Haripriya Rangan

State Economic Policies and Changing Regional Landscapes in the Uttarakhand Himalaya, 1818-1947

Narratives of environmental change in the Uttarakhand Himalaya generally fall into a declensionist genre, invoking images of a pristine and isolated region located in the eternal past until the advent of colonialism and capitalist development marked the beginning of relendess ecological degradation (see, for example, Bahuguna 1982; Berreman 1989; Bhatt 1987; Dogra 1983; Gadgil and Guha 1993; Ramachandra Guha 1989b; Shiva and Bandyopadhyay 1986a, 1986b; Weber 1988). The dramatic power of these narratives is enhanced by attributing a particularly malevolent role to the colonial state. The colonial state is caricatured as overwhelmingly powerful, autonomous from and thriving on antagonistic relations with civil society, and single-minded in its predatory pursuits that inevitably cause ecological degradation and impoverishment of Himalayan communities (exceptions to this view are R. Tucker 1983,1991; J. Richards 1987; Chetan Singh 1991). The colonial state plays the role of villain in the relentless Manichaean struggle of environmental change. It is the destroyer of pre-colonial harmony, the promoter of modernity against hallowed tradition, the harbinger of Western patriarchal modes of capital accumulation that undermine "Oriental" feminine principles of nature, the diabolical agent of capitalism that transforms ecological Utopias into lifeless terrains. The environmentalist Vandana Shiva, for instance, uses this imagery to eulogize the passing of simple and self-sufficient peasant lifeways organized around the "feminine principle of nature" as they encountered "western patriarchy," and "maldevelopment" promoted by the colonial and postcolonial state (Shiva and Bandyopadhyay 1986a, 1986b; Shiva 1989a, 1991; Shiva and Mies 1993). Social historian Ramachandra Guha employs parallel tropes in his description of peasant resistance in the Indian Himalaya, where, according to him, local communities routinely rose up to defend their "moral economy" based on "ancient community solidarities and sets of values" against the depredations of colonialism, capitalism, and "scientific forestry" (Gadgil and Guha 1993; Ramachandra Guha 1989b, 21, 48-63).

Stylized representations of the colonial state are key in transforming narratives of environmental change into powerful and compelling myths. Such assumptions regarding the nature of the colonial state—that it is a monolithic entity and single-minded in its predation of civil society—logically lead to two conclusions: first, that colonial rule was based on a remarkably coherent and tightly orchestrated set of policies that remained unaltered by the forces of necessity or contingency; second, that colonial administrators were endowed with extraordinary capabilities that would normally fall within the realm of demonic power or divine omnipotence. Both implications are historically inaccurate and frankly implausible. However much they may appeal to nationalist sentiments, such representations of colonial rule are extremely unhelpful for understanding the processes of ecological change in regions. They inhibit the possibility of understanding the history of institutional actions, changes in global and regional economies, and social practices that have, over time, reworked the differentiated social and ecological landscape of the Indian Himalaya.

This chapter has two aims: first, to set out an alternative analytical framework that focuses on processes of governance rather than on the presumed inherent and immutable character of precolonial or colonial states; second, to provide an account of ecological change in the Uttarakhand Himalaya between 1818 and 1947, a period spanning both pre-British and British control. To meet these aims I analyze: (1) the political and economic processes at the global and regional levels that created pressures for state intervention, (2) competing demands that shaped the forms of state intervention, and (3) conflicts, disputes, and negotiations that redefined the exercise of control and governance by state institutions. The chapter shows that ecological transformations in Uttarakhand during British rule reveal a complex landscape repeatedly inscribed and incompletely erased by social actions emerging from the interplay of these three processes.

STATES AND GOVERNANCE

What the state is, at any point in time, is shaped by what it does; the institutional form and functions of state are, in this sense, mutually constitutive. As Peter Evans points out, Weber's definition of states as "compulsory associations claiming control over territories and the people within them" does not reduce the complexities of analyzing what states do (Evans 1995, 5-6). Weber's definition hinges on "claiming control," and thus on the functions and processes by which states direct social action within their territories. These functions and processes, in turn, produce forms of rule and governance that are both differentiated and reflective of die constantly changing relations between administrative institutions and other institutional practices (for example, in markets and everyday life) within particular territorial boundaries.

Over the past two centuries, states, colonial or otherwise, have not only performed their conventional roles of war making and maintaining internal order but also attempted, in varying degrees, both to foster economic growth and to ensure a modicum of social welfare within their territories. Their modes of government, which Foucault calls "governmentality," have been shaped by how these aims could be achieved, alongside more conventional functions, through their citizens and subjects (1991, 87-104). Foucault describes the actual practices of governance of the modern (nation) state-in-the-making as the "daemonic coupling" of the "city game" and "shepherd game." This refers to the making of a form of secular political pastorate that couples the "individualization" of citizenship (uniformity in treatment of individuals by law) with "totalization" of subjects (caring for each member of the territorial community, or "flock"; see Gordon 1991,8).

Viewed from this perspective, therefore, the processes of governance by...