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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.