Ecological Crisis in Central Himalayas: From
Colonial to Post-Colonial Times
Miss Anita
PhD Research Scholar
Department of English,
D.S.B. Campus,
Kumaun University
Nainital, Uttarakhand,
India
Abstract:
The last few decades have witnessed the rapid
deterioration of the Himalayan ecosystem. Natural catastrophes in the form of
floods and soil erosions have had a great impact not only on the hills but also
on the entire globe. In the Kumaun Himalayas, ecological degradation began
after the colonial invasion and continued after independence. The indigenous
practices of conservation of the natural sources that were prevalent in the
hills gradually diminished due to implementation of several British government
policies leading to exploitation and the same continued due to urbanization and
development projects after independence too had adverse effects on the ecology
of the hills. Environmental degradation is one of the major concerns of the
time and has been addressed in literature by a number of writers throughout the
world. The poems of Girish Chandra Tiwari, an indigenous poet of Kumaun, are a
reaction against the ecological crisis in the hills, and the novels of Namita
Gokhale, a writer hailing from Kumaun, also depict colonial ecological
exploitation in the Kumaun region. The paper studies the ecological crisis in
the Kumaun Himalayas and the deteriorating indigenous traditional system of
conservation of natural resources that started in the colonial period and
continued post-independence and its representation in literature.
Keywords: Ecological, Environmental
Degradation, Colonial, Himalaya, Natural, Post-colonial
Introduction:
The Himalayan mountains are believed to be
the abode of gods. The practice of protecting nature comes to the people
naturally because of their abiding faith in the gods and their strong belief
that divine power is present in every element of nature. The Himalayan
mountains have been inhabited by communities that are chiefly dependent on
natural resources, i.e., forests and rivers, for their basic needs. The
livelihood of the hill folk is mainly based on agriculture and herd keeping.
The indigenous community of the Himalayan mountains has a diverse culture that
includes various traditional practices and values of environmental
sustainability and conservation. The high-rise mountains are considered the
abode of several local deities, and these places are sacred to the people. They
could not dare exploit the natural resources nearby, like land, trees, plants,
and springs. The people also depended on the forest for medicinal plants, as
many of the herbs found there have healing properties and can be used to cure
various diseases.
There was community-based resource management
prevalent in Kumaun. For generations, the hill people of the Kumaun region of
the Himalayas have been using traditional knowledge and several cultural
practices for the management and conservation of natural resources. The
forests, groves, and grasslands were protected by the indigenous people, as
their traditional beliefs and rituals consisted of the practice of revering
various elements of nature as deities. Several water bodies, like guls, naulas,
and dharas, that provided water for everyday use for the locals were
worshipped on special occasions like weddings and other traditional ceremonies.
Hence, these water bodies were kept clean and pure. There was a shared
consciousness of conserving their surrounding environment among the hill folk.
The flowers, if unripe, were not plucked, and it was considered inauspicious to
pluck flowers after sunset. There are many unwritten rules for conserving
various natural resources that have been passed on from generation to
generation. These natural sources were of great importance to the people
because of the cultural and traditional values attached to them. Therefore,
natural resources like land, water, and trees were spiritually significant in
the religious and socio-cultural lives of the local people.
However, due to colonization and, after
independence, the growing population and rapid urbanization, in recent years,
various changes have occurred in the traditional structure of the use of
natural resources like fuel wood, fodder, and grazing areas. The shared concern
of the locals for natural resources is on the verge of depletion now. The
growth in population and urbanization have led to growing economic activities
in the hills, and since then, the traditional system of conserving natural
resources has also withered. This has led to the exploitation of natural
resources, including forests, land, water, pastures, and biodiversity. The
ecological exploitation and challenges in the Kumaun region during colonial and
post-colonial periods find expression in the works of several Kumauni writers.
Namita Gokhale, in her books based on the Kumaun region, deals with the
colonial history of the hills and the exploitation of the hills during that
period. Girish Chandra Tiwari, an indigenous poet from Kumaun, lovingly known
as Girda, has depicted the environmental crisis in the hills very
passionately in his poems.
Narrative of Nature and Power: An Ecological
Imperialism
Under colonial rule, the colonized people and
land are exploited by the colonizers, and the exploitation is justified by
projecting the natives as inferior and “others”, people who are to be civilized
and then eventually subjugate them. The term ‘Ecological Imperialism’ was
coined in 1986 by Alfred Crosby in his book Ecological Imperialism: The
Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900. In ecological imperialism, both
environmentalism and colonialism are dealt with side by side. It studies the
disruption or disturbance of local ecology due to colonial expansion. For
instance, the land of a particular place is an integral part of the cultural
identity of the people living there. For them, the land does not just stand for
a physical entity; it is a part of their identity. The colonial conquest of the
material wealth of the colonies left a great impact on the lives of the
colonized in countries like South Africa and India. Usurping the land of the
colonized and taking their right to self-governance of their own land did not
only deprive them of their source of livelihood but also of their very
identity. As Franz Fanon puts it, “For a colonized people, the most essential
value, because the most meaningful, is first and foremost the land: the land,
which must provide bread and, naturally, dignity” (9). During the colonial
period, several forest acts were introduced by the British government in the
Kumaun region. Under these acts, they introduced repressive forest policies.
The Kumauni society has been egalitarian, and the people were completely
dependent upon the natural resources for their survival. The Forest Act of 1878
took away the rights of the locals, and they were excluded from the resources
of the forests. The forests were now under the monopoly of the British
Administration, and the act allowed it to expand the commercial exploitation of
the forests. The sal trees of Kumaun were felled in huge numbers, and
pine trees were planted in the hills by the British Administration for
commercial purposes.
Pt. Govind Ballabh Pant, a prominent
political leader of Kumaun, condemned the Forest Act introduced by the British
Administration in his booklet entitled The Forest Problem in Kumaon,
1922. He called the Forest Act the “burial of the immemorial and indefeasible
rights of the people of Kumaun” (Guha, 228). According to Pant, “the policy of
the Forest Department can be summed up in two words, namely, encroachment and
exploitation” (Guha, 228). Observing the disastrous consequences of the forest
policy, Pant wrote:
Symptoms of decay are unmistakably visible in many village: buildings
are tottering, houses are deserted, population has dwindled and assessed land
has gone out of cultivation since the policy of [forest] reservation was
initiated… Cattle have become weakened and emaciated and dairy produce is
growing scarce every day: while in former times one could get any amount of
milk and other varieties for the mere asking, now occasions are not rare when
one cannot obtain it in the villages, for any price for the simple reason that
it is not produced there at all (70-72).
In his book, Pant describes the plight of the people of Kumaun who were
dissatisfied by the Forest Act. The displeasure of the people provoked a
resistance in them against the policy that was imposed on them by the British
administration. This policy had hindered and violated the harmonious
relationship of the local people with the environment.
In Namita Gokhale’s historical novel Things
to Leave Behind, the natives of Kumaun worship nature, and they believe
that every element of nature holds some divine power. They have several myths
and beliefs attached to the rivers, lakes, hills, and trees. Naini Lake is
believed to have been formed from the eye of the goddess Sati, which
fell in that spot while Lord Shiva was carrying her deceased body in his
arms. As a result, the place is considered sacred land by the natives, and they
despise the interference of the Englishmen in their land. They try hard to keep
the lake a secret from the Englishmen. As mentioned, “the great annual fair of
Nanda Devi was held in the grounds near the lake every autumn. There were no
houses there, for it was a sacred spot, not to be polluted by human habitation”
(11). Later, the place was discovered by an Englishman who tricked a native
into leading him to the secret lake. The natives of Kumaun were deceived by the
British into owning the land rights to the place. The colonizers established a
township there, and the hill station of Nainital was established. The people
simultaneously shape and are shaped by their local environment, and this
delineates how the natives of Kumaun were denied their right to situate their
own history and environmental locality.
In the novel The Book of Shadows, the
place where the British missionary intends to build a house is considered a
sacred site by the natives. As William Cockrell states, “On ridges like the one
whereupon we planned to site the house, they built only temples to their
bloodthirsty gods. But this ridge, I had heard it muttered, was a bad one; it
had a resident spirit that was inimical to happiness or reason” (43). This same
house later witnessed the unnatural deaths of many of its inhabitants. The hill
people believe in several folk deities and have ardent faith in them. Most of
these gods are considered guardian angels by the natives. Some places in the
hills are worshipped as sacred spots of the folk deities, and they are believed
to be guarded by them; no human inhabits these places. For instance, Lord Airee
is considered the guardian spirit who protects the land, people, and animals of
the hills. In The Book of Shadows, Lohaniju, the caretaker of the house
in Ranikhet, believes that the British missionary William Cockrell disgraced
the sacredness of the place by building the house on the arrow of Lord Airee.
He says,
The missionary was foolish to build his house in this lonely spot. We
hill people prefer to live together, near each other. Humans need each other,
it is pride to think that they don’t. Besides, he knew that this was a sacred
spot, and that the arrows of Lord Airee lie buried here, deep in the soil,
below the rock even. These arrows never rust, and when the time comes, the gods
will deign to use them once again (209).
At the beginning of the novel Things to
Leave Behind, six women are singing mournfully in the month of shraddha,
and they are circled around the lake wearing black and scarlet pichauras (
a traditional yellow and scarlet colored stole worn during auspicious occasions
by the Kumauni women). The natives believe that these women are evil spirits;
they have donned black and scarlet-colored pichauras instead of the
regular yellow and scarlet ones, and the incident symbolises an evil force in
the environment of the place, which is associated with the arrival of the
British in Kumaun. The natives are concerned about the disapproval of the lake
goddess, Naina Devi, for the intrusion of outsiders into her land. When
an Englishwoman dies by drowning in the lake by accidently stepping into a
slippery rock, the native folk believe it to be the revenge of the lake goddess
on the outsiders for dishonoring the sanctity of her land. The British did not
pay any heed to this rumor that was spreading like wildfire among the natives.
However, the landside of the year 1870 shows the resistance of nature against
human intervention. The wrath of nature took the lives of hundreds of people,
including both Britishers and natives.
In the novel The Book of Shadows, Gokhale
shows the general perception of the Englishmen and their experiences with the
natives of Kumaun in the journal of the missionary William Cockrell. In this
journal, he has written about the beliefs and superstitions of the local people
and the problems he faced during his stay in the hills. The concept of the
binary opposition of “orient” and “occident” to portray the colonized as
"other,” uncivilized, and savage in order to justify the imperialistic
endeavors explored by Edward Said in his seminal work Orientalism is
depicted in the journal of the missionary. Rumina Sethi in an article in The
Tribune writes:
The journal written by William Cockerell
throws light on the role of the missionaries and their rather orientalist views
on the nature of the natives who are taken to be lethargic and immoral. He
imagines the natives as shadows hovering around him and wonders if they were really
human or only shadows belonging to some other “unchastened un-christian world”
(Sethi, Dec 1999).
As in
the case of the other European colonies, Indian natives too were considered
primitive and savage by the colonizers. The British mocked the natives of
Kumaun for their strong belief in several superstitions. William Cockrell
writes that the people in the hills believe in nonsensical superstitions. He
mocks the natives, as they worship monkeys as gods and avoid killing a snake,
as it is also considered divine. He says that the people also have several
superstitious beliefs attached to the trees. The pine trees are considered
extremely unlucky, and the cedar or deodar trees are considered divine. The
people would not dare cut the tree, and if it had to be cut due to a certain
compulsion, then they had to seek divine permission by worshipping the deity.
The
actions of the two Englishmen, Marco and Munro, in the novel The Book of
Shadows represent the colonial practice of exploitation of the native
land and people. These two Englishmen came to the house built by the missionary
in Ranikhet. They both exploited the humans as well as the animals on the
hills. They were followers of the occult and were sadistic people. They used to
capture young panthers, hang them in the courtyard, and inflict several
tortures on them, sometimes by feeding them extravagantly and sometimes by
starving them to enjoy the sufferings of those wounded animals until they died.
The hill folks were also not spared from the tortures of these people. As
mentioned, “Once, Munro even pushed a hill-man into the pit of hungered beasts,
but he escaped and ran away from the house, never to return” (99). These
Englishmen even went to the extent of sacrificing a child just to revive their
fading energies. This shows how the colonizers manipulated not only nature and
animals but also the humans of the hills. They asserted their rights to the
environment as well as to humans. The natives came to hate the Englishmen for
their actions and considered them madmen. They believed that these Englishmen
interfered with their beliefs and insulted the spirits of the mountains by
polluting the sanctity of their land.
The natives could no longer tolerate the
tortures imposed by the Englishmen on them and decided to avenge them. The hill
people believed that the gods of the mountains had ordered them to take revenge
on Marcus and Munro. As Lohaniju mentions, “Our mountain gods disguised
themselves as panthers and attacked the white sahibs, right here in this house,
one black amavasya night” (14). From the stories that Lohaniju narrates to
Rachita of the Kumauni locale, it can be inferred that the hill folk of Kumaun
were not pleased with the arrival of Britishers in their native land. He believes
that the ‘English sahib’ who came to Kumaun were bad people. They polluted the
mountains, which are considered sacred by the people of Kumaun. As Lohaniju
asserts, “They insulted the spirits of these mountains. They were rude and
arrogant and very, very foolish” (13). This shows the general perception that
the Kumauni folks hold of the British. In these novels, Gokhale depicts the
colonial exploitation of nature as well as the humans of the Kumaun hills.
Ecological Crisis and Kumaun Hills:
After the independence of India, the increase
in economic attributes, industrialization, and rapid urbanization resulted in
the overexploitation of natural resources. In the colonial era, the British
rulers exploited the ecology, and post-independence, the government carried
forward the same policies in the name of development. The hills of the Kumaun
Himalayas, rich in natural resources, were sought after for energy consumption.
This led to the overexploitation of natural sources in the hills. There was
large-scale cutting of the forest trees initiated by the timber merchants,
certain government schemes, and private industries. The growing commercial and
industrial interest not only led to the degradation of the hill forests but
also of the age-old traditional and cultural practice of conservation in the
hills. These projects had an adverse effect on the traditional practices of
conservation of natural resources. The local people were now less concerned
about conservation of nature and indulged in getting as much benefit as they
could out of the ongoing scenario. The external interference of exploitative
development policies in the hills was responsible for withering away from
traditional conservation practices.
In the early 1970s, there was a large-scale
cutting of the trees in the hills, which resulted in ecological catastrophes
like floods and soil erosions due to deforestation. The local people were then
alarmed to protect their natural resources. The exploitation of the hill
forests by outside agencies and government policies was resisted by the locals,
and this united resistance and struggle of the people for the protection of the
forests led to the Chipko Movement. The movement had a very humane appeal: “Cut
me down before you cut down the tree. The tree is far more important than my
life, it is the basis of my survival” (Mitra, April 30, 1993). It was also a
crucial movement in this respect that the women folk of the hills were a part
of the movement, and they participated in the protest in large numbers. They
hugged the trees, saying, “chop me before you chop my tree.” Poet and renowned
social activist of Kumaun, Girish Chandra Tiwari, who people lovingly and
affectionately call Girda (elder brother Girish), composed a poem that
depicts the plight of nature in the hills and urges the hill folk to resist the
exploitation of the forest. Girda personified nature in his poem and
depicted its sufferings:
“Aaj Himaal
tuman kedhatyoochhaujago, jagohomyara laal.
Ni
karan diyo humarineelami Ni karandiyohumarohalaal (Tiwari, June 28, 2023).”
The Himalayas are
calling out to you today; wake up, my child. Do not let them maltreat me;
do not let them auction me. (Translated by me)
This poem became an inspiration for the rallies of the Chipko movement.
It inspired the hill people and awakened in them the responsibility to save
their environment and natural resources. The poem inspires people to resist the
rapid urbanization and development activities that are leading to the
degradation of the environment as well as the traditional culture of the hills.
Girda has written many poems that mirror the dire situation of the hills,
which are under threat due to the exploitation of their natural resources. It
was not only the forest but also the rivers that became victims of the
development activities in the hills. There were several large-scale projects
that were initiated for energy consumption from the rivers. The ecology and
humans had to suffer from these projects. Girda wrote a poem on the
plight of the water resources of the hills and how the government and state had
become traders by destructing the rivers:
“Aji vaah! Kya baattumhare, tum
hopanikevyapaari, Khel tumharatumhi Khiladi, bichi hui ye bisaattumhaari, Saara
paanichoosraheho, nadisamandar loot raheho,
Ganga-Yamuna ki chaati par, kankar patthar koot rahe ho… (Tiwari,
June 28, 2023).”
Oh! Great, what a magnificent job you’re
doing; you are the trader of water,
You are the sportsman, and this sport is also yours,
You are sucking up all the water and looting the rivers as well as the
oceans.
You are crushing pebbles and stones on the bosom of the Ganges and Yamuna…
(Translated by me)
The poem is a satire on the government officials who had become blind to
the destruction that the large-scale projects were causing to the rivers. In
2008, a movement called “Save the Rivers” took place to save the rivers from
destructive development projects that had adverse effects on the water
resources in the hills. Girda’s poem expresses the contemporary scenario
of the ecological crisis in the hills.
Conclusion
Environmental degradation is a serious issue
that needs to be taken into consideration by both local people and the
government in the hills. There are looming dangers of the ecological threat
across the world. The increase in the frequency of several natural disasters
like floods, soil erosions, landslides, etc. due to ecological crises is
evident in the hills. The beginning of ecological exploitation can be traced
back to the colonial period, when the forest acts introduced by the British
administration allowed the state to expand the commercial exploitation of the
forest while restricting the locals from using the resources for their
sustenance. It hampered the relationship between nature and the local people.
The hill folks were deprived of the right to self-governance over their natural
resources.
After
independence, ecological exploitation continued in the hills. Many government
and non-government schemes were responsible for this exploitation. The local
people too became unconcerned with the exploitation of natural resources, and
the traditional practice of conserving natural resources also diminished. Girish
Chandra Tiwari’s poems demonstrated the continuing onslaught on the natural
resources of the Himalayas, and his poems are a call to preserve natural
resources in the hills. In the contemporary times the people in the state of
Uttarakhand are urging the government to implement strong Bhu Kanoon or
‘land laws’ to prevent unnecessary constructions in the hills. It is to ensure
that there must be certain limits set for the outsiders to purchase land in the
hills. Several NGOs like Central Himalayan Institute for Nature and Applied
Research are dedicated to the ecological conservation in the mountains. They
are working towards promoting the extinct traditional knowledge of
environmental conservation among the masses. It is also imperative that the
government as well as the people in the hills, work collectively for reviving
the traditional knowledge of natural resources management and ecological
conservation in the hills.
Works Cited
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Penguin Books Ltd., 2001.
---. Things to Leave Behind. Penguin
Books Ltd., 2018.
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