Guns and Shikaris: the Rise of the Sahib's Hunting Ethos and the Fall of the Subaltern Poacher in British India, 1750-1947
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Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports 2012 Guns and shikaris: The rise of the sahib's hunting ethos and the fall of the subaltern poacher in British India, 1750-1947 Fiona Mani West Virginia University Follow this and additional works at: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd Recommended Citation Mani, Fiona, "Guns and shikaris: The rise of the sahib's hunting ethos and the fall of the subaltern poacher in British India, 1750-1947" (2012). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 594. https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/594 This Dissertation is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by the The Research Repository @ WVU with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Dissertation in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you must obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. This Dissertation has been accepted for inclusion in WVU Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports collection by an authorized administrator of The Research Repository @ WVU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Fiona Mani Dissertation submitted to the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Joseph Hodge, Ph.D., Chair Robert Maxon, Ph.D. Mark Tauger, Ph.D. James Siekmeier, Ph.D. Gregory Barton, Ph.D. Department of History Morgantown, West Virginia 2011 Keywords: British, India, Hunting, Masculinity, Femininity, History, European History Copyright 2011 Fiona Mani Abstract Guns and shikaris: the rise of the sahib’s hunting ethos and the fall of the subaltern poacher in British India, 1750-1947 Fiona Mani This dissertation examines the history of hunting in India under British colonialism, but with some background on earlier periods and a brief discussion on Nepal and successor states of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. The study relies on Indian and British sources including private papers, memoirs, books, and official records. It examines hunting by different native groups in India, British men and women, and considers the relationship of hunting to political authority, gender identity, and conservation and the environment. Before the British takeover of India, the country had a hunting tradition that included royal hunting and tribal hunting. The British also had a hunting tradition dating back to the Middle Ages that generally limited hunting rights to the aristocracy and the royals and restricted/ prohibited hunting by other groups, which in some classes was classed as poaching. As the British extended control over large areas in the late 18th century, the British connected themselves with princely rulers to gain legitimacy. This shared activity resulted in a blending of British and Indian hunting traditions and gave rise to what I call the Anglo-Indian hunting tradition. Hunting was connected with masculinity generally, yet a small number of women also participated. The Anglo-Indian hunting tradition also involved employment of shikaris due to their expert knowledge, but the British were critical of shikaris often because they were seen as poachers and hunted without guns, which some British men viewed as “feminine.” Nevertheless, the Anglo-Indian hunt crossed social and communal boundaries as the British established strong bonds with their shikaris. The British hunting tradition emphasized paternalism congruent with the benevolence of imperialism. This tradition developed in the 19th century. British men like Jim Corbett hunted to protect Indians from the depredations of wild animals like tigers or leopards. During the 19th century British sportsmen and especially Indian princes killed large numbers of animals in their hunt. By the late 19th and certainly by the 20th century declining numbers of game animals persuaded British hunters and officials to establish a system of laws, licenses and permits to regulate and limit hunting and suppress poaching. The British sportsman of the 20th century was a gentlemanly, refined hunter whose primary characteristic trait was a sense of restraint and a strong sense of ecological awareness. Hunting retained its imperial legacy well into the post-colonial period as Indian hunters took up the mantle of the British out of a moral desire and continued to protect Indians from wild animal disturbances. iii Table of Contents Introduction Chapter 1: Hunting in Britain –Eighteenth to the Twentieth Centuries Chapter 2: Shikar: The Regal Sport of the Sahibs and Nawabs in India Before 1800 Chapter 3: Shikar: the Regal sport of the Sahibs and Maharajas in colonial India, 1800-1899. Chapter 4: Hunting and British hunters in colonial India, 1900-1947: New Technology, Humanitarian Hunters, and Growing Conservationist Awareness. Chapter 5: Hunting and Imperialism: Indigenous Hunters in colonial India, 1900-1947 Chapter 6: British Women and their Hunting Experience in the Raj, 1830-1947 Chapter 7: Regulation of Hunting in the late 19th and 20th centuries Conclusion iii i 2 Introduction: This dissertation explores the place and nature of hunting in colonial India and the onset of conservationist ideologies that arose from rampant, unchecked shooting in the late 19th century by both the British and Indians. Hunting was an obsession for the British in India in the 19th century and remained so until the end of the Raj in 1947. My argument is that the hunting practices that developed in colonial India were not directly imported from Britain, but rather, were an amalgam of the hunting traditions of England and India that were also tailored to the environment and had their own laws and meanings. In other words, it is more accurate to speak of an “Anglo-Indian” hunting tradition. Hunting in colonial India, was not a British practice imposed on India based on British experience. The Anglo-Indian tradition differed from both British hunting at home and Indian hunting of the pre-colonial period. The definition of Anglo-Indian here is simply a combination of Indian and British practices. The 20th century also saw the rise of a refined, gentlemanly hunter who restrained himself from excess hunting. Masculine dexterity was now evident in those he commanded under him in the organized hunt and in his marksmanship, rather than in his physical prowess. This study examines the formation and character of Anglo-Indian hunting with particular focus on race, gender and class to deconstruct social relations between Indians and the British. The new hunting tradition marked a refined gentlemanly hunt which relied on guns, shikaris or native hunters, beaters and which followed various hunting laws. It also led to a distancing 2 3 between Indian hunters and refined British sportsmen during the shift to preservation and conservation. The dissertation also includes a comparison of hunting practices in Britain to delineate the differences of British hunting from that of Indian hunting practices, as well as the similarities between them that were incorporated into Indian hunting to create the Anglo-Indian hunting tradition. In Britain, there was a distinct hunting tradition associated with aristocrats and the landed gentry that arose during the 18th century. While Britain also had a tradition of poachers, various Game Acts were implemented to curtail the activities of the poacher. By the late 18th century, gentlemanly hunters distinguished themselves from poachers and prided themselves on their hunting etiquette, natural history knowledge, and veterinary skills. By the 19th and 20th centuries, gentlemen and gamekeepers along with huntsmen and whippers-in who are basically huntsmen’s assistants that keep hounds in a line are no longer the only hunters. Females and other sportsmen who enjoyed recreation including working-class sportsmen joined the hunting milieu although the latter were never accepted as “hunters” mainly because they engaged in blood sports. In India, there were three distinct hunting traditions prior to British arrival: those of the princes, village commoners, and tribals. After the British came to India, a new hunting tradition developed that was distinctively Anglo-Indian. This tradition fully emerged in the 20th century. While India is commonly known for the establishment of agriculture, there is also a long history of hunting in the subcontinent. The Mohenjo-Daro peoples and the Harappas of Gujarat of the Indus Valley Civilization, the oldest 3 4 documented civilizations in India created a settled lifestyle based on wheat and barley cultivation and recent research has shown that the Harappas of Gujarat collaborated with hunter-gatherers who resided near them.1 These hunters had tools presumably for the killing of game that ranged in shape from crescents and triangles along with various stone tools. Hunter-gatherers presumably coexisted with Harappans as they traded goods such as their stone tools as well as teak and other commodities of the forest to the agricultural peoples. This co-existence of tribal hunter-gatherers and settled persons became formalized by the Forest Act of 1878 which taxed the products of the forests such as honey and helped tribal hunter-gatherers obtain a form of currency and living while giving considerable revenues to the Raj. This study does not focus on hunting in the prehistoric period but begins with a summary of various hunting aspects of the Mughal and princely ruler periods. The study begins with the Mughal hunting because that is when records are available. From around 2500 BC during the rise of the Indus valley civilization and onwards it can be shown that primitive hunters or shikaris were practicing hunting approaches that dated back to this era. There are mainly three hunting traditions. One deals with formal hunting representing the Mughals and Mughal successors from the dawn of the Mughal era to the 20th century. The second component of the Indian hunting tradition deals with hunting by shikaris or native hunters, tribals or villagers.