Clearing the Forest: Colonialism and Deforestation in Nagaland, Northeast India

Abstract

Despite emergence of conservative ideas of forest, desire of Empire building among the colonialists made them world leader in deforestation. In continuation of this polity, the British exploited natural resources from its colonies in Indian subcontinent and Africa etc. There are examples witnessing the disappearance of several tree species from the forest like oak forest in England. As it is well known that Indian subcontinent is prosperous in its natural resources, the British started tapping the natural resources of the country. British started giving preferential treatment to some tree species over the others there by affecting the diversity of the forests. British aim was to retain all valuable species and remove all the inferior species. This shows that British exploited the natural resources of the country to the fullest during its regime. This paper is an attempt to explain deforestation in Nagaland during colonial period. It further tries to reveal the true motive of British in India behind exploiting the natural resources for their profit against the background of rhetoric of conservation of Natural resources.