The Unrelenting Epoch of Development
Two and a half billion years ago, when the Indian sub-continent was still a mass of volcanic eruptions, life slowly began to take form in what is known as the Great Oxidation Event. As microbial cells found in what is now the Deccan Plateau suggests, the Indian sub-continent started cooling and took its present form almost 65 to 55 million years ago, Rishi ventured.
Saanvi nodded. And an entire bunch of interns
looked up in awe.
On this still evolving mass of land,
miraculously placed at the intersection of diverse biogeographical zones - high
mountains, dry deserts and lush coastlands, all jostled for space as if it were
an outburst of life itself. A range of biodiversity thrived and though
virtually impossible to imagine now, the length and breadth of the country we
know as India would have invariably been a vast contiguous forest, except
perhaps in Rajasthan and parts of Punjab, maybe they are too. The earliest
records suggest that there were dense forests in India in the Permian period,
around 250 million years ago[1]
while humankind evolved only around 1 million years ago.
So, geologically our forests are older than
us, asked Heer, a graduate student from Bengaluru.
Yes, forests are old, older than our limited
minds can see. But they have always been an integral part of our culture and
society. Evidence of forest management have been found in old scriptures, sermons
and chronicles of early monarchies. Did you know that the word forest means
outside and is derived from the latin word ‘Foris’, offered Rishi in response.
Rishi was in the office of a local NGO, who
had invited him and Saanvi to talk to a cohort. He had decided to talk about
his thesis, making waves across villages in Central India.
He added, furthermore, many trees and shrubs are
regarded sacred because of their medicinal qualities as well as their proximity
to a particular deity. On the other hand, if you look at early kingdoms, they rose,
established rule of law and inevitably declined, each new ruler added to the
existing code of administrative knowledge. Invariably, forest management was
accorded a high degree of importance.
Ancient India thus saw forests in many ways -
on the one hand, there was growing cultural acknowledgement of the importance
of nature and natural areas, on the other hand, there was a continuity of
policy prescriptions on managing forest resources while on the other hand,
forests were considered to be a forbidden space and local as well as state
sponsored efforts were often underway to cut forests and replace it with benign
cultivation and space for new towns and villages.
So, there was evidence of reverence and evidence
of ruthlessness when it came to managing forests. Many groups out of fear or cultural
affinity, revered and feared forests. Religious texts as Aranyakas and
Upanishads contained several descriptions on the management of forests.
What about the Vedic era, asked someone.
Ohh, it is very interesting. There was a lot
of flux in that era, right. It is believed that during around the Ramayana, dense forests existed in
Naimisharanya, Chitrakoot, Dandakaranya and Panchwati, places that are
mentioned frequently in the epic. Observations from Chinese travelers record dense
forests in Lord Krishna’s birthplace, Mathura. Some records suggest that
impenetrable forests were observed along the Indus during Alexander’s invasion
in 327 B.C.
According to Vedic traditions, “every
village will attain wholeness only when certain types of forests are preserved
in and around its territory”[2]. The
Ishopanishad, dating back over 2,000 years says, “All in this manifested
world, consisting of moving and non-moving are protected by the Lord. Use its
resources with restraint. Do not grab the property of others – distant and yet
to come’. Significantly, one of the
first great social influencers, Gautama Buddha asked people to plant trees
atleast once in 5 years.
My dadi says that our forefathers worshipped
forests, asked Mallika.
Yes, true. Forests were revered due to their
intrinsic association with hermitages. Scores of holy seers took refuge in the
wild, spending lifetimes in the difficult environs of a forest-based lifestyle.
Several such hermitages have grown into pilgrimages or temples of today. The
hermitages served a unique purpose as not only were these sites considered sacred
due to the presence of holy men but also operated as a form of a no man’s land,
where even royal authority, royal symbols or the taxation system was not
permitted.
ord Shiva at its base. His mother said it
had been done before their time and the tree had grown around the trident. We
believed her and believe her today as well, though she laughs off these ideas.
Maybe, mothers forget the tales they tell their children when they are young.
Can you name some hermitages, asked another
student.
Many, Rammaka Ashram close to the town of Sāvatthi
(Śrāvastī) and mentioned in the Buddhist text Majjhima Nikāya
was one. Agastya-kuta or Agastyamalai which is in the present day Kalakkad
Mudunthurai Tiger Reserve and is considered the residence of Sage Agastya is
another. There are more such as Sutiksna’s hermitage, in Dandakaranya on
the bank of the river Godavari, Vasistha’s in Assam, 16 kilometres from Guwahati, Rishyashringa ashram
near modern day Sringeri, Matanga Muni ashram on the banks of river
Prachi near Cuttack, Orissa, hermitage of Rishi Vishwamitra, Kapila
Muni and Dadhichi rishi on the left banks of river Prachi, Orissa.
There are more, many more.
But what about destruction. You cannot absolve
the vedic men and women of being saints, can you, asked Heer.
Right, a deeply antagonistic relationship also
existed with forests. This large-scale destruction seems to hint at the growing
dominance of us over nature. While royal recognition was commonplace, raids on
natural areas were also documented, especially in the age of the epics. Stories
such as the large-scale hunting by Duhsanta, burning of the Khandava forest by
Arjuna around the later day city of Indraprastha in the Mahābhārata, and the
control extended by Kuru kings over the Dvaita forest point to the establishment
of claims over land, pastoral grounds or grazing lands.
Often, these large-scale incursions into
forests also indicate an extension of territorial power over forest dwelling
communities. The country was covered in vast forests during that period and any
effort towards establishment of civilization required clearing of land, for
settlement as well as agriculture. The legend of King Prithu milking the earth
(Prithvi) in the form of a cow[3]
perhaps points to the start of agriculture in India. Prithu is also credited
with the feat of clearing forests and establishing townships. Besides,
domestication of wild animals for warfare and farming were also considered
important landmarks towards and establishment of a settled civilization.
But credit is still due to those ancient
books. Vedic texts refer to preservation of Mahavan, Shrivan, and Tapovan
forests around a village. Mahavan, ‘the great natural forest’, adjoins the
village and provides a place where all species can coexist. Shrivan, ‘forest of
prosperity’, is established after clearing of an original forest, in order to ensure
economic resources and ecological security. Shrivan could be in the form of
monospecific stands (plantations) or species mixtures (agroforests). Tapovan,
‘forest of religion’ is the home of sages and set aside for the practice of
religion. No animal or tree could be harmed in these natural and untended forests.
Which kings did better than the rest, would
you know, asked Saanvi,
Since the earliest time, many kings took the
initiative to protect forests and imposed penalties. Around 300 BC[4]
with the establishment of the Mauryan Empire, domestication of elephants was
prioritised for warfare. Rulers such as Ashoka left lasting influences on the
code of environmental management and is rightfully celebrated as one of the
first environment crusaders of all times. Protecting sacred forests (chaityas)
was a practice around the 5th century B.C. In Vaishali, the Buddhist places of
worship came up in three mahavanas (great forests) named Gotamak
chaitya, Chapala chaitya and Ananda chaitya
So, it was Ashoka who instilled the ethos of
forest protection, asked another student.
No, even earlier, we have records from
Chandragupta’s time. Chandra Gupta Maurya is said to have appointed a high
officer to look after forests and provided for protection of animals.
Kautilya’s Arthashastra classifies forests and
stresses the importance of protecting certain types of forests. He prescribed
changes in landuse from jungle to agricultural fields and orchards. In the
transformation of natural to 'cultivated' wilderness people could maintain
optimal density of plantations, depending on the carrying capacity of the land,
he explains. Perhaps this foresight explains why forests and wilderness in
India remained intact for centuries despite wars, urbanisation and the spread of
agriculture and commerce.
What about the later Guptas, another hand
rose.
In the Gupta period (300-600 AD),
Kalidasa's Shakuntalam mentions that taking care of forests was apparently
considered a virtue for the nobility, though hunting was permitted.
And what about the medieval era, asked
Saanvi again, clearly her interest was piqued.
The Early Medieval period (6th to
13th century) saw royal claims over the forest increase, especially
as kings started to donate forest land to various religious beneficiaries who
were also granted tax exemptions[5].
During the rule of Ghiyasuddin Khilji around 1320, the process of clearing
jungles started "at a serious pace" around Delhi for reasons of
security. These forests were replaced with orchards.
While the Mughal period (1526-1720) witnessed
stability of the society that depended on settled villages and revenue-yielding
land[6],
chronicles of Mughal expeditions do note forays through thick jungles. The
Akbarnama narrates that Shahbaz Khan, one of Akbar's generals, had to spend
"nearly two months engaged in cutting down trees" before
capturing a rebel fort in Bihar. However, the Mughals struck a balance between
deforestation for strategic reasons and protection of the green wilderness.
They protected forest for their own sake, and built orchards in, and around
their cities. Emperor Jahangir introduced the famous Chinar tree in Kashmir
valley.
So, you mean to say that by the time, the British took over, India’s forests were still uniquely
wild landscapes populated by wild animals yet conspicuously an essential part
of daily life of the people.
Yes, I cannot say with certainty. History is
as deceptive as a cunning man. But it does appear that though we were steadily
going downhill, still there was an abundance of protected as well as completely
wild forests.
And then, came the British, another student
asked.
Rishi paused. Why do you care for history. He
pointed to one rather serious child and asked, what is your major.
Biology, she answered. Geography, Biology,
Economics, Mathematics, Physics, Biology. A few hands went up for Humanities.
This is interesting. One history student in a
group of 12 and you ask questions of history with such curiosity.
But answered a shy boy with wild unkempt hair.
But we never really learn these things in our regular sessions. This is not
history, but part a hint at understanding why we are being asked to save the
world. Before we save others, we must know what happened that brought us here.
And you talk to us, not at us.
Rishi shrugged. Students these days, he
remembers his professor, exasperated at his many questions. You think you know
all. Wait till you grow up. You will know that you know nothing. He smiled,
thinking for a moment, how ancient will he look in front of this vibrant bunch
if commented something in the lines of ‘Students these days.’
You never answered what happened as the
British came. We know they plundered and build houses, they made railways and
they slept most of the time. But, what did they do to the forest, asked
someone.
Well, colonial England went crazy. They saw this
rich country, rich in resources and cared two hoots about the intrinsic value
of these socio-cultural biomes. Everything was economic. They replaced customary
norms, brought in a centralized top-down regime and alienated millions of
forest dwellers. A nation whose forests were famously protected by kings like
Ashoka ended up being managed by a British power, joking around as they
practiced an ‘Era of Scientific Forestry in India’.
But why this single-minded focus of the
British in craving for our relatively healthy forests. What happened to their
forests back in the small island they called home, asked Saanvi.
Well, they cut most of it and by the sixteenth
century, much of Western Europe had been deforested, and Northern Europe was
supplying Britain with large quantities of wood. Between 1600 and 1700,
Ireland's forests were devastated to meet England's needs of timber for
shipbuilding, iron smelting, and tanning[7].
There is a quote by someone called Oliver Rackham in the ‘History of the Countryside’, where he says,
‘to convert millions of acres of wildwood into farmland was unquestionably the greatest
achievement of any of our ancestors[8]’.
Saanvi got up and stretched her numb limbs. ‘Well, that has been
interesting. But can we break for a while.’ Her NGO friends came rushing in, as
if we were royalty. Cups of hot tea was passed around, samosa too, the
students, still barely out of their teenage hunger days gouged on the offering.
Rishi could not help thinking, Habits don’t change. We served them then, we
serve our rich now. We fall over ourselves when offered a chance to serve. But,
perhaps it is the Indian way of treating guests. Maybe, we treated the British
as guests for too long, long enough for us forget that they were no longer
guests but rulers. But then, we serve kings better than we serve guests. So
here we are, a hundred years after our last invaders left and we are still
fawning over new age rulers. The Indian way’.
A few students came up to Rishi, questions in their mind. He knew
the feeling, young minds laden with fire, curious to know things, easy to
mislead. The biggest crime ever committed by our selfish race is to lull a
young mind into acquiescence. He would never let that happen, as they say, ‘Not
in his watch’.
What happened then, asked this group of
wild-eyed graduates.
What happened. Rishi paused. So many things.
Where does he start. The alienation of adivasis or the collaboration of native
rulers in tearing up this country.
He stumbled, searching for the right words. ‘Managing
a country of this size centrally meant dismantling a complex social and
institutional framework. Even as the British spread their tentacles, medicinal
plants and non-timber forest produce were still being collected under ancestral
domains. There were local rules for timber extraction, for fishing and for hunting.
It was not a perfect world but forests were largely intact. Local laws were
formed, discarded, amended and had been modified for hundreds of years. Indigenous
law was respected. Credit goes to the British that in a state of bewilderment,
they saw through the complexity of this nation and decided that it won’t
suffice. If they had to get rich super quick, they needed to dismantle
everything and codify laws as per their economic and political interest.
Yes, I wanted to ask of their intentions. My
father says that it was all economic, nothing personal.
Well, in my opinion, he is right. They were
neither conservationists nor environmentalists but champions of industrial
revolution and in their new found sense of power, they were drunk on their
superiority.
Initially, records suggest that they were totally
indifferent to the needs of forest conservancy - indeed, upto the middle of the
nineteenth century, the Raj saw a "fierce onslaught on India's forests[9]. It
was only when forests began to vanish, did they fear a dilution of their Royal
Navy’s influence. For the British, the “safety of the empire depended on its
wooden walls[10]”.
So, they promptly declared teak as a “Royal tree’ and introduced
measures for its protection as early as 1806[11].
Saanvi cut in. Lets not talk all business now.
We still have an hour to go. She herded the students back to the session and took
Rishi’s hand. ‘Be careful of what you say and don’t say too much,’ she said.
‘Your theories creates anger and anger leads to thoughts. Let’s not get these
students too excited.’
Rishi smiled. How the tables have turned. A
year apart and Saanvi turn moderate. A year apart, he seems to be finally
seeing the truth. He smiled again. Saanvi saw the twinkle in his eyes and
smiled back. She held him as they stepped into this room of bubbling energy and
unabashed frankness.
‘So, Rishi will speak for another hour as he
documents the fears and hope that Indian forests await in the coming decades.
As I said earlier, his talk is a part of his PhD effort, seven years spent in
libraries and in forests as he proposes an alternative path of forest
management in India.’ But don’t trust everything he says. Conduct your own
enquiry too.
Rishi smiled. Since his return from the hills,
he had been behaving strangely. For one, he smiled a lot. Silent beatific
smiles. No ruffling, no curiosity, no talk. Something has snapped inside,
Saanvi thought.
What happened then, when the British got
scared, asked a staff member, cleaning up the packets of Marie biscuit.
Well, whenever they got scared or worried, the
British responded with science and reason, Rishi replied. Nandan, a Gond whose
forefathers would have lived through the British debauchery shrugged, ‘I did
not understand’.
Uncontrolled cutting of Sal forests, deodars
in the higher Himalayas and teak across most of its natural range prompted the
British to introduce tree protection measures. In 1874, in an address to the
Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society, Hugh Cleghorn, the first Inspector
General of Forests[12]
in India, told his audience that “the government in India began to be
seriously embarrassed by the scarcity of timber; its attention was directed to
the management of the indigenous forests[13]”
‘So you see Nandan, they decided to get around
this self-created problem by inventing a bureaucracy, in this case a forest
bureaucracy. And the bureaucracy in its wisdom, set about managing the forests
‘scientifically’ and then, our forests truly flourished.’
Rishi was being sarcastic but neither Nandan
nor the attentive students got the drift.
Saanvi stepped in, ‘It was complicated. On the
one hand, they were worried about depleting forest and introduced unprecedented
restrictions, on the other hand they unleased one of the most elaborate plans
to harvest timber using the science Rishi spoke about’.
‘Yes, did you notice the first change in
terminology. Trees were no longer called trees but timber. Value, money,
economics, profit, nationhood took precedence. To hell with the natives’, Rishi
commented.
What then, Cleghorn came in and others too,
what happened then, asked the only person studying history at the moment.
What happened. With their
own kitchen depleted, the British set about raiding our heritage. That is
precisely what happened. You know what is ironical. The
British did not even have their own forestry service as late as 1850[14].
Forestry was largely managed through the aristocracy, often on large private
estates and it was towards France and Germany that they looked upto so that
they could train a fledgling cadre of forestry professionals. Not only was the
first inspector General of India Dietrich Brandis a product of the German
school of forestry, but influential successors such as William Schlich
(considered to be the founder of forest science in Great Britain) and Berthold
Ribbentrop were all German. These three Germans went on to head India’s
forestry department from 1864 to 1881 to 1885.
Germans, our first forest managers, that is
interesting, commented a voice.
Yes, In 1864, Dietrich Brandis was appointed
as the first Inspector General of Forests in India. He was told to initiate
scientific forest management in all provinces under the British Rule in India.
A botanist from Bonn University, Germany, he helped set up the Indian Forest
Service and roamed the length and breadth of this vast nation. His first years
was a whirlwind of activity with surveys and travels. But something about
Brandis continues to intrigue me, as inspite of such a hectic schedule, he
still found time to work on his book, Indian Trees.
What happened then, did the fellings stop,
asked another student.
Rishi nodded, No. On the contrary, the years
1865-75 saw enormous felling of trees. To compensate, large-scale plantations were
propagated to meet the commercial needs of the British. One of the first
plantations was the oddly named Changa- Manga plantation near Lahore in 1868
and soon plantations came up over the entire subcontinent, especially Teak in
Burma, Eucalyptus and Casuarina in Madras and Dalbergia sissu in Punjab.
Nandan chipped in, I have heard that
plantation crops were also introduced at the same time as forest plantations,
changing much of India in a matter of years.
True, apples, rubber, tea, coffee, eucalyptus,
acacia, wattle and so much more. They made sure that unlike the other invaders
who loot and leave, their legacy would survive through ages. Someone in the
British political system was obsessed with leaving his or her name wherever
they go. And India, even now is partly British in many ways. But that is
another story, for another time.
The British were also obsessed with record
keeping and bringing order to everything they touched. To prepare topographical
records, the Forest survey branch was constituted in 1873 mapping more than one
and a half lakh sq.km. of forest land. Various training schools opened.
Scientific journals were promoted with the Indian Forester published as early
as 1875.
Did they not bring order, the British, asked
Heer. Some technical tools like mapping and record keeping were valuable traits
to learn.
Earlier, I would have said yes and no to your
question but presently, but I am not so sure now. Yes, they brought a lot of
modern thinking, but if we were a closed nation till the 1950’s and way back in
economic indices, would it have mattered. Wouldn’t India like the rest of the
world, like countries which were never conquered anyways may have joined the
global story of growth post 1950. And in the process, learnt how to do things.
Ok, we may not be world leaders in English language, but much of the land wouldn’t
have degraded.
But the railways wouldn’t have been built, Saanvi
jumped in.
The demand for the fledgling Railways
contributed to the exploitation. Was it really the one true gift by the British
to Indians. If you ask me, it is estimated that between 1860 and 1910, railway
tracks increased from 1349 Kms to 51,658 Kms. It was calculated that every year
one million sleepers were needed and was cut in the
Punjab hills and the figure increases. That is a lot of trees!!! A lot
of Sal was also lost as the emptying of Jungle Mahals of West Bengal and Bihar
suggest. When Sal was overharvested, deodar was drained. The sub-Himalayan
forests of Garhwal and Kumaon, for example, were all "felled in even to
desolation".
And was Scientific
forestry so bad
Well, the much-hyped ‘Scientific Forestry’ was
an import of the continental European thought process and
had a significant German influence with some elements of French forestry
management. The aim was to maximise yield and profit. This entailed an
overwhelming dependence upon on quantification of data, organisation of various
tree size categories and measuring growth and loss rates, which provided
information on predicting sustained yield[15]. While
this appeared to be methodological on paper, practices successful in
continental Europe with temperate weather were transferred to tropical forests.
It took time and learning before foresters could modify their methods in order
to adjust to the Indian Monsoon and diverse geographies. While the foresters
adapted their techniques, soon it was realised that favouring “the valuable
commercial species and eliminating the less valuable and those interfering with
the growth of the former[16]”
would henceforth become a defining characteristic of Indian Scientific forestry[17].
The European experts learnt the hard way that Indian forests are largely mixed
in nature unlike the temperate forests where single species dominate the
landscape. Ultimately, scientific forestry in India focused almost exclusively
on promoting economically viable fast growing species while neglecting environmental
and ecological considerations leading to long lasting ecological degradation of
forest ecosystems.
So, where were we at the time of independence,
asked someone.
By 1947, most forest areas had already been
recognized and documented. A world-famous Forest Research Institute was set up
in Dehra Dun in 1906. Some were protected, some were managed by communities, in
several forest’s communities had become alienated, sometimes wildlife took
precedence, often economic compulsions. But mostly, the plight of the forests increased
because of unprecedented felling of trees had reached alarming levels. The
demands of the first and then the second war led to a resource crunch and by
the time, the British finally left, our forests were rather depleted.
So, tell us what happened to the others, to
the adivasis. How did it impact our daily lives.
The current roots of adivasi alienation has
its roots in British policies. Scientific forestry where indigenous people had
their ancestral domains. So, around mid-1800s, forests became commercial
resources and the adivasis as well as wildlife non-consequential. A friend who
belongs to the Ho community once said and I quote him, ‘First, they told us to
settle elsewhere, then asked us to stop jhum. Soon, they damned our rivers. We
could not graze nor access our gods. Finally, they marked boundaries and separated
our clans and our domains. Depending on their mood, they would ask us to stop
harvesting, our amla and honey was not ours. One day, they told us that we
can’t enter our forests, nor fish from our rivers. They would laugh and call us
thieves, encroachers, poachers. What was our fault of someone else cut our trees
and told us to leave the forests of our forefathers”
A student raised her hand, Sorry, but I still
don’t get how they did it, how did they alienate so many people’.
Saanvi nodded. Let me answer it in a different way. It is for certain that our worlds have been upturned by climate change. We are only worried now as the message has hit us home. The truth remains that if it were not for our sense of well being, we would have pushed the discussion on climate change under the carpet as we did for the greatest crime in human history – unrestricted land conversion and that is where alienation comes in.
Some people took over ancestral lands and broke the concept of commons. Some people were pushed to the margins of their homes without caring for the fact that us humans care most when we care for our homes.
And now, without homes, we just unleashed a triple whammy - no real custodian of our forests, destitute nature of evictees and a loss of the idea of the commons. That is what we did to ourselves, these past decades.
[1] https://www.biologydiscussion.com/essay/forests/essay-on-forests-in-india-ecology/57704
[2] Prime R. 2002. Vedic Ecology: Practical Wisdom for Surviving the
21st Century. Mandala Publishing Group, Novato, California, USA. 157 pp.
[3] Shrimad-Bhaagvat Jee, Skandh 4: Chapters 17–18
[4] http://edugreen.teri.res.in/explore/forestry/history.htm
[5] https://www.medievalworlds.net/0xc1aa5576%200x00372f19.pdf
[6] David Arnold and Ramachandra Guha in Nature, Culture, Imperialism.
[7] Forestry in British and Post-British India, A Historical
Analysis Ramachandra Guha
[8] https://aeon.co/essays/who-chopped-down-britains-ancient-forests
[10] Madhav Gadgil and V.D. Vartak, Sacred Groves in Maharashtra: An
Inventory, in S.K. Jain (ed), Glimpses of Indian Ethnobo-tany, Oxford
University Press, Bombay, 1981.
[11] http://www.fao.org/3/x5348e/x5348e04.htm
[12] Cleghorn shared the post of
Inspector General of Forests in India with Dietrich Brandis.
[13] Hugh Cleghorn, ‘Address Delivered at the Twenty-first Annual
Meeting’, Transactions of the Royal Scottish Forestry Society, 7 (1875), 206.
[14] https://www.eh-resources.org/colonial-origins-scientific-forestry/
[15] Orazio Ciancio and Susanna Nocentini, ‘The Forest and Man: The
Evolution of Forestry Thought From Modern Humanism to the Culture of Complexity.
Systemic Silviculture and Management on Natural Bases’, in: Orazio Ciancio
(ed.), The Forest and Man (Florence: Accademia Italiana di Scienze Forestali,
1997), 42-43
[16] Stebbing, The Forests of India, vol. 2, 578.
[17] https://www.eh-resources.org/colonial-origins-scientific-forestry/
