Environment and Ethnicity in India, 1200–1991

by Sumit Guha

• ISBN13: 9780521028707
• ISBN10: 0521028701
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-11-02
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Drawing on a rich collection of sources, Sumit Guha's book reconstructs the history of the forest communities in western India to explore questions of tribal identity and the environment. In so doing, he demonstrates how the ideology of indigenous cultures, developed out of the notion of a pure and untouched ethnicity, is in fact rooted in nineteenth-century racial and colonial anthropology. As a challenge to this view, the author traces the processes by which the apparently immutable identities of South Asian populations took shape, and how these populations interacted politically, economically and socially with civilizations outside their immediate vicinity. While such theories have been discussed by scholars of South-East Asia and Africa, this study examines the South Asian case. Sumit Guha's penetrating and controversial critique will make a significant contribution to that literature.

Table of Contents

'Rama, Sita and Lukshmana in the forest'
List of maps	x
List of tables	x
Acknowledgements	xi
Glossary	xiv
List of abbreviations	xv
Introduction	1	(9)
1 From the archaeology of mind to the archaeology of matter	10	(20)
Static societies, changeless races	10	(1)
Geology, biology and society in the nineteenth century	11	(4)
Indigenous prejudice and colonial knowledge	15	(6)
Social segments or living fossils?	21	(1)
A historical questioning of the archaeological record	22	(8)
2 Subsistence and predation at the margins of cultivation	30	(32)
Introduction	30	(1)
Nature, culture and landscape in Peninsular India	30	(10)
Opportunities and communities	40	(3)
The political economy of community interaction	43	(3)
Forest wanderers, graziers and traders	46	(3)
Ecological war — clearing the forest	49	(3)
Subordinate communities and dominant communities	52	(3)
'Beda, Berad, Bedar, Mushtigir': allegiances, professions, identities	55	(7)
3 State formation in the highland forests 1350-1800	62	(21)
Introduction: strategic location and regional power	62	(2)
Infirm glory: the Baglan Rajas from independent chiefs to impotent pensioners	64	(6)
Local conflicts and wider alliances	70	(4)
The Koli kingdoms between Marathas and Mughals	74	(6)
Forest states — strategies and dangers	80	(3)
4 The peoples of the Sahyadri under Marathas and British	83	(25)
Introduction	83	(2)
From Mavle to Rajput to Koli: politics and identity in the Sahyadri Ranges	85	(3)
Struggles for dominance: Clearance, acculturation and settlement in the Sahyadri	88	(8)
The transition to colonial rule	96	(3)
Umaji Raje Mukkam Dongar	99	(3)
Political competition to social banditry	102	(3)
Subordinate communities of the Sahyadri	105	(3)
5 The central Indian forest from Mughal suzerainty to British control	108	(22)
Part I Bhilwada	108	(14)
Introduction	108	(1)
The Bhils at the entry of Maratha power	109	(3)
Unstable regimes of accommodation and conflict	112	(4)
War and politics in time of crisis – the 1803 famine and after	116	(5)
Conclusion to Part I	121	(1)
Part II Gondwana	122	(8)
Introduction – The rise of the Gond kingdoms	122	(3)
Refounding the agrarian order	125	(1)
Gondwana in the time of troubles	126	(3)
General conclusion	129	(1)
6 The central Indian forest under early British rule	130	(20)
Introduction	130	(1)
Early strategies of the colonial government	130	(3)
Amalgamating the segments: politics and state-formation	133	(3)
Shaping a new environment	136	(2)
The expulsion of the mercenaries and the disarticulation of the forest polities	138	(4)
Vestigial authority – the Dangs 1850-1991	142	(3)
The Akhrani plateau: from regional fulcrum to sylvan backwater 1750-1970	145	(5)
7 Identities and aspiration – not noble savage but savage noble	150	(14)
Introduction	150	(1)
Microprocesses of self-promotion	151	(2)
Political lordship and agrarian settlement	153	(2)
Aspirations and identities in Gondwana	155	(6)
From Kings of the Forest to Lords of the Land	161	(2)
Conclusions	163	(1)
8 The high colonial period and after – new patterns of authority and power	164	(18)
Introduction	164	(1)
Conservation and conservatism from imperial to independent India	164	(5)
The new Kings of the Forest	169	(3)
Agrarianisation, sedentarisation and bondage	172	(10)
9 From sanctuaries to safeguards: policies and politics in twentieth-century India	182	(17)
Protective custody for infant races	182	(3)
'Uplift' and sedentarisation	185	(2)
A balance-sheet: land gain and land loss in tribal Maharashtra	187	(7)
Economic structures, electoral politics and tribal communities	194	(4)
Conclusions	198	(1)
Conclusion	199	(3)
Afterword	202	(2)
Bibliography	204	(12)
Index	216