Conservation or Commercialisation, 1882–1947

Saravanan, Velayutham

doi:10.1007/978-981-10-8052-4_3

Velayutham Saravanan²

165 Accesses

Abstract

In this chapter, Saravanan analyses the colonial forest policy and its impact on the environment and tribals in the Madras Presidency during the post-Forest Act period (1882–1947). During this period, the colonial regime actively encouraged commercialisation while several restrictions were placed on the tribals and other forest users. Further, he argues that the initiatives of the state towards conservation were primarily intended to curtail the access enjoyed by tribals and other forest users so that commercial exploitation was facilitated.

An earlier version of the chapter was published in Journal of Forest Economics, 17(4), 2011.

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Notes

1.
About 73 square miles in the Anamalai hills were given up to planters (Stebbing Vol. IV; p. 175).
2.
Dietrich Brandis, Suggestions Regarding Forest Administration in the Madras Presidency, Madras: Government Press, 1983, p. 4.
3.
Velayutham Saravanan, ‘Tribal Land Alienation in Madras Presidency during the Colonial Period: 1792–1947’. Review of Development and Change, 6(1), 2000, p. 72; Velayutham Saravanan, ‘Colonial Agrarian Policies in the Tribal Areas of Madras Presidency: 1872–1947’. South Asia Research, 26(1), 2006, p. 72.
4.
Government of Madras, Administrative Report of the Madras Presidency 1933–34, Madras: Government Press, p. 95.
5.
E.P. Stebbing, The Forests of India, Vol. IV, London: Oxford University Press, 1962, p. 174.
6.
Ibid., pp. 174–175.
7.
Ibid., p. 175.
8.
Ibid., p. 176.
9.
Ibid., p. 175.
10.
Velayutham Saravanan, ‘Commercialisation of Forest, Environmental Negligence and Alienation of Tribal Rights in Madras Presidency: 1792–1882’. Indian Economic and Social History Review, 35(2), 1998, pp. 125–146; Velayutham Saravanan, ‘Colonialism and Coffee Plantations: Decline of Environment and Tribals in Madras Presidency during the 19th Century’. Indian Economic and Social History Review, 41(4), 2004, pp. 465–488.
11.
Velayutham Saravanan, ‘Commercial Crops, Alienation of Common Property Resources and Change in Tribal Economy in the Shervaroy Hills of Madras Presidency During the Colonial Period’, Review of Development and Change, 4(2), 1999, pp. 298–317; Velayutham Saravanan, ‘Economic Exploitation of Forest Resources in South India during Pre–Forest Act Colonial Era, 1793–1882,’ International Forestry Review: The International Journal of Forest Science and Policy, 10(1), 2008, pp. 65–73.
12.
See Madras Administration Report (various years).
13.
Stebbing, The Forests of India, p. 177.
14.
See Administration Report of the Madras Presidency and Administration Report of the Forest Department (various years).
15.
W.H.W. Adolphus, Consolidated Working Plan for the Central Salem Division, Madras, 1932, p. 19.
16.
Government Order (hereafter G. O.), No.1753, Revenue, 17 August 1936, p. 10 (Tamil Nadu State Archives, Chennai, hereafter TNSA).
17.
It was a lowest money measurement: 12 pies equal to one anna, 16 annas or 172 pies equal to Company rupees.
18.
G. O. No. 1139 [Misc], Development, 27 January, 1921, TNSA.
19.
G. O. No. 1793, Revenue, 17 August, 1936, p. 9, TNSA.
20.
Ibid., p. 10.
21.
Ibid.
22.
Ibid.
23.
Ibid.
24.
Ibid.
25.
Saravanan, ‘Commercialisation of Forest, Environmental Negligence, pp. 125–146; Saravanan, ‘Economic Exploitation of Forest Resources in South India’.
26.
Saravanan, ‘Commercialisation of Forest, Environmental Negligence and Alienation of Tribal rights’, pp. 125–146; Saravanan, ‘Colonialism and Coffee Plantations’, pp. 465–488; Velayutham Saravanan, ‘Colonial Commercial Forest Policy and the Tribal Private Forests in Madras Presidency: 1792–1881′. Indian Economic and Social History Review, 40(4), 2003, pp. 403–423.
27.
Report on the Administration of the Forest Department, 1923–1924, p. 55.
28.
Saravanan, ‘Commercialisation of Forest, Environmental Negligence, pp. 125–146; Saravanan, ‘Economic Exploitation of Forest Resources in South India’.
29.
Ramachandra Guha and Madhav Gadgil, ‘State Forestry and Social Conflict in British India’. Past and Present, 122, 1989, pp. 120–123.
30.
Morris David Morris and Clyde B. Dudley, ‘Selected Railway Statistics for the Indian Subcontinent (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, 1853–1946–47’ Artha Vijnana, 17(3), 1975, pp. 194–196.
31.
Ibid., pp. 243–245.
32.
Saravanan, ‘Economic Exploitation of Forest Resources in South India’.
33.
Statistical Abstract Relating to British India (various Years).
34.
Brandis, ‘Suggestions Regarding Forest Administration’, p. 32.
35.
Ibid., p. 40.
36.
Saravanan, ‘Commercialisation of Forest, Environmental Negligence, pp. 125–146; ‘Economic Exploitation of Forest Resources in South India’.
37.
Saravanan, ‘Commercialisation of Forest, Environmental Negligence, pp. 125–146.
38.
Madras Administration Reports (for various years).
39.
Velayutham Saravanan, ‘Environmental History of Tamil Nadu State, Law and Decline of Forest and Tribals, 1950–2000’. Modern Asian Studies, 41(4), 2007, pp. 723–767.
40.
Saravanan, ‘Colonialism and Coffee Plantations’, pp. 465–488.
41.
C.D. Maclean, Manual of the Administration of the Madras Presidency, 3 Vols. Madras: Government Press, 1885, p. 290.
42.
Dharma Kumar, Land and Caste in South India: agricultural labour in Madras Presidency in the nineteenth century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965, p. 126.
43.
Maclean, Manual of the Administration of the Madras Presidency, p. 404.
44.
G. O. No. 1793, Revenue, 17 August 1936, p. 49, TNSA.
45.
Government of Madras, Season and Crop Report of the Madras Presidency 1912–13, Madras: Government Press.
46.
Maclean, Manual of the Administration of the Madras Presidency, p. 336.
47.
Saravanan, ‘Commercialisation of Forest, Environmental Negligence, pp. 125–146; Saravanan, ‘Economic Exploitation of Forest Resources in South India’.
48.
Government of Madras, Administration Report of the Forest Department, 1927–28, Madras: Government Press, p. 7.
49.
Stebbing, The Forests of India, p. 177.
50.
Ibid., p. 186.
51.
Ibid., p. 187.
52.
Saravanan, ‘Commercialisation of Forest, Environmental Negligence, pp. 125–146; Saravanan, ‘Economic Exploitation of Forest Resources in South India’; Saravanan, ‘Tribal Land Alienation in Madras Presidency’; Saravanan, ‘Colonialism and Coffee Plantations: Decline of Environment and Tribals’; Velayutham Saravanan, ‘Agrarian policies in the tribal areas of Madras Presidency during the pre–survey and settlement period, 1792–1872, Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, 65(2), 2010, pp. 261–276; Velayutham Saravanan, ‘Thamizhaga Malaival Makkalin Nila Urimai’ [‘Land Rights of Tribals in Tamil Nadu’. Special Issue]. Uzhavan Urimai: 1999, pp. 53–57 (in Tamil).
53.
Census Statement of Population of 1871, Salem District and Census of India 1951, Census Handbook, Salem District.
54.
G. O. No. 2332 [Mis], Revenue, 24 October 1925; G. O. No. 1793, Revenue, 17 August, 1936, pp. 17–45, TNSA.
55.
Census Statement of Population of 1871, Salem District.
56.
‘In times prior to colonial rule the whole of the Pariah community, without exception, were the slaves of the superior castes’ (Census of India 1871. Census of the Madras Presidency 1871 A Report, Vol. I, Madras, 1874, p. 169.
57.
Saravanan, ‘Tribal Land Alienation in Madras Presidency’; Saravanan, ‘Commercial Crops, Alienation of Common Property Resources’.
58.
G. O. No. 1793, Revenue, 17 August 1936, p. 91, TNSA.
59.
Census of India 1961, Vol. IX, Madras Part XXI. District Census Hand Book, Salem, Vol. II, 1965.
60.
G. O. No. 605, Revenue, 30 June 1905, pp. 15, 19, 27, and 33, TNSA; G. O. No. 1130, Revenue, 18 May 1916, TNSA.
61.
G. O. No. 2332 [Misc], Revenue, 24 October 1925, p. 3, TNSA.
62.
Institute of Techno–Economic Studies, Indebtedness of Scheduled Tribes in Tamil Nadu, Madras: Institute of Techno–Economic Studies, 1978.
63.
Saravanan, ‘Commercial Crops, Alienation of Common Property Resources’, p. 304.
64.
BOR, Vol. 1537, 10 November. 1836, pp. 18133–18136, TNSA.
65.
Saravanan, ‘Colonialism and Coffee Plantations: Decline of Environment and Tribals’.
66.
Census Statement of Population of 1871, Salem District.
67.
Ibid.
68.
In the 1951 Census, the cultivators of land wholly or mainly unowned and their dependants, cultivating labourers and their dependants are brought under the labourers category.
69.
Census of India 1951, Census Handbook, Salem District.
70.
Velayutham Saravanan, ‘Agrarian policies in the tribal areas of Madras Presidency during the pre–survey and settlement period, 1792–1872, Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, 65(2), 2010, pp. 261–276.
71.
G. O. No. 605, Revenue, 30 June 1905, TNSA.
72.
G. O. No. 1793, Revenue, 17 August 1936, TNSA.
73.
Ibid.

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Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India
Velayutham Saravanan

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Saravanan, V. (2018). Conservation or Commercialisation, 1882–1947. In: Environmental History and Tribals in Modern India. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8052-4_3

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8052-4_3
Published: 08 March 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-8051-7
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