Conservation, Exploitation, and Cultural Change in the , 1875-1927 Author(s): Benjamin Weil Reviewed work(s): Source: Environmental History, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Apr., 2006), pp. 319-343 Published by: and American Society for Environmental History Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3986234 . Accessed: 17/11/2012 05:23

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Forest History Society and American Society for Environmental History are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Environmental History.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BENJAMIN WEIL

conservation, exploitation, and cultural CHANGE IN THEINDIAN FOREST SERVICE, 1875-1927

ABSTRACT Although the Indian Forest Service was founded on conservationist principles, by the twentieth century it had become almost exclusively devoted to profitableexploitation of the forests it managed. Quantitativecontent analysis of the service's primaryvoice, The IndianForester, correlates the transitionfrom conservation to extractionto shifts fromthe dominance of generalists to that of bureaucraticspecialists, and from ad-hoc holism to reductionism.Growing emphasis on reductionistscience reinforceda mental framework inimicalto conservationistarguments based on indirectbenefits and appeals to precaution. Inthe broaderculture, these arguments resurfacedin reactionto periodicfamines, but by the beginningof the twentiethcentury, they had lost respectabilitywithin the ForestService.

INDIATODAY FACES the interrelatedproblems of Himalayandeforestation, soil erosion and salinity, dam siltation, flash floods, and biodiversity loss. The governmentagencies responsible for solving these problems-and, as some would argue, for causing them-are the direct descendants of the environmental managementagencies that came into being underBritish rule. Chiefamong these agencies is the Indian Forest Service. Since most of 's environmental problems are far worse now than they were a century and a half ago, it seems logical to seek the roots of the current crisis in the development of the Forest Service. The history of the Forest Service resonates globally because the forest bureaucraciesof the rest of the formerBritish Empireand much of the anglophone world have their roots in India. This essay traces the trajectoryof several self-reinforcingtransitions in the culture of the Forest Service:from a conservationist to an extractive focus, from a dominance by generalists to that of bureaucratic specialists, and from an ad hoc holism to reductionism. I am not concerned with "ideas of nature"per se. Rather, I focus on ideas and cultural attitudes toward science and technology, and more specifically toward scientists and engineers. Certainlyall ideas about BenjaminWeil, "Conservation, Exploitation, and CulturalChange in the IndianForest Service, 1875- 1927,"Environmental History 11 (April2006): 319-343.

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 320 I ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 1 1 (APRIL 2006)

science and technology reveal attitudes towardnature, but it was not on the basis of wilderness values that the conservationists of the mid-nineteenth century British Raj made their case. The environmental managers of British India created a bureaucratic and segmented mental landscape and they set about restructuring the physical landscape to match it. This progressed slowlybut inexorably,as a new generation of specialists replacedan oldergeneration of generalists, as a narrowreductionist scientific approachpushed aside local, qualitative, experiencedknowledge, and as an extraction and engineering mentality replacedconservationism as a mode for managing the colonial South Asian environment. The philosophical perspectives that informedthe conservationist argumentsof the mid-nineteenth century included the Utilitarian idea that the commons must be maintained to benefit the greatest number of people over the longest period of time while minimizing the harms of forest exploitation to people downstream, the precautionaryprinciple, and an emotional and aesthetic appreciationand respect for "nature.",However, the argumentsbased on these philosophical perspectives declinedin effectiveness and respectabilityas an engineeringparadigm ascended within the culture of the Forest Service. This trend coincided with a shift in departmentalpurpose awayfrom conservation-orientedactivity to extractiveand commercial activity. An important debate in Indian environmentalhistoriography has to do with the nature and purposeof state forest conservationin India.One group of scholars suggests that forest conservation was meant to conceal the real considerations of the British Empire'sneed for raw materials and to justify the expropriationof forests from "traditional"forest users in orderto more fully exploit the forests.2 The most prominentrepresentative of this position has been RamachandraGuha, who focuses his analysis on the battle overthe Indian ForestAct of i878, in which the "annexationists" defeated the "populists"and thus gave the state greater control over forest management.Combining selections from the "annexationist" arguments,evidence of the Empire'smaterial needs, and an assumptionof greater sustainability of pre-colonialresource use, Guhapresents a picture of the Forest Service as primarily devoted to exploitation and expropriation.3Another group of scholars-chief among them Richard Grove-argues that the conservationist motives that informed the creation of the Forest Service were genuine, and that the roots of modernenvironmentalism lie in the colonialexperience.4 Grove argues that the ideas behind state forest conservationdeveloped through the interaction of the Europeanand Indian ideas and local experience.Environmental concerns aboutdeforestation-induced climate change originatedin the seventeenthcentury colonialexperiences: examples of rapiddestruction in fragile island environments motivated conservationists who exploited governmentalfears of environmental devastation to promote the establishment of the Forest Department.5I will show why Grove'sanalysis is largely correct for the earlier period but that the culture of the Forest Service changed in such a way as to partiallyjustify Guha'sanalysis towardthe turn of the twentieth century. Underlyingthis transformationwas the increasingvalorizationof engineering and reductionism,which erodedthe viability of the conservationistposition. This

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE INDIAN FOREST SERVICE I 321 engineering paradigmwas a natural accompanimentto a "technologicalideology of dominance,"as suggested by Michael Adas and others.6Historians of British imperialism have focused on the ideologies of dominancewith which servants of the British Empire justified their rule. Most importantly, Thomas Metcalf identified two divergent strategies by which the British justified their authority in India,one that emphasizedthe similarities betweenthe British andtheir Indian subjects and the other that highlighted the differences. Overtime, the ideology of difference predominated.7This generally parallels the later tendency favoring '"scientificknowledge" over "localknowledge." Members of the British imperial class believedthat they possessed an objectiveand universalmeans to understand and control nature, while their subjects' understanding of their local environment-based on subjective experience and tradition-was inferior; the inferiority of their local knowledge, in turn, explained their perceived poverty, technological backwardness,and superstitions of the local peoples. An ideology of differencemade honest engagementwith "localknowledge" feel like a betrayalof one'sown Western "scientific superiority." A corollaryof such a legitimizingideology based in science and technologywas a desire to be seen as scientific (includinga fetish for quantification)and a tendencyto favortechnological solutions.

FROM CONSERVATIONTO EXPLOITATION ALTHOUGHFORESTERS INCREASINGLYfaced difficulty making the conservationistargument as positivist science and engineeringparadigmsgained cultural ascendance, it does not necessarily follow that the Indian Forest Service would turn awayfrom its conservationmission and towardprofitable extraction. Yet this is what gradually happened. The transformation can be illustrated by comparing a statement by B. H. Baden-Powell,one of the chief early advocates for the ForestService, with one by E. P. Stebbing,an official historian of the Forest Service. Baden-Powellwrote in 1877: "if the wants, rights, and privileges of the people are pressing, rather give the whole right and income [of the forest] to the communalbody than abandonthe forest itself to destruction."8Stebbing noted, however,that by the end of the nineteenth century,the forest administrationhad come "to be regarded by the Heads of the Civil Administration and by its own Chiefs as a purely commercialconcern-its chief raison d'etre the production of revenue."9The emphasis on managing state forests primarily for commercial purposes intensified as the colonial state strove for Indian industrial self- sufficiency. The demands for Indian wood and other forest products during the First WorldWar further solidified the department'sextractive focus.10 Historians have generally ignored or denied this shift."1When they have explored it, they have done so mostly to illustrate broadchanges in intellectual culture,especially in Europe.'2 The question of institutional purpose raises questions of identity and esprit de corps-the corporateculture of the Forest Service. As the voice of the Forest Service for most of its history, TheIndian Foresteroffers a window into the ideas and values to which the most junior forest officer and the most senior conservators alike were exposed. Analyzed over time, it can serve as a sort of

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 322 I ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 11 (APRIL 2006)

Table 1. Correlations Between Items Found in 7he Indian .

Conservation Exploitation Shikar Science Esprit

(n=352) (n=2249) (n=336) (n=941) (n=595)

r P r P r P r P r

Conservation i.oo

Exploitation -o.85 0.03 1.00

Shikar 0.07 o.67 -0.75 0.04 1.00

Science -0.14 o.o6 0.39 0.05 -0.12 0.12 1.00

Esprit de corps -0.24 0.04 0.55 0.10 -0.11 0.38 0.30 0.20 1.00

Compiled by author.

culturalbarometer, indicating the general concerns and issues prominent in the consciousness of members of the forest bureaucracy.I have catalogued, coded, and statistically analyzeditems appearingthe journalfrom its inception in 1875 to 1927 (for correlations, see Table1).13 The categories include "conservationand indirect benefits," "exploitation,""shikar and aesthetic enjoyment,""science," and "esprit de corps."'4 Each of these categories was divided into several sub- categories. Sub-categoriescontributing to the "conservation"total, for example, included articles on conservation techniques, erosion, rainfall, and stream-flow regulation. The category of "exploitation,"by contrast, included plantations, railway,timbers, minor forest products, engineering characteristics of timbers, extraction technology, industrial applications, practical chemistry, commercial issues, and "economicforestry." My analysis generally affirms Ajay Skaria'sargument that articles on broad issues in TheIndian Forestergave way to articles on technical issues by the early twentieth century.'5I take a slightly differentperspective, but Skaria'scategories of "broad issues" and "technical and specific" roughly correspond to the "sconservationist"and "exploitationist" categories I am using here. Skaria, however,attributes this transition to the establishment of a consensus that made discussion of broad issues unnecessary,while I conclude that the explanation is more complex and more culturallyembedded. The deeper reasons for the shift to a commercial orientation require consideration of the internal culture of the Forest Service along with its bureaucraticcontext-particularly its competition with, and sense of inferiority to, the Civil Service and the engineers. As an all- India service, the Forest Service had no regional powerbase and the individual forester always answered to, and could be overruledby, the local revenue officer of the Civil Service.There was a class component as well. A career in the judicial or revenue departments of the CovenantedCivil Service often led to honors and distinctions such as knighthoods. Such social opportunitieswere generally less availableto , who more often came from lower-classbackgrounds than did members of the ImperialCivil Service. The ImperialEngineering Service was a specialized technical service like the Forest Service, but opportunities in the

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE INDIAN FOREST SERVICE I 323

Table 2: Trendsin 'Conservation'and 'Exploitation'Items as Proportionof Total.

45.00% - 14.00%

40.00%

Exploitation

35.00% IsWS \; t ^ A 00 t g 4 8 ! 12.00W 25.00%~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~1.0 \f I llX l)i \\11\tJ 1&\ 0 sL_J 1

10.00%

A 8~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.00% 20.00%-

20.00% 6~~~~~~~~~Cneraio .00%

5.00%

0.00% V0.00% 18 18 1882 1885 1888 1891 1894 1897 1900 1903 1806 1909 1914 1917 1920 1923 1927 75- 78- 76 79

Year Compiled by author. empire as well as in Britain were much better for engineers-and, as we shall see, by the end of the nineteenth century engineers had surpassed foresters in influence and cachet. A comparison of "Conservation" and "Exploitation" items confirms the idea that forest conservation declined in importance while forest exploitation increased in importance (see Table 2). The correlation between the frequency of conservation and exploitation items is strongly negative (r=-o.8s, P=o.o3). It seems that the establishment could not simultaneously promote conservation (as a concern-not necessarily as concrete activity on the ground) and permit exploitation, even though maintaining a balance between these goals was precisely the objective with which the department was charged. Although we cannot assume a causal relationship, we might wonder if those factors that promoted an increasingly exploitationist mindset did not somehow also cause foresters to devalue conservation.

"ALLTHE MOST VIRILEATTRIBUTES"

TWO SUBJECTS CAN BE associated with both exploitation and conservation. The appearance of articles relating to shikar (hunting) and aesthetic enjoyment of the woods, although only weakly correlated to conservation (r=o.o7, P=o.67), correlates negatively to exploitation items (1-o.75, P= 0.04). Similarly, "pure" (non- applied) science articles correlate weakly to exploitation articles (r0=.39, P=o.os), but have a negative correlation to conservation articles (r-0.14, P=o.o6). The frequency of articles oriented to esprit de corps follows a similar pattern.16 Others have drawn a connection between the Forest Service and its aggressive culture of muscular manliness exemplified by shikar, but they present a static analysis.17 Its correlation to conservationism needs a re-examination. The

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 324 I ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 1 1 (APRIL 2006)

decrease in shikar-orientedarticles in The Indian Forester,especially after the beginning of the twentieth century, suggests that the importance of this "white hunter"culture of manliness declined and was perhapspartially eclipsed by some other source of identity-making. The identification of the forester with physical fitness was recognized early on. There is little question that the martial attitudes and accomplishments of the sportsman were important to the first generations of foresters in India. As John MacKenziehas argued: "Huntingrequired all the most virile attributes of the imperialmale; courage, endurance, individualism, sportsmanship (combining the moral etiquette of the sportsman with both horsemanship and marksmanship), resourcefulness, a mastery of environmental signs and a knowledge of natural history."'8 A taste for hunting was considereda good indicatorof suitabilityfor the Forest Service. In 1865, when the GovernmentForests Act effectively createdthe Forest Service,men formallytrained in forestrywere scarce. The first chief conservator general, Dietrich Brandis, wrote that "officerswere obtained from the Armyand other sources, who in the pursuit of sport and adventurehad acquireda love of a forest life and an intimate knowledge of the country, the people and their languages."'9Shikar and other such active pursuits probablysuited military men and scientific generalists who volunteered to join the nascent Forest Service. Perhaps Brandis's characterization of army officers and sportsmen contained an important insight about generalists and their propensity to understandlocal environments and local people. The cultural importance of shikar may well be a proxy for the influence of generalists in the Forest Service. Duringthe mid-nineteenthcentury, the chief advocatesfor conservationcame from the East India Company(EIC) Medical Service. Like their counterparts in other branches of the EIC civil service, the surgeons and other conservation advocates were broadly educated. Most of the Medical Service conservationists had trained in botany and had become devotedenthusiasts.20 Even Brandis, most clearly identified as a forester, was not a forester by training, but a lecturer in botany. Concernfor the loss of species guided some conservationist impulses. Many of the surgeons of the Medical Service recognized the potential value of tropical species in discovering medicines, but it is also clear that they were motivated by a naturalist's appreciation for the wonders of biological diversity and a botanist's intellectual curiosity.2' In addition,the forest conservationists of the 1840S through186os were more likely than later specialists to take into account the various concerns and knowledge of local people. Unlike later foresters, their training included local languages. Besides Greekand Latin and Germanand French,Alexander Gibson, for example, knew Hindustani, Mahrati, and Gujerati."By contrast, after the establishment of the Forest Service, prospective foresters were only expected to know Frenchor German(in orderto be trained on the Europeancontinent, where knowledge of "scientific forestry"was more developed). After the establishment of a national forest school in 1884 at CoopersHill College in England, the education of forest officers was increasingly circumscribed.Although much of their workwas administrative,foresters, unlike

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE INDIAN FOREST SERVICE I 325

Figure 1. Sir Dietrich Brandis.

Photo courtesy of the Forest HistorySociety DurhamN C. Sir DietrichBrandis (center, in slouch hat) builds IndianForests Service espnit-de-corpswith English forestrystudents on their graduationtour of Germnanforests. civil service officers, received little training in languages and legal issueS.23 At Cooper's Hill (and later at two other forestry-training schools at Oxford and Dehra Dun) the creation and maintenance of a strong esprit de corps was emphasized.2 As the technical education of foresters became more uniform, the appearance of articles in TheIndian Foresterrelating to the esprit de corps of the Forest Service also increased-from about 4 percent in the 187os to about lo percent in the 19105 and 19205. The 1905 curriculum at Coopers Hill was, in some ways quite similar to that at Addiscombe, the military academy that produced many of the earlier generation of foresters, a half century earlier. Both emphasized experimental sciences, geometrical drawing, geology, and engineering. However, foresters took extra courses in entomology botany forestry and "book-keeping in reference to Indian Forest Accounts," while their military forbears spent more time on history, languages, strategy, tactics and fortification 25 One significant difference was the time allotted to training Addiscombe was a four-year institution, while Coopers Hill rushed probationers through a packed course of study, including required practical work during vacations, in three years. The quick training pace did not promote a deep intellectual curiosity about, or affection for, the natural systems that they would manage. "What happened in many cases," wrote one disaffected forest officer, "was that what should have been an interesting and profitable study developed into a wild struggle against awful odds to obtain the number of marks necessary to qualify. Many of us thus came to look on some of these sciences as enemies whose object was to endeavor to keep us out of the service instead of as friends whose design was to help us in our future careers.l2' The definition of the Forest Service as an exclusively

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 326 I ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 11 (APRIL 2006)

scientific agency led a 1921 commission to suggest aggressive recruiting of graduates from Oxford and Cambridge with honors degrees in applied and theoretical sciences. Some of the most distinguished veterans and leaders of the Forest Service resisted this strongly. According to the committee, Sir William Schlich, a former Inspector Generalof Forests in India, writer of the definitive English language forestry textbook, and head of CoopersHill College,"went so far as to say that the training up to an honours standardin science was a positive disadvantage, tending to produce specialists in their own particular subjects, leaving forestry almost as a secondary consideration."27 Dietrich Brandis,the founder of the Indian Forest Service, is an illuminating case in point. He had no real backgroundin forestry,when LordDalhousie (at the suggestion of Brandis's sister-in-law) appointed him to fill a vacancy as superintendent of forestry in Pegu (northernBurma) in i856. Brandis was a 31- year-oldlecturer in Botany at University:all of his knowledge of forestry was indirect-coming exclusively from his contact with foresters in . Seeing limited prospects for advancementin Bonn, he accepted the job offer. En route to Rangoon,the ship bearinghis botanicallibrary and herbariumequipment sank in the Rangoon River.He said later that he considered this as a divine sign that he should put aside botany and devote himself to forestry.28 Brandis admired forestry practice in Germanyand energetically advocated its application in India and Burma.When he left for India, however,knowledge of tropical forests was extremely limited in Germany.It is a testament to his scientific training, practicality, and his generalist's temperament that he approachedthese unknownforests throughcareful observation, experimentation, and consultation with local forest users.'9 For example, the system of taungya cultivation generally attributedto Brandis is an adaptationof the local Burmese form of shifting cultivation in which local swidden agriculturists cooperate to produceand tend teak following one or two seasons of food crops.30 Brandistoured the Indian Empireextensively and carefullynoted indigenous forest management practices such as sacred groves in Mysore, fuel and fodder reserves or birs in Rajputana, shikargarhs (game preserves) in Sindh, and a "regularsystem of coppice"in the dhao jungles of the Raojee of Hamirghur.31He observed that the reserves' value could not be measured by revenue, but by the "increasedproduction of cattle fodder and wood for the people, and by the effect which their protection would have in increasing the water supply in wells, tanks and springs."32However, he was also clear that without state forest reservation, many districts would have been rapidly denuded.33The skill he employed in making these observations and building the relationships described above came not from prior knowledge of forestry, but from a generalist's broad grasp anthropology,biology, and diplomacy.

"TOILERSOF THE PEN" ALTHOUGHBRANDIS LOBBIED from the outset for the systematic training of forestry specialists, it may be that the active generalist more easily developed affection for the forest, the holistic view, and the recourse to local knowledge

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE INDIAN FOREST SERVICE 1 327 than did the trained specialist forest bureaucrat.The conservationist attitudes and perspectives associated with some generalists faded from the Forest Service as its membershipbecame increasingly specialized. In the pages of The Indian Forester,articles indicating the interest of the generalists in hunting gradually were replaced by articles more appealing to the interests of the new generation of bureaucrats.It may be that concernwith the bureaucracyitself eclipsed shikar among the passions of the new bureaucrats.As B. B. Misra has written about the Indian Civil Service, "the strong esprit de corps... made the recruits interested more in the Service than the countrywhere they served."34Thus, if shikar articles can serve as a proxy for generalists in the Forest Service, esprit de corps articles might serve as a proxy for narrowbureaucratic specialization, particularlyas a separate all-India technical service whose membership often chafed at their subordinationto the Indian Civil Service. Shikar might have played a more obvious role in keeping the multiple functions of forests present in the minds of foresters. Hunting was a form of recreationthat got a forest officer out into the woods "toexplore many places he might not have otherwise inspected."35He engaged the forest environment, as one retired forester recalled in 1935: "Ifa forest officer is keen on shikar it means that he spends his leisure hours in the pursuit of game in the forests in the company of forest villagers under his charge. He thus gets to know his forests and his villagers, which is all to the good."36 By the second decade of the twentieth century,however, retired foresters with extensive recordsof service complainedof the long hours a foresterhad to devote to paperwork.Earldley-Wilmot described the new generation of forest officers as "toilersof the pen who stream into the various hideous public offices at ten of the morning, nor dare leave them till late in the evening, for the reason either that the work is unfinished or that more is expected."37There was no time for hunting and thus presumablyless time for directlyinspecting the forests as well. Perhapsthis helps to explain the inverse trend of shikar and exploitation. It was a major goal of the Forest Service to operate forest areas under their control according to "workingplans," which were detailed prescriptions for extracting the maximum sustainable yield of valuable species. Although then-Inspector- GeneralWilliam Schlich createdthe centralized"Working-Plans Branch" in 1884, it was only in the last years of the nineteenth centurythat any considerableportion of reserves was under working plans. Preparingthese plans involved as much knowledge of accounting as silviculture. As the financial results of India's state forestry improvedthe department's standing, they caused greateremphasis to be placedon the administrativeaspects of managing timber contracts and fiscal accounting. An American forester declaredthat a "practicalbusiness administration stands forth as the foremost achievement"of the Forest Service in 1913:"A substantial net revenue can always be assured. In the business success of the forest administration,economy, as well as the development and exploitation of the natural resources, have played important parts. Possibly in some parts of India there has been serious over- cutting due to the keen desire to secure financial results."s8

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 328 I ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 11 (APRIL 2006)

Besides forest products, the sale and regulation of hunting licenses was another source of revenue that added to the office work of the forest officer. Earldley-Wilmotdryly noted, "morethan one Forest Officer has laid aside gun and rifle entirely, so as to have a freer hand in the issue of licenses and in the decision of disputes that may arise amongst others-a distinctly humorousresult of game laws that addto the duties of the forester that of gamekeeper,and deprive him of one of the most popularincentives to a forester'scareer."39 As shikar played less of a role in the forester's life, so too would that emotional, visceral, and integrated understanding of the forest that came of intimacy. Perhaps this personal connection was requiredto inspire advocacyfor conservation.Wendell Berryhas observed"that people exploit what they have merely concludedto be of value, but they defend what they love...[and] we love what we particularlyknow."40 This may explain the connection between shikar and conservation; it may even explain to some degree why the ascent of exploitationist thinking in the Forest Service correlates to a decline in the culturalvalue of shikar.

"KNOWLEDGEOF A MEAGREAND UNSATISFACTORYKIND" IT IS MOREDIFFICULT to explain the negative correlation between "science" articles and "exploitation" articles in The Indian Forester. The scientific investigations of the Forest Service were not necessarily closely linked to economic concerns.Prior to the 1906 establishmentof a ForestResearch Institute at Dehra Dun,most scientific research was carriedout by individual enthusiasts who engaged in "botanizing"in much the same way that hunters engaged in (and wrote about)their passion. TheodoreWoolsey, an Americanobserver, suggested, "this Bureau will be strengthened if it tackles the more practical every-day managementproblems... instead of conducting its work on such purely scientific lines."41 One could argue that science and forest economics were more closely linked after 1910, when R. S. Pearson, newly appointedas the first Forest Service economist, started the Minor Forest Products Research Branch.42However, the connection between science and exploitation in this context may have more to do with a shared conceptual frame of reference. To understand this connection we must consider the nature of both sorts of articles.Articles in the "exploitation"category fell into the followingbasic groups: (1) those concerned with the maximization of yield of particular commercial species, (2) those with the properties of various woods as engineering materials, (3) those with methods to facilitate extraction or processing of forest products, (4) those with development of new products and markets, and (5) those with economic and financial issues having to do with timber and other forest product markets. "Science" articles most typically focused on botanical taxonomy, entomology, and chemistry, or on pot experiments to determine germination requirements and schedules of various tree seedlings.43 What all of these have in common is an essentially reductionist approachto the forest and its constituents. Thebotanizing practicedin the nineteenth century generally focused on the collection and characterizing of species; later in the century, "economic botany" focused on the functions of plants essentially as

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE INDIAN FOREST SERVICE 3293 medicinal, commercial, and industrial materials.44Thissort of botany did not explore the functions of plants in the forest and certainly did not conceive of the forest as community with effects on life both within and outside the forest. It would be the worst sort of ahistoricism to fault the Forest Service botanists of the period for this, as the science of ecology was in its infancy. This simply underscoresthe point that such an intellectual frameworkwas not generallypart of the training and bureaucraticculture. The reductionist nature of chemistry does not require expansion. Perhaps it is significant that the most highly placed Indian "native"was S. Puran Singh, imperial forest chemist, who was one of the original appointees to the Forest Research Institute at Dehra Dun in 19o6.45Work in entomology and mycology did lead to silvicultural strategies recognizing ecological relationships and the benefits of non-monocultural forests even on plantations. Interestingly, after around 1917,trials of various pesticides and fungicides largely displaced this research. The controlled pot experiments, the biocide trials, and the chemical analyses all depended on a reductionist model (i.e. the exclusion of multiple variables). Similarly, the exploitationist concern with particular species, their commercial properties and products, emphasized the particular parts, while conveniently ignoring the whole. This reductionist, mechanistic mental framework led researchers away from conservationist thinking because they needed to isolate one or more variables-the particular species or property of forests-that moderate stream flow, mitigate flooding, prevent erosion, affect climate and precipitation, and the like.46Particularist, not holistic, thinking prevailed.

FAMINE, FORESTS,AND ENGINEERS ANOTHERWAY TO SEE the effect of a reductionist mental frame or "engineering paradigm"on conservationist thinking is to observe the impact that news of engineering triumphs and failures had on the Forest Service. The great monuments to British engineering in India were the massive railroad bridges and the complex and vast canal irrigation schemes. These were the engineer's answerto the persistent andtragic famines that plaguedIndia. One project opened up the vast "wastes"to cultivation while the other enabled trains to redistribute the produce of the irrigated lands to famine districts, the free market providing the mechanism to govern redistribution. As members of the Irrigation Commission saw it: "Everyextension of irrigation increases the security of the food supply of the country in years of drought,and, in these days of cheap railway freights, the produce of irrigation can be carried to those parts in which it is most required."47 Each famine brought out much hand-wringingself-examination on the part of British officialdom and concerned public alike. While a large portion of the solutions proposedhad to do with building more railroadsand irrigationprojects, famines caused some to consider whether deforestation was a cause of climatic misery. In fact, famines brought out noticeable bursts of conservation-oriented articles in The Indian Forester as well as other journals,while the opening of new

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 330 I ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 1 1 (APRIL 2006)

Table3: ConservationItems with Engineeringand Famine Events.

14.00% M

12.OD% _krRR brdge = ~ _ Canal b d 3 _ - ~~~ _ ...... _ , , ~~~Jh ~ Projc _ ...... ope s ne 10.00% O _-_

8.00%-* Ed\ 12.00%

Compiledby author.

engineering wonders precipitated the virtual disappearance of such articles (see Table 3). Each of the major events in railway and irrigation construction seems to have precipitated a decline in the relative contribution of "conservation" articles. Each of these monuments to engineering prowess gave hope that engineers could provide a quick techno-fix in the struggle to prevent famine and fuel economic growth. In 1879, when the government bought the East Indian Railway (the largest of the private lines) it initiated a policy of taking over the large companies when their contracts ran out. It was widely assumed that government could construct railways more cheaply and that unity of ownership would eliminate the inefficiencies of the earlier policy, allowing freight costs to dramatically decrease (which they did). The government also embarked on a flurry of accelerated railroad projects, more than doubling the total track length by 1890.48 just such a program of railway construction was a major recommendation of the Famine Commission, so there were plenty of reasons to see the technology of the railways as a panacea. The Sukkur railway bridge was a major engineering feat in its own right, but more importantly, it was the final link across the Indus that allowed Karachi to become the major transshipment point for Punjabi wheat and cotton.49 Similarly, the Chenab Canal was the greatest achievement of British engineering since the Ganges Canal: it established a perennial water supply that allowed the hardy colonists from eastern Punjab to convert the arid "waste" lands of the central bar into rich fertile tracts of wheat, cotton, and sugarcane. Meanwhile, the Wazirabad-Khanewal line, completed between 1896 and 1900, connected the major trading centers of the Chenab Canal Colonies. These developments-it was assumed-would turn the Punjab into the bread-basket of India if not the Empire! To bureaucrats of the British Empire and to the public alike, suggestions that forest degradation might lead to aridity and loss of soil fertility would have seemed insignificant compared to these engineering marvels.

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE INDIAN FOREST SERVICE 331

Nonetheless, the famines continued.The longer their duration,the more some writers suspected that the giants of engineering had failed them. Most of these conservationist articles adheredto the "nature-bats-last"formulation, but many also emphasized the value of forests as forage reserves. Largely,though, they returned to the role of forests in raising humidity, lowering temperature, and moderatingwater discharge.It is telling that most of the conservationist articles in The Indian Foresterduring the famines of the 1870s and 188os were written by foresters,but an unusuallylarge portion (31percent of those appearingbetween 1894 and 1909) duringthe famines of the late 189os and 1905-1908 were reprints and extracts from articles written by people outside the Forest Service.50For example, Indian Engineering blasted the Forest Service for allowing forests in catchment areas to degradewhile organizing extractive activities for profit.51 Meanwhile, some foresters derided such desiccationist perspectives as "unscientific."For example, while the 1908 famine was still a fresh memory, a contributor from the Forest Service admonished the Burma forest department that it "woulddo well to dropfurther references to the beneficial effect upon the climate of a country exercised by forests."52 Conveying a keen sense of embarrassmentthat many foresters were associated with these theories despite the lack of adequate quantitative evidence to support them, the anonymous contributorquoted LordKelvin, saying "whenyou cannot express it in numbers, your knowledgeis of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind."53Other letters published in TheIndian Foresterduringtheturn-of-the-century famines expressed a similar desire to distance themselves from the idea that forest protection might help prevent famine through regulation of stream flow and impact on rainfall. Nonetheless, the seemingly unrelenting occurrenceof famine at the turn of the twentieth century kept the possible connections between deforestation and famines at the center of debates. In 1901, L. C.Innes wrote:"it is noteworthythat, at the commencement of the terrible famine which has just now terminated, it was confidently asserted by the most experienced officials that the railwaysand other communications had been so greatly extended since the previous famine that it was practically impossible that the famine then apprehendedcould be attended with any serious amount of distress. And it is a fair inference, from the facts which so completely falsified these prognostications, that no amount of elaboration of the means of transporting grain from one part of the country to another can altogether prevent the more serious effects of famine from taking place."54 Innes was at this point an old man and his advocacyfor reforestation was a reformulationof an argumenthe had first presented in a pamphlet in 1859.55 In fact, he cited as his sources the same desiccationist writers whose influence had been brought to bear in the creation of departmentsof forest conservationunder East India Company(EIC) rule. Innes relied heavily on "Ribbentrop'sReport," which had been published a year before, after BertholdRibbentrop retired from a distinguished careerin the Forest Service.Ribbentrop, in turn, relied on the same authorities (Alexandervon Humboldt, Jean-Baptiste Boussingault, Alexander Gibson, , among them) that Innes cited directly.56One might dismiss Innes as an old crank,hopelessly out of touch and out of date,but it would

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 332 I ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 1 1 (APRIL 2006)

be difficult to dismiss Ribbentropso easily. In fact, the preceding four decades had producedlittle new scientific work on forests and local climate. The forestry community appearedto have almost droppedthe question. The lack of information and apparentlack of interest in the climatic effects of forests is surprising.In the middle of the nineteenth century,it was the subject of much scientific debate and inquiry. As early as 1847, in response to a paper from AlexanderGibson, the EICCourt of Directorsissued a circularletter asking the government of India to ascertain "the effect of trees on the climate and productiveness of a country,and the results of extensive clearances of timber."57 Although an initial flurry of responses pointed to evidence of springs drying up after forest clearances,no definite replywas ever given.58In the 187os and 188os, the meteorologist HenryBlanford conducted three studies to investigate the role of forests in local hydrologyand rainfall.59Over twenty years, Blanfordcompared multiple pairs of rain gauges inside and outside natural forests and irrigated plantation forests as well as averagerainfall in a deforestedarea before and after reforestation. Blanfordcautiously wrote, "the evidence, so far as it goes, favours the idea that the forest increases rainfall."60The study was barely noted in The Indian Forester,and neither Innes nor Ribbentropcited it. Sixty years after the EICCourt of Directors'inquiry, in a 1907 note to the heads of the ForestService, the secretaryof state for India,Lord Morley, asked the same question aboutthe effects of forests on climate,groundwater, and flooding.61There was little enthusiasm for revisiting the question. The Indian Forester editorialized, "Thebeneficial results of forests on the retention and regulation of surface moisture is a generally accepted fact, but it will be hard to produce data to prove that this is the case."62Sir William Schlich, inspector general of forests, replieddirectly to the viceroy:"an investigation of the influence of forests on rainfall would be very difficult and unlikely to lead to any definite result."63 The official report compiled by the chief conservator of forests of the Central Provinces was inconclusive. The influence of forest on rainfall was "probably small,"and regarding the effect on groundwater "the papers forwardeddid not provide sufficient information to justify any change in the principles on which the forest policy of the Governmenthas hitherto been based."The reportwent on to characterizethose principles as being "foundedmainly on considerations of a directly economic character, connected with the conservation of the grazing resources and forest produce of the country, and that the climatological considerations did not in any way affect these well-establishedprinciples."64 The broad concern for public welfare evinced by Gibson in 1847 had disappeared entirely.Equally importantly, the recommendationwas to act on inconclusiveness as though it were a negative. Bemoaning the persistent tendency of revenue officers and foresters to consider the climatic effects of forests unproven and forest resources to be virtually inexhaustible, B. H. Baden-Powellwrote in 1892, "Theabsolute fallacy of this idea, it is to be feared,will not be established till our forests are (experimentally)ruined before their eyes."65By the early twentieth century,his fear seemed to be coming true.

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE INDIAN FOREST SERVICE I 333

"APURELY COMMERCIAL CONCERN" BYTHE EARLY twentieth century,forestry had become a state enterprise. From 1890 to 1920, the annual nominal revenue surplus of the Indian Forest Service more than tripled.Whereas forest revenues contributedon averageless than one percentto the total governmentrevenues in the i88os, they averagedalmost three percent between 1910 and 1920.66 The recordedamount of timber removedfrom the forest increased 300 percent. The amount of timber grantedto right holders and fee grantees stayed steady, but sale to timber contractors and commercial purchasing agents shot up impressively:measured in cubic feet sold, the amount sold to purchasers increased from 6oo,ooo in 1896-7 to 4.1 million in 1913-1914 to 8.3 million in 1915-16. The annual revenue from grass and fodder accounted for about 27 percent of the total revenue surplus of the Indian Forest Service in 1916-1917.67 With the expansion of irrigation in the Punjab,the general management of forests in all their diversity began to give way to the business management of irrigated tree plantations. Meanwhile two million acres of forests in the southwestern plains of Punjab disappeared under the colonization scheme.68 Besides the loss of nomads' grazing land and biodiversity,the disappearanceof the scrub forests resulted in increased wind erosion, which combinedwith water logging and salinization to take 5oo,ooo acres out of production each decade after 1900.69 The deforestation driven by the growth of the canal colonies representedno net loss to the Indian Forest Service since it could replace the fuel and building supply function with irrigatedplantations. Moreover,with plantations,the forest department could charge more and better regulate tree growth. One could reasonably argue that the Forest Service forsook its role as environmental protectorto become a client of the irrigationdepartment. By the 1920S, with seven majorirrigated plantations totaling 61,999 acres, writers for The Indian Forester no longer promotedthe benefits of forests to irrigation;they were too concerned with the inverse range of problems, such as the cost of irrigation water and the profitablemanagement of plantations.7?Scientific and economic forestrycreated (withthe help of publicworks departments)a regulatedlandscape that conformed to the disciplinary and bureaucraticdemands for legibility and order.71 The First WorldWar accelerated and reinforcedthe trend towardexploitation in the Forest Service.The impact of the war on India-with its demands for wheat, cotton, wood products, and soldiers-is well known. Northwestern India was particularlyaffected. Duringthe war, more than 480,ooo Punjabis served in the Army,of whom 318,000 were combatants. Of the male population of the Punjab, one man in 28 was mobilized (compareto 1 man in 15o for the rest of India).72The heroism of the 1gth Sikh ArmyDivision at Gallipoliis still rememberedin all of divided Punjab.73 Less commonlynoted are the contributions of India's "minorforest produce" to the war effort. Northern India's forests provided the shellac, turpentine, essential oils, and tanning materials for Britain's war economy. Timber from

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 334 I ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 1 1 (APRIL 2006)

Table 4: Forest Department Revenue 1869-1925.

30-

20 -

10 ,

0 1869. 1874- 1879. 1884 1889 1894- 1899 1904- 1909- 1914- 1919. 1924 o 70to 75 to S0t 8510 90to 95ID 1900ID 05bo 10to 15to 20ID 1925 1873. 1878. -1883 188 1893. 1898. 1903.4 1908- 1913. 1918. 1922. 74 79 84 89 94 99 09 14 19 24

E.R Stebbing, Forests of India.Vol. 3. London:John Lane,1926. (Reprint,New Delhi:A.J. ReprintsAgency, 1982.), 620.

Himalayanforests was supplied through the specially created"timber branch" of the munitions board for the construction of bridges, piers, wharves, buildings, huts and ships.74The general effect of the First WorldWar on Indian forestrywas to accelerate the transition to an extractive and commercial orientation. Forest Service revenue climbed more steeply during and just after the war than at any other time (see Table4).75 The war also had an effect on the mindset of foresters, engineers, and other civil servants in British India. The First World War was the first modern technological war, and as such could not but impress itself deeply in the psyche of those who experienced it or read about it in newspaperreports. ForEuropeans, the rise of Japanand the horrorof modernwarfare called into question their sense of security and superiority.As Michael Adas noted, slaughter in the trenches on the WesternFront caused "manyEuropean thinkers to challenge the assumption that better machines and equations demonstrated privileged access to physical as well as transcendent truths."76 In India, the war had a different impact. The power and potential of heavy machinery with the continuous tracks of the army tank, the utility of airplanes and trucks, and the perverse panacea of poisonous chemicals impressed the Empire'senvironmental managers as much as did the horrorof war.After 1918, for instance, TheIndian Foresterpublisheda markedly higher number of articles in dealing with this sort of technology, replacing to some degree the earlier emphasis on forest engineering such as slides, cables, and rails. In this sense, we could say that the commercializing and extractive influence of the war went hand in hand with the technologizing influence-each reinforcing the other, for example, tractors, trucks, airplanes (for surveys), and pesticides.

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE INDIAN FOREST SERVICE I 335

EXTRACTIVEPURPOSE CODIFIED THETENSION BETWEEN conservation and extraction,which existed before the creation of the Indian Forest Service, mirroredthe tension between Indian civil servants and foresters. District officers, who controlled all of the land in their districts prior to the 1865 creation of the Forest Service, resented the intrusion of foresters. Even a decade later, in 1876, forest officers, awareof their protective mission, saw "in the district officer a man willing to sacrifice the lasting well- being of the empire,rather than allow the people to suppose that he has ceased to be all powerfulin his district, while the district officer...regards the forest officer as full of crude and ill-digested notions, ignorant of, and indifferent to, the wants of the people...and the cause of innumerablepetitions and disputes."77Because the Forest Service was initially an imperial department,local governments had little control over forest officers or forest revenue.In 1882, however,control was decentralized and for most areas the forest officer became a subordinate of the revenueofficer known as a collector.However, this immediatelyresulted in "over- cutting,"prompting a compromisein 1884, in which the inspector-generaloversaw and approved working plans.78A convoluted and overlapping patchwork of imperial and provincial forest departments with different relations to the Civil Service thus characterizedforest administration for about a decade.79 If the district officer was concerned with increasing state revenue from the land and the forester represented a longer-term perspective in protecting the country'snatural resources, then by 1894 the district officers had clearlywon. In 1893, new rules clarified the superior position of district officers over forest officers.8o Respondingto an extradepartmentalindictment of the effect of forest practices on agriculture,the Forest Policy Resolution of 1894 was implemented to make it clear that the interests of local agriculturalists superseded the goals of forest preservation.8'Only lands suited to the production of valuable timber should be reserved, and "whereveran effective demandfor culturableland exists and can only be met from forest area, the land should ordinarilybe relinquished without hesitation."8' In 1927it was considered"expedient to consolidate the law relating to forests, the transit of forest-produceand the duty leviable on timber and other forest- produce."83Standard histories of Indian forest policy point out that the Act of 1927was simply an extension of the Act of 1878, with an expansion of government prerogatives representing "continuingefforts by the colonial administrationto restrict popular access to Indian forests."84Although it is true that the 1927 Act maintained the classification system of the former act, it also included most elements of the Forest Policy Resolution of 1894 with its emphasis on favoring revenue-generatingagricultural demands. More importantly,the purpose of the 1927 Act was not simply to republishin consolidatedform the alreadyestablished law; the new legislation was an effort to "codify all the practices of the forest officials."85Those practices, as well as the culture,mentality, and intention behind them, were markedlydifferent from those of the i86os and 1870s. ForB. H. Baden- Powell, the primary architect of the 1878 Act, forest conservation to protect ecosystem services or "indirectbenefits" was of prime importance,and not just a

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 336 I ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 1 1 (APRIL 2006)

smokescreen for expropriation.86For the framers of the 1927 Act the cultural, economic, and professional context had changed significantly. Underthe new act, forest officers retained the responsibility for designating protected, reserved, and village forests, but the emphasis in the sections on protected and reserved forests concerned licensing for extraction of timber and other forest products-in other words, making sure that the government got its share.New sections were addedto the new law in such a way that not only enabled the governmentto levy duties on timber and forest products coming out of the forests it controlled,but also on forests it did not.87The structure of the new law encouragedthe forest officer to promotethe sale of timber contracts and to make sure that the forest circles he managed contributed their share to government coffers. This was not new; it was simply the codification of existing practice and incentives. However,it opposedthe spirit of the 1878 and 1927 ForestActs, which were designed to reverse the process of indiscriminate land clearance and unsustainable timber harvests that were the result of laissez faire policies early in the nineteenth century. The 1927 Forest Act not only carefully circumscribedthe responsibilities of the Forest Service but also encapsulated the circumscription of thought within the Forest Service.This trend towardspecialization accompaniedby a narrowing of vision seems to extend to other civil services of the Raj.Bureaucratization has been a much-studiedphenomenon of the British Empire,but less well exploredis the complementaritybetween the reduction of governance to component parts and the reductionist science that guided the various corps of environmental management.88In fact, the two were mutually dependent and reinforcing. The dominance of the reductionist scientific paradigm led to a narrowing of vision that conceptually de-linked ecosystems and the needs of various groups in the minds of British administrators.Bureaucratization and reductionist science not only enabled but also requiredbureaucrats and scientific experts to concentrate on certain narrow concerns to the exclusion of others-often ignoring linkages between them. Foresters,whose organizationhad been formedprecisely because of the effects of forests on public works, agriculture, and public health, now concentratedtheir efforts and considerableexpertise on the business of managing forests to maximize the extraction of commercial species and minor forest products.

CONCLUSION SEEKINGTO PREVENTthe overexploitation of common resources, the Indian Forest Service's founders were concerned for local welfare, but also the welfare of farther-flung communities, future generations, and imperial interests in a sustainable wood supply. This involved a broad, holistic, generalist's understanding of the issues involved.By 1927, the Forest Service had become a highly specialized bureaucracyconcerned with maximizing extraction and with financial profitability.While still stressing long-termsustainability, the emphasis of the departmentalculture was squarelyon the short-termeconomic benefits of forest management ratherthan on long-termconservation, let alone the indirect

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE INDIAN FOREST SERVICE I 337 benefits of forest conservation such as flood control, erosion reduction, and climate change. Forest officials were always subordinate to the local collector, and conflict between the Revenue and Forest departments remained a sore point for bureaucratic institutions increasingly judged by their balance sheets.89Since reserved forest was not to be convertedto agriculturalfields, it was a source of revenue for the forestry department and not for the local collector. Unless foresters argued in terms of board-feet,loads of India rubber,or reams of paper, they were at a disadvantage and, worse, could be stigmatized as "unscientific." Moreover, since their job was to restrict access to a resource they were tremendously unpopularwith the rural public.90 While fear of popular unrest undermined many important conservation efforts, famines providedimpetus to review options. Emphasis on irrigation and transportationgave further strength to the engineering position. However,these distressing periods caused some to look at the climate and water regulation services providedby forests as well as their function as grazing reserves. That forest reservations deprivedagriculturalists of land that might otherwise grow more food in famine times underminedthis argument.Engineering, by contrast, benefited doubly from famines. First, famines graphically and horrifyingly highlighted the need for more irrigation works. Second,the famine relief system providedlarge amountsof cheaplabor for the constructionof the colossal schemes dreamedup by hydrologicalengineers.91 Given the difficulty foresters faced in making a conservationist argument based on indirect benefits, the Forest Service embraced an increasingly exploitationist argument-emphasizing profits, the cultivation of commercial species, and the development of new minor forest products. This narrow focus obviatedthe need for a broad-based,ecological, understandingof the forests. The corporateculture of the forest departmentreflected this in the literatureto which its memberswere exposed. This in turn had its effect on the actual management of forests in India. John Richardsand Elizabeth Flint estimate that forest cover declined from 2o percent of total land area in India in i88o to about 16 percent in 195o.09By 1971,satellite imagery indicated that India's forest cover had declined to about lo percent of total land area.93We cannot know if the decline in forest area would have been more or less extreme had forest policy been different. Historians and foresters tend to agree on the general continuity of forest policy in India from the 1920S to the 198os. Starting in the 1970s, the government expanded the area formally designated as forest (and thus subject to Forest Service protection and management).94A decadelater, reforestation efforts bore fruit in increased actual forest cover.Since the 1980s this trend of increasing forest coverhas continued. By 2000, satellite images and governmentstatistics indicated that actual forest coverexceeded 20 percent-higher than mid-nineteenthcentury levels.95 However, only 59 percent of the actual forest cover of the country is in the form of dense forests.96The rest of the forest cover consists of open forests and mangroves. Moreover,forest practices and policies vary greatly across regions and states, sometimes resulting in increased forest cover but decreased forest quality. In

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 338 I ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 1 1 (APRIL 2006)

Uttar Pradesh,for example,between 1960 and 1990 more than half of the natural forests were clearedto plant eucalyptus,a faster-growing,highly invasive species with very high water demands.97 The new social forestry and joint forest management policies formalized in 1988 emphasize the involvement of local populations in forest management directlycontrast with the priorforest policies, which emphasizedalmost complete state controlover the forests. Based on ethnographicresearch at , Kevin Hannam has demonstrated that the training of the Forest Service instills a hierarchical,elite culturethat inhibits the implementationof these more socially sensitive forest policies. "Theactual work that the forest officer is expected to undertake may have changed beyond recognition," writes Hannam, "but the recruitment and training methods have not and... remain more concerned with maintainingthe esprit de corpsof the service."98The curriculumwould be familiar to a CoopersHill graduate.Instilled with a sense of belonging to a scientific elite, forest officers are generally unenthusiastic about the new policies, and high personnel turnoverrates have been the result.99Considerable evidence indicates that the culture of the Forest Service has maintained many of the specialized, technocratic, revenue-orientedcharacteristics described here. While this made for a Forest Service well suited to the policies of 1927, it led to an institutional incapacityto accomplishthe social forestrygoals of the new policies. As it adapts to new realities, the Forest Service can look to its own past to find a culture of scientific generalists, sensitive to local conditions and knowledge,and committed to forest conservation for broad environmentalbenefit.

Ben Weil is a doctoral student in environmental studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz. His article, "TheRivers Come,"publishedin the February 2006 issue of Environment and History, investigates British colonial approaches flood control on the Indus River. His dissertation on the history of renewable energy policy in California from the 1970S to the present is to be completed in September.

NOTES I thank Ravi Rajan, Sudipta Sen, Ray Weil, Lisa Rasco, and three anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments. 1. Eric Stokes, TheEnglish UtilitariansandIndia (Delhiand NewYork:Oxford University Press, 1989); Das Pallavi, "Hugh Cleghorn and Forest Conservancy in India," Environmentand History ii (2005): 55-82;Indra Munshi Saldanha,"Colonialism and Professionalism:A GermanForester in India,"Environment and History2 (1996):195- 219; RamachandraGuha, "The Prehistory of Indian Environmentalism,"University of California, Berkeley, April 1, 1997. 2. MadhavGadgil and RamachandraGuha, This FissuredLand: An EcologicalHistory of India (Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Ramachandra Guha, "Forestryin British and Post-British India: A Historical Analysis," Economic and Political Weeklyi8 (1983); RamachandraGuha, The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990); Richard Haeuber, "Indian Forestry Policy in Two Eras:

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE INDIAN FOREST SERVICE I 339

Continuityor Change?,"Environmental History Review17(1993); Vasant K. Saberwal, "Science and the Desiccationist Discourse of the 2oth Century,"Environment and History4 (1998). 3. Gadgil and Guha, This Fissured Land, 123-34. 4. Richard Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, TropicalIsland Edens, and the Originsof Environmentalism,i6oo-i86o (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1995); Richard Grove,Vinita Damodaran,and Satpal Sangwan, eds., Nature and the Orient: The EnvironmentalHistory of South and Southeast Asia, Studies in Social Ecology and EnvironmentalHistory (Delhi and New York:Oxford University Press, 1998). 5. Grove,Green Imperialism. 6. Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology,and Ideologies of WesternDominance (Ithaca,N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989); DavidGilmartin, "Scientific Empire and Imperial Science: Colonialism and Irrigation Technology in the Indus Basin,"Journal of Asian Studies 53 (1994). 7. Thomas R. Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1995). 8. B. H.Baden-Powell, "Note on the Demarcationof the ForestArea in Districts Containing Hill or Mountain Ranges,"The Indian Forestera (1877): 263. Baden-Powelljoined the Indian ForestDepartment in 1870 as Conservatorof Forests in the Punjab.From 1872- 1874 he was acting inspector-generalof forests to the governmentof India.Although he began his careerin the Bengal CivilService, he was throughouthis service in India connected to the province of Punjab.He was an assistant commissioner, postmaster general of Punjab,commissioner, and judge in Punjabcourts, starting in Small Cause Court and ending his career as a judge of the Chief Court of the Punjab."The Late Baden Henry Baden-Powell, C.I.E.," The Indian Forester 27 (1901). 9. E. P. Stebbing, Forests of India, 3 vols. (1926; reprint,New Delhi:A.J. Reprints Agency, 1982), 3: 345. 10. Ibid., 3: 351-54. ii. Gadgil and Guha, This Fissured Land;Haeuber, "Indian Forestry Policy in TwoEras"; K. Sivaramakrishnan,Modern Forests: Statemaking and EnvironmentalChange in ColonialEastern India (Stanford,Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999). i2. S. Ravi Rajan, "Imperial Environmentalism or Environmental Imperialism? The Agendasand Ideologies of NaturalResource Management in British India,185o-9goo, in Nature and the Orient,ed. Grove,Damodaran, and Sangwan. 13. While an attempt to understand something as nuanced and complex as culture by categorizing and counting articles is inherently limited, the exercise helps in eliminating investigator bias while confirming trends perceived through traditional historical documentaryinterpretation. Comparisons are in terms of percentages,since the rawnumber of articles of various categories is less importantthan the proportion of each appearingin the journalin any given year. In all of the statistical analysis that follows, the sample size (n=7,889)is identical to the population. Since there are no distributionalor probabilitytests used, this does not affect the statistical significance or power of correlations used. Raw data is availablefrom the author upon request. 14. Othercategories, not analyzed in this essay, included "foreignforestry departments," "departmentaldevelopment," "rural relations," "curiosities," and "other." 15. AjaySkaria, "Timber Conservancy, Desiccationism and Scientific Forestry:The Dangs 1840s-1920s,"in Nature and the Orient,ed. Grove,Damodaran, and Sangwan,625-26. 16. Esprit de corps and Conservation(r=-o.24, P=o.o4); Esprit de corps and Exploitation (r=o.55,P=o.1o). 17. Kevin Hannam, "Utilitarianism and the Identity of the Indian Forest Service," Environmentand History 6 (2000); Vandana Shiva, Staying Alive: Women,Ecology,

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 340 I ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 11 (APRIL 2006)

and Developmentin India (London:Zed Books, 1988). i8. John M. MacKenzie, "The Imperial Pioneer and Hunter and the British Masculine Stereotypein LateVictorian and EdwardianTimes," in Manliness and Morality:Middle- Class Masculinity in Britain and America, 1800-1940, ed. J. A. Mangan and James Walvin (Manchester:Manchester University Press, 1987),179; quoted in Hannam, "Utilitarianismand the Identity of the Indian Forest Service,"220. See also John M. MacKenzie,The Empire of Nature: Hunting, Conservation,and British Imperialism (NewYork: St. Martin'sPress, 1988). 19. Dietrich Brandis, quoted in J. McDonell, "EarlyDays of ," Empire Forestry Journal 8 (1929): 85-97. 2o. Richard Drayton, Nature's Government: Science, Imperial Britain, and the "Improvement"of the World(Suffolk, England: St. EdumundsburyPress, 2000), 190- 96. 21. Grove,Green Imperialism, 425, 431. 22. Ibid., 423n. 23. On the curriculum of the Indian Civil Service see: B. B. Misra, The Bureaucracyin India:AnHistoricalAnalysis of Developmentup to 1947(Delhi:Oxford University Press, 1977). 24. Hannam,"Utilitarianism and the Identity of the Indian Forest Service,"215-18. 25. On Addiscombe, see Command Papers (1857) 974, vol. 6: 1. On Coopers Hill, see CommandPapers (1905) 2523, vol. 57: 579. Quotefrom p. 589. 26. O.C.H.,"The Training of Indian Foresters,"The Indian Forester38 (1912): 44. 27. Reportof the InterdepartmentalCommittee on ImperialForestry Education. Command Papers and Reports (1921) iii6, vol. 12: 726. 28. DietrichBrandis, "Indian Forestry," Imperial andAsiatic QuarterlyReviewandOriental and Colonial RecordSer. 3:3, no. 5/6 (1897), Wilhelm Schlich, "The Indian Forester, 1875-1925," The Indian Forester 5i (1925), Robert K. Winters, "Forestry Beginings in India," Journal of Forest History 19 (1974). 29. Saldanha,"Colonialism and Professionalism,"202-08. 30. Ibid., 202. 31. Dietrich Brandis, "Formation of Village Forests in Mysore" (Mysore and Coorg: Inspector General of Forests, 1868); Dietrich Brandis and Evelyn Arthur Smythies, "Reportof the Proceedings of the Forest Conference Held at Simla, October1875" (Calcutta:Office of the Superintendent of GovernmentPrinting, 1875), 44; Brandis, "Indian Forestry," 13-14, i6. 32. Dietrich Brandis, "Suggestions Regarding Forests Administration in Ajmere and Merwara,"(Calcutta: Government Central Branch Press, 1879), 42. 33. Dietrich Brandis, "Progressof Forestryin India,"The Indian Forester10 (1884): 453. 34. Misra, TheBureaucracy in India, 74. 35. Sainthill Eardley-Wilmot,Forest Life and Sport in India (London:Edward Arnold publisher for H. M. India Office, 1910), 77. 36. JamesWilliam Best, ForestLife in India (London:J. Murray, 1935), 6i. Citedin Hannam, "Utilitarianismand the Identity of the Indian Forest Service,"221-22. 37. Eardley-Wilmot,Forest Life and Sport in India, 218. 38. TheodoreS. Woolsey,Jr., "Impressions of ForestAdministration in British India,"The Indian Forester 39 (1913): 293. 39. Eardley-Wilmot,Forest Life and Sport in India, 320. 40. WendellBerry, Life Is a Miracle:An Essay against ModernSuperstition (Washington, D.C.:Counterpoint, 2000), 41. 41. Woolsey,"Impressions," 295. 42. RichardP. Tucker, "Non-Timber Forest Products Policy in the WesternHimalayas under British Rule,"in Nature and the Orient,ed. Grove,Damodaran, and Sangwan,472.

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE INDIAN FOREST SERVICE I 341

43. I did not breakdown these componentsof "science"in my quantitativesurvey, so these judgments are more impressionistic (although based on a fairly rigorous and methodical survey)than most of the other trend statements coming from this study. This impression is further complicated by the fact that many of these pesticide and fungicide trials were so focused on protecting major commercial species that they had to be categorized under the "chemistry"subhead of "exploitation"rather than "science."However, since this serves to artificiallyreduce the linkage between"science" and "exploitation,"the strong correlationbetween the two categories seems even more remarkable. 44. Drayton, Nature's Government, chs. 6-7. 45. Forest Research Institute (DehraDun India),ioo Years of Indian Forestry, 1861-1961, 2 vols., (DehraDun: Forest Research Institute, 1961), 2: vi. 46. It is even moredifficult to explain what factorallows forests to invigorateor to promote a sense of peace of mind. 47. Indian Irrigation Commission, "Reportof the Indian Irrigation Commission, 1901- 1903," in East India (Irrigation) (London:Command Papers, 1903), pt. 1, para. 114. 48. John Hurd, "Railways,"in The Cambridge Economic History of India, ed. Dharma Kumar and Desai Meghnad (NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 739. 49. HimadriBanerjee, Agrarian Society of the Punjab, 1849-1901 (New Delhi: Manohar, 1982), 49-50. 5o. Moreover,of the remaining articles, more than half had to do with the conservation of forests as fodder and fuel reserves, three out of the remaining eight had to do with regeneration techniques. 51. "IndianForest Conservation (from Indian Engineering)," The Indian Forester35 (1909). 5z. Op.,"Want of a Definite Forest Policy in Burma,"The Indian Forester37 (1911):368. 53. Ibid., 371. 54. L. C. Innes, "Prevention of Famine in India," The Imperial andAsiatic QuarterlyReview and Oriental and Colonial Record 12 (3rdSeries) (1901): 33. 55. L. C. Innes, "Vegetationas Connectedwith Water-Supply,"(Madras: 1859). 56. BertholdRibbentrop, Forestry in British India (Calcutta:Office of the Superintendent of GovernmentPrinting, 1900), 49-67. 57. East India CompanyCourt of Directors,Despatch no.21 of July7,1847. Quotedin E. G. Balfour,"The Influence Exercisedby Trees on the Climateand Productivenessof the Peninsula of India,"in Reportof the Famine Commission(London: Command Papers, 188o). 58. J. Nisbet, "IndianFamines and Indian Forests (Reprintfrom the Nineteenth Century and After)," The Indian Forester 34 (19o8): 644. 59. HenryFrancis Blanford,"On the Influence of Indian Forests on the Rainfall,"Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 56 (Part2) (1887):1-15. 6o. Ibid., 14 6i. He actually forwardeda note from a formerforest service scientist, Dr.I. Nisbet, which posed the question. 62. "The Enquiry Concerning the Physical Effects of Forests," The Indian Forester 34 (1908): 385. 63. Quotedin "Forestsand Water-Supply,"The Indian Forester34 (1908). 64. M. Hill, "Noteon the Enquiryby the Governmentof India into the Relation between Forests and Atmosphericand Soil Moisture in India,"Forest Bulletin 33 (1916):41. 65. B. H. Baden-Powell,"Forest Settlements in India,"The Indian Forester18 (1892): 147. 66. Data sources: Statistical Abstract Relating to British India. From 1867/8 to 1876/7. No. 12, 1876/7 to 1885/6. No. 21, 1885-86 to 1894-95. No. 30,1894-95 to 1903-04. No. 39,1903-04 to 1912-13. No. 48,1910-11 to 1919-1920. No. 55. Retrieved from "The Digital

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 342 I ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 11 (APRIL 2006)

South Asia Library"[Cited January 31, 20061 http://dsal.uchicago.edu/statistics/ index.html. 67. Unless otherwise noted, the figures in this paragraphare fromNeeladri Bhattacharya, "ColonialState and Agrarian Society,"in The Making of Agrarian Policy in British India 1770-1900, ed. Burton Stein (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992),137. 68. Ibid. 69. On the loss of grazing land and biodiversity,see Indu Agnihotri, "Ecology,Land Use and Colonisation: The Canal Colonies of Punjab,"The Indian Economic and Social HistoryReview33(1996). On wind erosion, see W.E. Stampe,PlanningforPlenty(Delhi: Governmentof India, 1944). Citedin ElizabethWhitcombe, "The Environmental Costs of Irrigation,"in Nature, Culture,Imperialism, ed. David Arnold and Ramachandra Guha;Studies in Social Ecologyand EnvironmentalHistory (Delhi:Oxford University Press, 1995), 255. Rukhs are scrub forests often protected by local custom and located near riversin the Punjab,Rajputana, and Sindh. Rehis waterlogging,or oversaturation of soil from overirrigationand a rising water table. Khallarrefers to the salination and alkaline toxicity left in the upper layers of soil after persistent irrigation. Both these conditions allow only the most salt-tolerantplant species to survive. 70. J.W. A. Grieve,"The Management of the PunjabIrrigated Plantations as Self-Contained Forest Estates on Commercial Lines," The Indian Forester 46 (1921): 104. 71. On the concept of bureaucracies causing landscapes to increasingly resemble the abstractions in their maps and management plans, see James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State:How CertainSchemes to Improvethe HumanCondition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998). 72. Hugh KennedyTrevaskis, The Punjab of To-Day:AnEconomic Survey of the Punjabin Recent Years (189o-1 925), 2 vols. (Lahore: The "Civil and Military Gazette" Press, 1931), 1:43. 73. RichardFox, Lions of the Punjab(Berkeley and Los Angeles: Universityof California Press, 1986). 74. EvelynArthur Smythies, India'sForest Wealth(London: H. MilfordOxford University Press, 1924), 82-91; Ibid., 13, 82, and 84. 75. Data from Stebbing, Forests of India, 620. 76. Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men, 7. 77. Charles Amery, "Onthe Relation between District and Forest Officers,"The Indian Forester 84 (1876): 296. 78. BernhardE. Fernow,A BriefHistory of Forestryin Europethe UnitedStates and Other Countries(Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1911), 397. 79. Ribbentrop,Forestry in British India, 76-82. 8o. "TheNew Draft Rules RegardingSettlement and the Positions of Revenueand Forest Officers,"The Indian Forester19 (1893). 8i. JohnAugustus Voelcker,Report on the Improvementof Indian Agriculture(London: Printed by Eyre and Spottiswoode,1893). 82. "National Forest Policy,"(1894). Reprinted in Governmentof India, "Reportof the National Commission on Agriculture1976, Part Ix: Forestry.Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation,"(New Delhi: 1976). 83. TheIndian ForestAct, XVI,(1927), Ch.1, S.1. 84. Haeuber,"Indian Forestry Policy in TwoEras," 57. 85. Sharad Kulkarni, "Forest Legislation and Tribals: Comments on Forest Policy Resolution,"Economic and Political Weekly22 (1987). 86. See, for example, B. H. Baden-Powell,"The 'Chos' of Hoshiarpur,"The Indian Forester 5 (1879); Baden-Powell,"Demarcation of the ForestArea," B. H. Baden-Powell,"On the Defects of the Existing Forest Law(Act Vii of 1865) and Proposals for New ForestAct,"

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE INDIAN FOREST SERVICE I 343

in Report of the Proceedings of the Forest Conference, 1873-74, ed. B. H. Baden-Powell and J. S. Gamble (Calcutta: Government Press, 1874). 87. The Indian Forest Act, chs.2, 4.; Ibid., ch. 6, 7, 8. 88. See, for example, Misra, The Bureaucracy in India, Donald M. Schug, "The Bureaucratisation of Forest Management in India," EnvironmentandHistory6 (2000). 89. Ribbentrop, Forestry in British India, 76-88, 155-57. go. The literature on the general unpopularity of the Forest Department and on forest rebellions and Satyagrahas is extensive. See especially Gadgil and Guha, This Fissured Land, Guha, The Unquiet Woods, Ramachandra Guha and Madhav Gadgil, "Forestry and Social Conflict in British India: A Study of the Ecological Bases of Peasant Protest," Past and Present 123 (1989). On forest movements see D. E. U. Baker, "ASerious Time, Forest Satyagraha in Madhya Pradesh, 1930," Indian Economic and Social History Review21 (1984), Mahesh Rangarajan, Feflcing the Forest: Conservation and Ecological Change in India's Central Provinces, i86o-1 914, Studies in Social Ecology and Environmental History (New Delhi, Oxford, and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 95-137. 91. F. H. S. Merewether, A Tour through the Famine Districts of India (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1898). See also Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niuo Famines and the Making of the Third World (London and New York: Verso, 2001), 37-41, 166-67. 92. John F. Richards and Elizabeth P. Flint, "Historic Land Use and Carbon Estimates for South and Southeast Asia: 1880-1980" (Oak Ridge, Tenn.: Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 1994). 93. Andrew D. Foster and Mark R. Rosenzweig, "Economic Growth and the Rise of Forests," The Quarterly Journal Of Economics ii8 (2003). 94. FAO,FAO Statistical Databases (FAOStat 2001) [CD-ROM](FAO, 2001 [cited Feb 8 20041), Foster and Rosenzweig, "Economic Growth and the Rise of Forests," 603. 95. FAO,FAO Statistical Databases (cited 2005), Foster and Rosenzweig, "Economic Growth and the Rise of Forests," 603, Government of Haryana, "State-Wise Geographic Area, Recorded Forest Area and Actual Forest Cover in India (1998-1999)," (Department of Forests, 2000). 96. Government of Haryana, "State-Wise Geographic Area." 97. UPFC (Uttar Pradesh Forest Corporation), "Annual Report, 1990," (Lucknow: UPFC, 1990). Cited by Foster and Rosenzweig, "Economic Growth and the Rise of Forests," n18. 98. Kevin Hannam, "Educating an Environmental Elite: The Training of the Indian Forest Service," Institutional Research in Geographical and Environmental Education 9 (2000): 268. 99. D. Sen, A. Purandare, and P. Das, "Social Forestry in India (Analysis of Various Models)," (Hyderabad: National Institute for Rural Development, 1993),19. Cited in Hannam, "Educating an Environmental Elite," 268.

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.67 on Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:23:46 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions