Europe's ‘Others’? Forestry Policy and Practices in Colonial and Postcolonial India

Abstract

In this paper I intervene in the debates around Orientalism and ‘Othering’ that are still current in human geography and the humanities. I do so with particular reference to forest policies in British India and post-colonial India. I contend that the concept of Orientalism needs to be unpacked further than most of its proponents have allowed. At no time has a united Europe had a common and singular ‘Other’. I further argue that imprecise understandings of Orientalism and Othering blind us to certain variations in interpretive and material practices that have had important implications for our so-called Others. This point is expanded in relation to forest policies in tribal ( adivasi) areas of India. I demonstrate that colonial forest (and ‘tribal’) policies were far from unitary, but were open to contestation and negotiation by sympathetic colonial officers and missionaries (such as Verrier Elwin). I also show that elements of what might be called the dominant discourse of scientific forest policy have been continued since Independence in 1947. An Indian elite has disciplined its ‘internal Others’ by means of this discourse (and others besides), although there are signs now that this discourse is being challenged by adivasi leaders and sympathetic government and nongovernment officers.