Invited talk by faculty at Jawaharlal Nehru University

Dr.Sebastian Joseph delivered an invited talk at the 8^th Indo-Japanese Workshop on ‘Reconsideration of the 19^th century from Asian Perspectives’ organized by the Centre for Historical Studies and Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Advanced Study, (JNIAS), Jawaharlal Nehru University, on January 8, 2016.  In his lecture entitled ‘LOCAL ECOLOGICAL WORLDS IN COLONIAL INDIA: OBSERVATION, OCCUPATION AND EXTRACTION, he argued that the notions and reconfigurations of the colonial Indian environment in the 19^th century the impact that it had exerted on the local ecological world is worth for a historical analysis as the intensity of the extractive mode of resource use is seen sometimes exceeding the colonial standards set in British India. Travels and report writing, science and technology and finally law are crucial elements in the takeover of the right of use of such resources in that part of the country. Itinerant science, observation modality of the travelers, both scientists and other people, systematic recording of the natural vegetative systems in the native states were accomplished safely within the pan British Indian scheme of resource extraction. Western science and its knowledge systems with relation the environment was highly appealing to the native rulers who were brought under the fascinating discourse about progress. What we find here is the victory of the environmental perspective of the colonizer who wanted to create gardens in Indian forests basing on the idea of disciplining the wild. The wild in India is to be tamed and made effective for progress; an agenda set in motion by the colonizer was extended to the native ecological worlds which resulted in transformation in landscape. It is argued that the perceptions of the native on environment which can be brought under the rubric of wild lost its claim in view of the colonizers dominant perception of looking at environment as spaces for progress. It was this perspectival contradiction of the 19^th century which was carried forward in to the 20^th century that shaped the destiny of the Indian environmental history.

Prof. Vijaya Ramaswamy, Chairperson, Centre for Historical Studies, Prof. Aditya Mukherjee, JNU, Prof. Tsukasa Mizushima (The University of Tokyo), Prof. ShireenMooswi, Aligarh Muslim University, Prof. Atushi Ota (Hiroshima University) Prof. Toshiyuki Miyata (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)and Prof  Masashi Okada (Osaka University) presented their papers during the workshop.