated
. arable land in conjunction with each other
Narratives of Degradation
Kathleen Morrisons paper, Conceiving Ecology and
Stopping the Clock: Narratives of Balance, Loss and
Degradation in the volume is a corrective to the
idea of a primeval, pristine, untouched forest as the
common starting point for all human history in
India. She provides evidence from the Ganga and
Indus river basins to counter such perceptions. She
also argues for discarding the notion of a
harmonious relationship between residents and the
forest expanse in the Vijayanagara region during the
12th to the 16th centuries. Suggesting caution in
accepting the idea of a universal colonial
watershed, she urges that environmental
transformations in several parts of India in
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precolonial times were as significant as those in
colonial times.
Shibani Boses article From Eminence to Near
Extinction: The Journey of the Great One-Horned
Rhino studies the distribution of the animal across
the premodern landscape of India and provides
valuable insight into broader environmental and
social processes. She demonstrates the
interconnectedness of the fate of the rhinoceros
with changing human cultures and settlement
patterns till the first millennium of the Christian Era.
With the greater utility of elephants and horses in
the war in the second millennium, the rhinoceros
lost its importance though it was found in Central
and North India, even if in somewhat diminished
numbers. The value of the rhinoceros declined with
the introduction of modern weaponry in the 19th
century. Its horn was no longer fancied for its
medicinal properties. Rhinoceros parts ceased to be
valued as food. Sport using lethal weapons confined
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the rhinoceros to its limited habitat in the 20th
century.
ManAnimal Interaction
The holistic view of the environment and its issues
entail the understanding of the relationship not
only between the people and the lands, but also
complex encounters of humans with the animals.
This may help explore attitudes towards animals
and also help understand fauna in their own spaces.
Such an investigation will help us understand if
historical processes had any impact on the spatial
distribution of the animals and if they contributed
to the extinction of certain species. In this context,
one may mention the works of Divyabhanusinh
Chavda. These have made a valuable contribution
towards understanding the history of human
animal interaction, fauna in their own worlds, the
gradual erosion of their spaces and the extinction of
some species. In the chapter Lions, Cheetahs and
Others in the Mughal Landscape, Chavda studies
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art and historical information to describe how the
distribution of the Asiatic lion was distinct from that
of its African cousins. Such information can be
gleaned from the art produced when Mughal
imperial entourages travelled, hunted and camped.
Like Chavda, Julie Hughes in her essay,
Environmental Status and Wild Boars in Princely
India, uses visual sources like paintings and
drawings to reach conclusions on the relationship
between the Western princely Indian states and
land and animals during the colonial period.
Focusing on wild boar, instead of charismatic mega
fauna that interests conservationists and historians,
Hughes observes that the animal was amongst the
top emblems of regional pride and local Rajput
identity. The pursuit of the boar was more than
mere leisure for Rajput princes. It was also the
affirmation of their martial prowess, power and
authority over their people. It was also an emblem
of local patriotism. Focusing on horse craft, Brian
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Caton studies animal breeding and animal care and
its relationship with the changing forms of
knowledge in 19th century Punjab.
Radhika Govindarajans article How to Be Hindu in
the Himalayas: Conflicts over Animal Sacrifice in
Uttarakhand, is an unflagging ethnographic study
of hill people in Uttarakhand. She studies animal
sacrifice to understand how humananimal
relations were influenced by religion and
theologians. Govindarajan shows how emotional,
religious and legal relations are debated and
contested in India and how debates over animal
sacrifice can be read as debates over how to be a
Hindu!
Arupjyoti Saikia investigates the nature of social
space of grazing in the first half of the 20th century
and maps the social history of agrarian relations and
conflicts over land in colonial Assam in his article
Making Room Inside Forests: Grazing and Agrarian
Conflicts in Colonial Assam. Daniel Klingensmiths
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article, Nature and Politics at the End of the Raj:
Environmental Management and Political
Legitimacy in Late Colonial India, 191947
discusses nature and politics at the end of the
colonial period. Studying environmental
management and political legitimacy in late colonial
India, Klingensmith does not identify the period as
unique or unprecedented in terms of
environmental crisis. Nor does he trace a history of
loss, degradation and decay. Instead, he focuses on
the political implications of narratives of loss,
degradation, and decay among some of the major
constituencies of imperial rule.
Providing a new approach to comprehending the
fate of the forests and those who inhabit it, or its
surroundings, Vikramaditya Thakur, in his essay,
Logjam: Peasantization Caused Deforestation in
Narmada Valley understands the transition, over
the last century, in the livelihoods of the Bhils in the
proximity of Narmada Valley. Thakur tries to
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understand the transition from sustenance form of
livelihood based primarily on hunting and gathering,
complemented by subsistence farming, to one
based on settled agriculture. Ghazala Shahabuddin
explores the debate on science and conservation
and probes the connections between nature,
scientific knowledge and power and their
interactions that go into the making of conservation
policy in India. She does so analysing conservation
practices in Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan.
Conclusions
The essays in this volume are well-researched and
empirically strong. In their Introduction the
editors remark that they decided to call the
collection Shifting Ground, to convey the sense
that the volume as a whole seeks to convey. Earlier
approaches were marked by sharp distinctions
between geographical spaces (forest, river and
farm) or peoples (herders, farmers, townspeople) or
eras and epochs (prehistoric and historic and the
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triad of ancient, medieval and modern or the
colonial era and the postcolonial). None of this is
invalid but each has limitations that become
apparent when one studies the multiple dimensions
of Indias environmental pasts. Lucidly and cogently
written, engaging and interesting, the volume is a
valuable addition to the corpus on environmental
history.
Ankur Bharadwaj
September 26, 2015
Source- EPW
References
Beinart, William and Lotte Hughes (2007):
Environment and Empire, Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Guha, Ramachandra (1989): The Unquiet Woods:
Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance, New
Delhi: Oxford University Press.
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Kumar, Deepak, Vinita Damodaran and Rohan D
Souza (2010): The British Empire and the Natural
World, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Thapar, Romila (2001): Perceiving the Forest in
Early India, Studies in History, Volume 17, No 1, pp
116.
Wink, Andre (1996): Al Hind: The Making of the
Indo-Islamic World, Early Medieval India and the
Expansion of Islam, 7th11th Centuries, New York:
EJ Brill.