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Agrarian Environments
Resources, Representations, and Rule in India
By Arun Agrawal, K. Sivaramakrishnan Duke University Press
Copyright © 2000 Duke University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8223-9606-2
CHAPTER 1
Haripriya Rangan
State Economic Policies and Changing Regional Landscapes in the Uttarakhand Himalaya, 1818-1947
Narratives of environmental change in the Uttarakhand Himalaya generally fall into a declensionist genre, invoking images of a pristine and isolated region located in the eternal past until the advent of colonialism and capitalist development marked the beginning of relendess ecological degradation (see, for example, Bahuguna 1982; Berreman 1989; Bhatt 1987; Dogra 1983; Gadgil and Guha 1993; Ramachandra Guha 1989b; Shiva and Bandyopadhyay 1986a, 1986b; Weber 1988). The dramatic power of these narratives is enhanced by attributing a particularly malevolent role to the colonial state. The colonial state is caricatured as overwhelmingly powerful, autonomous from and thriving on antagonistic relations with civil society, and single-minded in its predatory pursuits that inevitably cause ecological degradation and impoverishment of Himalayan communities (exceptions to this view are R. Tucker 1983,1991; J. Richards 1987; Chetan Singh 1991). The colonial state plays the role of villain in the relentless Manichaean struggle of environmental change. It is the destroyer of pre-colonial harmony, the promoter of modernity against hallowed tradition, the harbinger of Western patriarchal modes of capital accumulation that undermine "Oriental" feminine principles of nature, the diabolical agent of capitalism that transforms ecological Utopias into lifeless terrains. The environmentalist Vandana Shiva, for instance, uses this imagery to eulogize the passing of simple and self-sufficient peasant lifeways organized around the "feminine principle of nature" as they encountered "western patriarchy," and "maldevelopment" promoted by the colonial and postcolonial state (Shiva and Bandyopadhyay 1986a, 1986b; Shiva 1989a, 1991; Shiva and Mies 1993). Social historian Ramachandra Guha employs parallel tropes in his description of peasant resistance in the Indian Himalaya, where, according to him, local communities routinely rose up to defend their "moral economy" based on "ancient community solidarities and sets of values" against the depredations of colonialism, capitalism, and "scientific forestry" (Gadgil and Guha 1993; Ramachandra Guha 1989b, 21, 48-63).
Stylized representations of the colonial state are key in transforming narratives of environmental change into powerful and compelling myths. Such assumptions regarding the nature of the colonial state—that it is a monolithic entity and single-minded in its predation of civil society—logically lead to two conclusions: first, that colonial rule was based on a remarkably coherent and tightly orchestrated set of policies that remained unaltered by the forces of necessity or contingency; second, that colonial administrators were endowed with extraordinary capabilities that would normally fall within the realm of demonic power or divine omnipotence. Both implications are historically inaccurate and frankly implausible. However much they may appeal to nationalist sentiments, such representations of colonial rule are extremely unhelpful for understanding the processes of ecological change in regions. They inhibit the possibility of understanding the history of institutional actions, changes in global and regional economies, and social practices that have, over time, reworked the differentiated social and ecological landscape of the Indian Himalaya.
This chapter has two aims: first, to set out an alternative analytical framework that focuses on processes of governance rather than on the presumed inherent and immutable character of precolonial or colonial states; second, to provide an account of ecological change in the Uttarakhand Himalaya between 1818 and 1947, a period spanning both pre-British and British control. To meet these aims I analyze: (1) the political and economic processes at the global and regional levels that created pressures for state intervention, (2) competing demands that shaped the forms of state intervention, and (3) conflicts, disputes, and negotiations that redefined the exercise of control and governance by state institutions. The chapter shows that ecological transformations in Uttarakhand during British rule reveal a complex landscape repeatedly inscribed and incompletely erased by social actions emerging from the interplay of these three processes.
STATES AND GOVERNANCE
What the state is, at any point in time, is shaped by what it does; the institutional form and functions of state are, in this sense, mutually constitutive. As Peter Evans points out, Weber's definition of states as "compulsory associations claiming control over territories and the people within them" does not reduce the complexities of analyzing what states do (Evans 1995, 5-6). Weber's definition hinges on "claiming control," and thus on the functions and processes by which states direct social action within their territories. These functions and processes, in turn, produce forms of rule and governance that are both differentiated and reflective of die constantly changing relations between administrative institutions and other institutional practices (for example, in markets and everyday life) within particular territorial boundaries.
Over the past two centuries, states, colonial or otherwise, have not only performed their conventional roles of war making and maintaining internal order but also attempted, in varying degrees, both to foster economic growth and to ensure a modicum of social welfare within their territories. Their modes of government, which Foucault calls "governmentality," have been shaped by how these aims could be achieved, alongside more conventional functions, through their citizens and subjects (1991, 87-104). Foucault describes the actual practices of governance of the modern (nation) state-in-the-making as the "daemonic coupling" of the "city game" and "shepherd game." This refers to the making of a form of secular political pastorate that couples the "individualization" of citizenship (uniformity in treatment of individuals by law) with "totalization" of subjects (caring for each member of the territorial community, or "flock"; see Gordon 1991,8).
Viewed from this perspective, therefore, the processes of governance by states have, with varying degrees of skill and success, involved activities that include not only lawmaking and law enforcement but also the making of distinctive territorial communities through interventions aimed at strengthening the material welfare of die citizen-pastorate. One could argue that interlinkages between world economies—which were forged in varying ways for more man nine centuries—and continuing processes of integration into a global economy were shaped by the involvement of city-and nation-states that have engaged in economic transformation within their territories (Abu-Lughod 1989; Arrighi 1994; Braudel 1977, 1982, 1984; Ghosh 1995; Polanyi 1944). What this implies is that the processes of governance by states were, at any moment in history, not only influenced by social groups within their territorial jurisdictions but also shaped by changing relations with, and conditions of, these world or global economies. The aspirations, strategies, and projects developed by states in response to constraints and conditions prevailing in particular periods—which I shall call dominant policy phases—were, often radically altered when they confronted new situations or problems emerging from these interactions, and also from the unforeseeable outcomes of earlier policies (see Foucault 1991; Gordon 1991). Indeed, more often than not, many ambitious policies and well-intentioned projects promoted by states within their territories were undermined by contingent outcomes of failures and even successes in other areas of policy intervention.
It is necessary, therefore, to recognize two facts about states, past or present: first, despite the analytically convenient distinctions made between state, market, and civil society, states have never been completely autonomous from the structures of everyday life, nor have they been mere adjuncts to market processes; second, their policies and modes of governance, or "governmentality," have been constantly shaped by conditions and processes both within and beyond their territorial control. Both factors (i.e., being enmeshed in social institutions within territorial boundaries, and being interlinked with economic processes beyond their territorial control) have constantly shaped the modes of governance pursued by states in complex and contradictory ways.
The evolution of British rule and its governance in different regions of India needs to be analyzed from this perspective. Clearly there is little evidence to support the a priori assumption that from its moment of entry into the Indian subcontinent, the motives of the British East India Company were to establish a gigantic centralized state administrative structure aimed at complete exploitation and subjugation of its native subjects. Even though the East India Company was established in 1600 to serve the interests of both English merchants and the British state, it did not continue to share the same purpose or interests throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As the Company's role expanded to assume greater economic power and territorial control over the Indian subcontinent, its institutional policies often clashed with the interests of the Home Government and with the dominant interests of the newly emerging bourgeoisie in Britain.
On the other hand, the Company's role in commerce and governance also benefited some social groups and regions over others within the subcontinent. Throughout these two centuries, the Company was constantly contesting and evading attempts by the British Parliament to limit its powers at home and abroad. The Company challenged its critics at home, dealt with its European competitors in India, altered its motivations and strategies as new economic opportunities appeared on the horizon, and forged new institutional roles, linkages, and relations between different rulers, social groups, and regions in the subcontinent. For more than a hundred years beginning in 1757, the British East India Company scrambled through these opportunities, conjunctures, and constraints and in the process mutated from a commercial institution into a powerful Anglo-Indian monarch ruling over much of the Indian subcontinent. Direct control of India by the British Crown—that is, colonial rule—was achieved only in 1858, after years of protracted struggle between the British Parliament and the East India Company.
Historical analysis of agrarian and environmental transformations in the Uttarakhand Himalaya (or, for that matter, any other region in India) must explore the policies and strategies adopted by successive rulers—pre-British, the East India Company, semiautonomous rajas, the Anglo-Indian colonial government, the British-Imperial administration—as they attempted to maintain competitive advantage in the global and regional economies and contend with changing political relations within their territorial jurisdictions. The following sections focus on the period between 1800 and 1947 for eliciting the broad patterns of state control and policy making that shaped the ecological landscape of Uttarakhand before India's independence from British domination.
THE REGIONAL ECONOMY AND LANDSCAPE BEFORE l800: THE PRINCIPLE OF TERRITORIAL ADVANTAGE
Uttarakhand comprises eight districts located to the northwest of the state of Uttar Pradesh. The region lies entirely within the Himalaya, sharing borders with Tibet to the north, and Nepal to the east. As part of the northern frontier of the Indian subcontinent, the territory has long been viewed as being endowed with immense geopolitical importance. For at least two hundred years before the region came under British rule, petty chieftains and kings in the region warred against each other to expand their control over the stretch of Himalayan territory that linked the Indian subcontinent with Tibet and Central Asia. The British East India Company was motivated by a similar intent when it gained control over the Garhwal and Kumaon Himalaya in 1815. Even at a later stage of colonial rule in India, the need to control the Himalayan regions bordering Central Asia and Tibet remained paramount for British administrators. Lord Curzon pronounced the Himalayan frontiers "indeed the razor's edge on which hang suspended the modern issues of war or peace, or life or death to nations.... The holders of mountains," he opined, had an "immense advantage against the occupants of the plains" (Woodman 1969, 7; also see Keay 1983). Himalayan territories were geographically strategic for rulers who attempted to control the mountain passes in the inner Himalaya so as to profit from the Trade that moved between the Indo-Gangetic Plains and Central Asia. The dominant principle of states in the region was to gain exclusive control over as many mountain passes and trans-Himalayan trade routes as lay within the region. Trans Himalayan trade was the propulsive sector that sustained the regional economy, and agriculture and natural resource extraction remained important subsidiaries. The fortunes of agriculture and natural resource extraction were closely linked to that of transit trade; they prospered with growing trade and dwindled when it declined.
Sustaining a regional economy that primarily depended on transit trade was a delicate and challenging task for rulers of Garhwal and Kumaon, the two largest kingdoms in the western Himalaya. They faced constant threats of political instability from ambitious military administrators, war, and competition for transit trade from neighboring hill kingdoms. Their problems lay in the fact that, on the one hand, land revenues could not be assessed at higher rates for fear of desertion by cultivators to other areas where taxation was less burdensome; were this to happen, troops could not be maintained on dwindling revenues from land. On the other hand, any increase in transit duties and customs levied on trade would have a similar effect on traders, who would seek alternative passes through neighboring kingdoms where taxation was more lenient. The rulers of Garhwal, for instance, attempted to solve this problem by placing fertile areas and segments of trade routes under the authority offaujdars (military administrators), who collected revenues from villages to maintain armies that could be quickly mobilized in times of need. According to the revenue records examined by the British settlement officer in 1815, Garhwal's rulers generally drew about 70 percent of their revenues from the trade between Tibet and the Indo-Gangetic plains (Traill 1828; Atkinson 1882a, 289-91; Turner 1800); only 30 percent of the total revenue was drawn from agriculture and went mainly toward supporting the king's armies (Atkinson 1882a; Rawat 1989; Saklani 1986; Walton 1910).
By the late eighteenth century, constant warring against invaders from the plains and between the two kingdoms led to a steady decline of both cultivators and traders in the region. When the Gurkha rulers of Nepal embarked on their ambitious attempt to consolidate their control over the entire stretch of the Himalaya, the Garhwali army had dwindled to no more than five thousand infantrymen, who were swiftly dispatched in battle (Rawat 1989; Saklani 1986). When the Gurkhas conquered Kumaon and entered Garhwal, the regional economy had already been weakened by the loss of trade.
THE REGIONAL ECONOMY UNDER NEPALESE RULE, 1804-1815
The Gurkha rulers of Nepal controlled Garhwal and Kumaon between 1804 and 1815, when they were defeated in battle by a military alliance involving the British East India Company and the king of Garhwal. The Gurkhas' ambition to control the entire stretch of the Himalaya had exacted a heavy toll on the Nepalese treasury. Thus the Gurkha rulers were essentially concerned with deriving as much revenue as possible within a short period, even if it meant stripping the region of every asset that could be extracted. In their attempt to recover the expenses of war, Gurkha administrators imposed heavy taxes on both trade and agriculture (Atkinson 1882a, 283-84; Walton 1910, 89), which further resulted in large-scale desertion of cultivators and dwindling of trade in the region. Households that could not meet their annual payments of produce or cash were sold as slaves and bonded servants, and it is estimated that nearly 200,000 people were sold at markets in the plains to meet the revenues demanded by the Nepalese rulers (Atkinson 1882a, 252-53; Walton 1910,126-27). Entire villages were abandoned by communities; agricultural lands were reclaimed by jungle and wild animals.
The regional landscape of the Uttarakhand Himalaya mirrored the fortunes of rulers whose actions were shaped by the dominant principle of controlling trans-Himalayan trade. When transit trade flourished, fertile valleys and slopes near trade routes saw expansion of cultivation of rice, wheat, barley, buckwheat, and commercial crops such as amaranth, ginger, and turmeric. European travelers through the region commented on the deforestation along trade routes because of the growing volume of timber trade with the plains, and overgrazing by packhorses and goats (Chetan Singh 1991; Rangan 1995). When trade declined because of war, villages were often abandoned, and jungle reclaimed areas that had previously been cultivated. The policies and actions of precolonial rulers in the region displayed no uniquely benevolent sensibilities—at least none that have been recorded—toward preserving the Himalayan environment or managing its natural resources.
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Excerpted from Agrarian Environments by Arun Agrawal, K. Sivaramakrishnan. Copyright © 2000 Duke University Press. Excerpted by permission of Duke University Press.
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