Environmental History and Tribals in Modern India

Velayutham Saravanan

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9789811080517
• eBook ISBN: 9789811080524
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: Biological Sciences

This monograph presents a comprehensive account of environmental history of India and its tribals from the late eighteenth onwards, covering both the colonial and post-colonial periods. The book elaborately discusses the colonial plunder of forest resources up to the introduction of the Forest Act (1878) and focuses on how colonial policy impacted on the Indian environment, opening the floodgates of forest resources plunder, primarily for timber and to establish coffee and tea plantations. The book argues that even after the advent of conservation initiatives, commercial exploitation of forests continued unabated while stringent restrictions were imposed on the tribals, curtailing their access to the jungles. It details how post-colonial governments and populist votebank politics followed the same commercial forest policy till the 1980s without any major reform, exploiting forest resources and also encroaching upon forest lands, pushing the self-sustainable tribal economy to crumble. The book offers a comprehensive account of India's environmental history during both colonial and post-colonial times, contributing to the currentenvironmental policy debates in Asia.

© The Author(s) 2018

Velayutham SaravananEnvironmental History and Tribals in Modern Indiahttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8052-4_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Velayutham Saravanan¹

(1)

Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India

End Abstract

European expeditions to explore new geographical terrains, which began in the ninth century and continued until the nineteenth century, primarily to hunt for resources, were inspired by a population explosion, resource saturation and internal conflicts, in addition to European technological advancement. According to Crosby , ‘conditions in Europe provided a considerable push-population explosion and a resulting shortage of cultivable land, national rivalries, persecution of minorities—and the application of steam power to ocean and land travel certainly facilitated long distance migration’.¹ This expedition was further supported by climate, wind, immunity and the transfer of plants and animals, adds Crosby . In the early ninth century Europeans moved to nearby islands, particularly to the north-eastern parts of European countries, then later to Africa, America and to South Asia continents, he continues. In other words, Europeans were hunting for new biological resources and in the process several millions settled in different parts of the world. ‘Between 1820 and 1930, well over 50 million Europeans migrated to the Neo–European land overseas,’ says Crosby .² As such, ‘the success of European imperialism has a biological, an ecological, component’.³ Since the beginning of the modern world system, ‘the peripheries have been severely exploit ed for their raw materials and natural products’ by the core.⁴ Since the early nineteenth century, Britain had exploit ed forest resources in different parts of the world, such as Ireland , South Africa and some parts of the north-eastern United States , and it emerged as ‘world leader’ in the second half of the nineteenth century.⁵ The British and other Europeans plundered the resources of new European countries. ‘British and European consumers and manufacturers sucked in resources that were gathered, hunted, fished, mined, and farmed in a great profusion of extractive and agrarian systems; sugar from the Caribbean; furs and cod from North America; ivory and cocoa from Africa; spices, cotton, tea and timber from India; wool from the sheep of the Antipodes; rubber from South-East-Asia; gold from South Africa; oil from Middle-East.’⁶ In the early phases of imperial expansion, ‘commodities that could not be produced in Britain, such as spices, sugar, tobacco, cotton, and tea were particular objects of desire’ and in the later phase ‘pastoral production such as wool and meat’ was the focus.⁷ Hence, the main agenda of the European expeditionary movement was to exploit natural resources. In the process, new cropping patterns were developed alongside the exchange of goods. That Europeans started to explore virgin lands to extract natural resources from the ninth to nineteenth centuries is an established fact, and it also turns out to be the origin of environmental history . In other words, the attempt to explore new geographical regions is in itself an inevitable indicator of environmental impli cations. Beinart and Hughes (2007) p oint out that ‘European imperialism was also inseparable from the history of global environmental change.’⁸

Europeans made contact with the Indian subcontinent from the early sixteenth century and trade and commercial activities continued until the late eighteenth century .⁹ The Portuguese, later the Dutch and French and then the English established trade and commercial ventures in the early sixteenth, early seventeenth and late seventeenth centuries respectively. According to Chaudhuri, i n the first two decades of the sixteenth century the Portuguese ‘policy was aimed systematically at a comprehensive control of the spice trade’.¹⁰ In the early sixteenth century, important export materials were textiles, cotton yarn, cotton fabrics, pepper, rice, pulses, wheat, oil, coconut products, ginger, turmeric, indigo, sandalwood, sappan wood, benzoin, saltpetre, cloves, diamonds, rubies, coral, seed pearls, wax and lac, tutenage (an alloy of copper, zinc and iron), besides horses and elephants.¹¹ From that time, Europeans slowly started to exercise control over the subcontinent, exploit ing the natural resources for their commercial interests. Initially, their interest was confined to spices and some important trees such as teak on the south-west part of the Western Coast. However, within a short time they realised that these natural resources would not last for long, and hence they started paying attention to regenerating these resources, particularly teak, in order to meet future requirements. Hence, the Nilanbur teak plantation was established in 1844 and others followed elsewhere in the country during the late nineteenth century. A s Beinart and Hughes (2007) p ointed out, ‘while natural resources have been intensively exploit ed, a related process, the rise of conservationist practices and ideas, was also deeply rooted in imperial history’.¹² While discussing the importance of conservation, it must be understood that the ‘growing conservationist concerns did not in themselves stop exploit ation’.¹³ The British forest conservation idea was not really aimed at protecting jungles and wildlife but at meeting the future needs of the empire. According to Swami , ‘Practical considerations such as the need to provide timber for railway and ship-building activities were very important motives for setting up forest conservatories in different parts of India.’¹⁴ In other words, the real intention behind colonial conservation measures was commercial interest, and forest management meant meeting future demand.

The emergence of environmental history began with the study of rational conservation, the use of resources and the preservation of natural spaces that emerged in the United States during the last quarter of the twentieth century .¹⁵ Environmental h istory largely deals with three broad themes: material, cultural/intellectual and political. The first focuses on the changes in biological and physical environments and how they affect human societies. The second is about representations and images of nature in the arts and letters, and how they have impacted upon society and nature. The third dwells on how law and state policy have changed nature and society.¹⁶ The early literature on environmental h istory has a consensus that pre-conquest and pre-colonial societies had ecological harmony.¹⁷ ‘Most past societies, for instance, have not altered the natural world at anything like the rate or scale that has typified the modern era.’¹⁸

India’s environmental h istory has largely focused on colonial forestry and the debate centred on the ‘contest between commercial forestry and the livelihood and rights of the rural poor’.¹⁹ According to Sivaramakrishnan , ‘In much of the existing work on India’s colonial environmental h istory, concerns about how transnational flows of ideas and trained personnel generated a cosmopolitan, professionalised, international environmentalism have been juxtaposed with regional and local political struggles over forests and the lives associated with them.’²⁰ As such, the debate is focused mainly on two broad themes: pre-colonial equilibrium between nature and society and the commercial isation or conservation of nature and society during the colonial period . The first school of thought argued that prior to colonial intervention an equilibrium between people and nature was maintained and that was disturbed with the advent of colonial ism.²¹ During the pre-colonial period, an approximate equilibrium of natural resource base existed between 800 and 1800.²² Shiva also stresses this point: ‘forest had been controlled and used collectively by village communities thus ensuring a sustainable use of these renewable resources’.²³ Mahesh Rangarajan puts it aptly: ‘The pioneers of environmental h istory have tended to set up an opposition between the equilibrium between people and nature before colonialism and the disharmony that arose as a result of British intrusion. Previous rulers had rarely intervened in woods and pastures, mainly to assert monopolies over valuable animals like elephants.’²⁴ Similar arguments have emerged in different regions.²⁵ Sivaramakrishnan points out that ‘The bold, and in places, admittedly controversial grand narrative that people still use as a point of departure for detailed, if contrapuntal studies, had not yet been published.’²⁶ Hence, it becomes evident that literature on the environmental h istory of the subcontinent has been largely centred on the colonial impact.

All the same, the second school of thought denied any equilibrium between nature and people from the third century onwards, stating that conflicts persisted in different parts of the subcontinent and that forest resources were exploit ed for commercial interests.²⁷ Yet it admits that there was no sharp conflict among the communities over natural resources. Swami pointed out that ‘there is as yet no evidence of total collapse or sharp conflicts among communities over ecological issues in the precolonial period like those one can find d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Exploitation of Forests, 1793–1882
• 3. Conservation or Commercialisation, 1882–1947
• 4. Forests and Tribals, 1950–2000
• 5. Environment and Subaltern Struggle, 1990–2000
• 6. Impact of Forest Rights Act, 2006
• 7. Conclusion
• Back Matter