Climate, Race, and Imperial Authority: The Symbolic Landscape of the British Hill Station in India Author(s): Judith T. Kenny Source: Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 85, No. 4 (Dec., 1995), pp. 694-714 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of American Geographers Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2564433 . Accessed: 04/12/2013 12:39 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]. Taylor & Francis, Ltd. and Association of American Geographers are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Annals of the Association of American Geographers. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 200.75.19.130 on Wed, 4 Dec 2013 12:39:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Climate, Race, and ImperialAuthority: The Symbolic Landscape of the BritishHill Stationin India JudithT. Kenny Departmentof Geography,University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee The hill stationin modern India is fre- took precedence over the accessibilityof gov- quentlyviewed by theWestern visitor as ernment to their minions conducted imperial an islandof Victorian values and symbols governmentfrom these remote locations. withouta clientele.When thearchitectural his- The superiorityof the hillclimate forAnglo- torianPhilip Davies visitedthe municipalityof Indians (as Britishcolonials called themselves3) Ootacamund'in the Nilgiri mountains of south- was summarized by one colonial who wryly ern India, he marveled at the landscape's observed that"like meat, we keep betterhere" "curiouslydistorted vision of England,an (Eden 1983:129). And just as the climate was anachronisticreflection in an Orientalmirror" the popular prescriptionfor the physical health (1985:128). Britishjournalist Mollie Panter- of Anglo-Indians,the environmentsuited their Downes had been similarlyimpressed with this mental health as well. Sparsely settled by Indi- "comfortinglittle piece of England"and "still ans, the hillswere viewed as a blank slate on flourishingreflection of Britishrule" (1967:8, which Anglo-Indians could create a familiar 105). Perhapsit is notsurprising that these English visitorsinterpreted the landscape of Ootaca- mund as a misplacedrelic of India'scolonial pastboth in formand function.As a derivative Distributionof British-builtHillStations of a Westerncolonial experience, the hillsta- tion'sinstitutional complex and morphological images included Christianchurches, private schoolstaught in the Englishlanguage, the ad- ministrativeheadquarters of districtand state government,and the kindsof recreationalfa- cilitiesusually associated withBritish country lifeor an Englishspa. Ootacamund,or Ooty as itwas moreaffec- tionatelynicknamed, was one of approxi- matelyeighty settlements2 built by the British to serve as mountainretreats from the "hot gO season" of the Indianplains (Figure 1). Shortly afterthe establishmentof the firstof the hill stationsin 1819, Britishcolonials looked for- wardto the annualsummer migration up into the hillsaway fromthe heat,the dust,and the "natives."Beginning in the 1860s, select hill stationsalso servedas summercapitals of the 1. British-builthillstations. Distribution of In- "Raj"-a Sanskritword forrule which became Figure dian hill stations built in the nineteenth century. synonymouswith British crown rule. For six to Source:Mitchell 1972. eight monthseach year,administrators who believedthat the comfortof thecolonial rulers Annals of the Association c AnmericanGeographers, 85(4), 1995, pp. 694-714 ?1 995 by Association of American Geographers Publishedby BlackwellPublishers, 238 MainStreet, Cambridge, MA 02142, and 108 CowleyRoad, Oxford, OX4 lIF,UK. This content downloaded from 200.75.19.130 on Wed, 4 Dec 2013 12:39:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The BritishHill Station in India 695 landscape, a "comfortinglittle piece of Eng- same time,India served as a laboratoryfor en- land." vironmental"knowledge" and forappropriate Colonial planning policies continue to "European"adaptations to the tropics(Frenkel influencemodern Indians through the persist- and Western 1988; Aiken 1994).6 ence of boththe builtstructure of urbanareas Whatdoes the hillstation suggest about the and colonial models of landscape. The large differencesbetween the Britishand the Indi- degree of continuity,however, has not pre- ans? How was thislandscape shaped to serve cluded a reinterpretationof the hillstation's as a place appropriatefor the Britishrulers? valueand use. Certainly,the hillstations are not And what was the government'srole in museumpieces and the coexistenceof the so- affirmingits symbolic significance and material cialistgoals of an independentIndia with towns effect?The imperialideology of differencewas historicallyassociated with elitist, colonial val- historicallyas well as geographicallyspecific, ues createintriguing tensions and dilemmasfor but owingto space limitationsI cannot cover planners."Down HillAll the Way?,"a recent the entirehistory of the hillstation in British cover storyof the nationalmagazine India To- India.I focusinstead on the hillstations of the day (June1989), focused attentionon the fu- late nineteenthand early twentiethcentury tureof the hill stations.4 In addition to question- when,during the "hillcraze" ofthe highimpe- ingthe continuedattractiveness of the stations rialage, theirgrandeur increased and the num- as summerresorts given the impactof a grow- ber of stationsgrew rapidly.As mightbe ex- ing numberof visitorson the environmental pected,the eightyIndian hill stations were not qualityof the hilltowns, the articletouches on all createdequal. In additionto differencesof thedebate over the hillstation's role as a "para- site and situation,hill stations varied in social sitic"or 'generative"settlement form. In this acceptabilityand function.Ootacam und-the context,anticipating and planningfor the fu- premierhill station of the Madras Presidency tureof the hillstations cannot avoid an exami- and a summercapital of the British"Raj"- nationof the legaciesof imperialistsnor of the servesas a particularlyappropriate context for social, politicaland aestheticvalues thatthe examiningthe relationsbetween government Britishinscribed on these resortsettlements practicesand discoursesof the Other in the and summercapitals of the "Raj." shapingof hill-stationlandscapes. The hill stationsbuilt some two hundred yearsafter the Britisharrived in Indiawere not simplya transplantedBritish landscape. They Discourses of the Other were expressiverather of broadernineteenth- centurybeliefs that set the colonialworld apart To conceptualizediscourse is to open an fromEurope. The hillstations reflected and re- avenue for the considerationof the relation inforcedassumptions of social and racialdiffer- between languageand ideologyand between ence, and in so doing naturalizedthe separa- linguisticand non-linguisticpractice. Dis- tion of rulersand ruled.This settlementform courses can be definedas social frameworks and landscape model was embedded, of thatenable and limitways of thinkingand act- course, in a largersystem of colonialcontrol ing.7These frameworks"em brace particular and a generaldiscourse of imperialism.5By im- combinationsof narratives,concepts, ideolo- perialistdiscourse I mean the frameworkthat gies and signifyingpractices" that correspond shaped the imperialists'interpretation and rep- to an area of social action(Barnes and Duncan resentationof the non-westernworld via a sys- 1992:8). Inherentin the concept are relations tem of meaningand a process thatsustained between discourses,knowledge, representa- relationsof dominationby representingthem tions,and power.Scholarly work in thispost- as legitimate.Intertwined with imperialism is a structuralmode of analysis addresses dis- second discourserooted in Europeanclassical courses of the Other(e.g., of race, genderor theoriesof climateand race whichdefined dif- any otherconventional category of difference) ferenceby the "temperate"and "torrid"zones. thatimply power differentials.One of these, Race,and itsassociation with environment, be- colonialdiscourse theory,8 is specificallycon- came keyto thelate nineteenth-century defini- cerned with"the constructionof the colonial tionof differential power relations between the subject in discourse, and the exercise of imperialrulers and those they ruled. At the colonial power throughdiscourse" (Bhabha This content downloaded from 200.75.19.130 on Wed, 4 Dec 2013 12:39:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 696 Kenny 1994:67). Bydefinition, imperial discourse and As importantas these analysesare, muchof the discourseof climate might be subsumedin the postcolonialcritique is peripheralto this thiscategory. Maintaining their distinctiveness, examinationof the hill-stationlandscape which however,clarifies their historical role. focuses insteadon the storiesthe Britishtold Examplesabound in which culturalgroups about themselves.9In the summercapitals of have perceivedother cultures not so muchas the Raj,the relativeisolation of the hillstation theyare but in termsthat benefit the perceiv-