Shifting Ground: People, Animals, and Mobility in India’s Environmental History edited by Mahesh Rangarajan and K Sivaramakrishnan, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014; pp 418, Rs 875.
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 environment’s 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 India’s Environmental History demonstrates the limitations of these sharp divides. It brings together a host of essays that ask critical questions about India’s 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 human–animal 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 Guha’s (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 India’s 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 India’s 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 complete—ways of eking livelihoods did not exist in “pure” form.
Much of India’s 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 forest—where they were projected to remote places—changed 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 Morrison’s 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 Bose’s 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.
Man–Animal 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 Govindarajan’s 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 human–animal 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 Klingensmith’s article, “Nature and Politics at the End of the Raj: Environmental Management and Political Legitimacy in Late Colonial India, 1919–47” 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 India’s environmental pasts. Lucidly and cogently written, engaging and interesting, the volume is a valuable addition to the corpus on environmental history.
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 1–16.
Wink, Andre (1996): Al Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam, 7th–11th Centuries, New York: EJ Brill.
