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Review Article
Striving for a balance: Nature, Power, Science and India’s Indira Gandhi’s,
19171984
Mahesh Rangarajan
Department of History, University of Delhi, Delhi, India
Email: rangarajan.mahesh@gmail.com
Abstract
Indira Gandhi’s life, 19171984 spanned much of the twentieth century. She was Prime Minister of the world’s
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that divides critics from admirers. One sees it as a defence against ecological impoverishment, especially in her
initiation of wildlife preservation and environmental conservation. The other views these as thin legitimization
for an authoritarian style of functioning. The two are not antithetical, but neither does justice to the subject nor
indeed to her times. Drawing on her decades of letter writing to and from her father Jawaharlal Nehru and her
speeches, the article also looks in some detail at her executive actions as Prime Minister. Issues of nature can
hardly be separated from the political problems that bedeviled India in the late 1960s. Serious food shortages led
to increased reliance on US food aid, but the Indian bid for autonomy led to inevitable strains over the issue. The
Green Revolution reduced reliance on the West. It was paralleled by a sustained engagement with conservation
issues that continued beyond the 1971 war with Pakistan. Here, the Indira period is divided into two broad parts,
with a leftward tilt, especially around 1969, and a shift to a more probusiness attitude after 1980. These changes
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although statist intervention was a concomitant of India’s unique place in the Cold War later, as US contacts thawed;
the opening was complemented by shifts in the political economy. Similarly, arbitrary slum demolition and forcible
family planning were part of a larger shift to coercive polices during the 18month long Emergency period. The
article ends by asking how to study contemporary politics to better comprehend our ecological dilemmas. Even
as ecological processes and economic exchanges unify the world, divisions between and within nation states are
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fresh light on how to look at the relations of nature, science, and power.
Keywords: Missing???
DOI: ********
INTRODUCTION Environmental issues held a special place throughout her
political career at the top. This was so from January 1966 to
Indira Gandhi’s engagement with environmental issues was March 1977, and again from January 1980 till her assassination
!"#$%&'() *+,-*%") -.#,%&) /$"0) 0*#) "*%.#*!) ,%) $123*) 4!) 5#,6*) in October 1984. Key interventions took place even at times
Minister of the world’s largest democracy. Even a brief of mounting international tensions or domestic political crises.
,%"*''*3".4')4%-)3.'".#4')/,$ǖ()$1)8%-,49!)6$!"),%:.*%",4') November 1969, for instance was amidst the historic split
Prime Minister in recent times (the post 1967 era) provides of the ruling Congress party, reducing her government to a
a good vantage point to examine the broader questions of minority in the Lok Sabha. Yet, it was the very month she made
conservation and livelihoods, democracy and authoritarianism a major address to an international conservation body in the
4%-)%4",$%4')-*"*#6,%4",$%)4%-),%"*#%4",$%4'),%:.*%3*;)8")34%) capital.1)<0*)2#!")6**",%&)$1)"0*)%*='()3#*4"*-)>$66,""**)$%)
also hinge on how one approaches the interplay of ideas and Environmental Planning and Coordination (NCEPC) met on
interests, of an awareness of a larger horizon as opposed to 6 December, 1971, even as the war with Pakistan had begun.
more prosaic issues of power. Similarly, her letter to the chief minister of Bihar asking him
Copyright: © Mahesh Rangarajan 2009. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use and distribution of the article, provided the original work is cited.
Q1: Author’s query: Kindly check if it should be defense.
228 / Mahesh Rangarajan
to halt the diversion of forest land for a development project familiarity with matters ecological had its local counterpart
was sent from from Shimla in May 1972. She was at the with the issue of the felling on the Ridge, the last outcrop of the
0,'') !"4",$%) "$) %*&$",4"*) =,"0) "0*) 54C,!"4%,) 5#*6,*#) D.'2C4#) Aravalli hills that was integral to the landscape of Delhi.11 She
Ali Bhutto in the aftermath of the Bangladesh war.2 This took steps to secure the city forest in the summer of 1980, when
should set at rest the idea, now current among scholars of petitioned by a student group. What the group was unaware of
different hues, that environmental concern was largely aimed was her central role a few years earlier in getting a key Indian
at wooing a western audience especially in times of a chill O,#)P$#3*),%!"4''4",$%)6$-,2*-)"$)7#*!*#+*)"0*)!C(',%*)4!)=*'')
,%)"0*)8%-$EFG)",*!?)-.#,%&)HIJI)K)HILH)$#),%-**-)41"*#)"0*) as the integrity of the forest.12
Emergency was imposed and the basic rights of expression Neither an admirer nor a critic, therefore, did justice to
suspended in June 1975.3 There was a larger consistency of her the subject. Her engagement was part of a larger milieu of
engagement with such issues. It is less of a surprise that most nationalist debates in late colonial India; and her legacy
biographers and students of politics have paid little attention survived in part as its seeds fell on fertile soil. Part of the clue
to this dimension. The former set of scholars sees it as a spin is provided by the fact that even a journalist and biographer
off from her authoritarian ways and impulses, and the latter who knew her quite well recently admitted to having simply,
ignore it altogether.4 “gone along with the generally accepted view that not only
These two sharply opposed views; one seeing her as was her formal education episodic and limited, but she
intrinsically authoritarian and the other as a benevolent had little interest in books or ideas.”13 As the two volumes,
presence assisting nature’s recovery are not antithetical. But edited by Sonia Gandhi, document her correspondence with
one is overly functional and the latter serves to view political Jawaharlal Nehru from 1922 to 1964 demonstrate, this was a
leadership in the abstract, almost in a vacuum, shaping but misperception. Even the young Indira and we will see some
04#-'()"$.30*-)/()3.'".#4')4%-),%"*''*3".4'),%:.*%3*!)$1)"0*) of her subsequently, could differ and pretty sharply with
time. ‘Pappu’ as she called Nehru.14 A second kind of evidence is
Even more problematic is the role cast for her, as a savior. the speeches at public fora. Although composed often with a
Over the last few years, there has been a swirl of controversy team of writers, especially the polymath HY Sharada Prasad,
over the fate of the tiger, with proponents and critics of the they still provide clues to a larger sense of engagement with
new, more peoplefriendly strategies revisiting the time in issues not only of knowledge and power, but with the human
1973, when Project Tiger was launched.5 A close relative of a nature relationship.15
C*()2&.#*),%)",&*#)3$%!*#+4",$%),%)0*#)",6*)#*3*%"'()#*34''*-) The major milestone in her appearance on the world stage
the ‘good days’ when the foundations of wildlife and forest with ecological overtones was undoubtedly, the speech at
conservancy were laid. Not unimportantly, Suraj, the spouse Stockholm in the summer of 1972. This famous, if often
of the late Kailash Sankhala also mentioned regular calls from 6,!A.$"*-?)!7**30)4")"0*)2#!")FQ)>$%1*#*%3*)$%)"0*)R.64%)
the PM at functions, both formal and informal, where the Environment at Stockholm in June 1972 came at the zenith of
Director of Project Tiger could have the leader’s ear.6 The tiger her political career. After a shaky start as the world’s second
conservationist and photographer Valmik Thapar goes so far woman Prime Minister in January 1966, she had faced down
as to assert that, “if we have any ecological security left, it is a division in her own party and gone onto win a two thirds
due to Indira Gandhi.” The laws enacted in her time are seen majority in the general elections of 1971. War followed soon
by him as a bulwark against anarchy, and it is their erosion after, with victory in the battle to liberate Bangladesh, placing
that is turning the tide against nature in India.7 her among the few leaders to have successfully stood up to
) <04") 0*#) '*&43() ,!) !,&%,234%") ,!) %$") ,%) -$./";) 8%) MNNJ?) US President Richard Nixon. It was in the glow of victory that
the Parliament enacted the Scheduled Tribes and Other the invitation held out,” the promise of a setting that would
Traditional Forest Dwellers’ (Recognition of Forest Rights) behoove a world leader.”16 The speech was marked by an
Bill, a legislative measure that allows for legal recognition of awareness of the inequities across nation states, which could
a title to the Adivasi or Scheduled Tribe cultivators on forest be a barrier to joint action to keep the earth habitable. Nations
lands. This effectively reopens the question of where the could not be ‘preserved as museum pieces’ in the name of
frontier of farmland and forested land lies. A keystone of the diversity. One earth could work as a concept only if the ideals
arch from her time, the Forest (Conservation) Act of 1980, is of humanity faced up to the inequities of access to wealth
/*,%&)#*64-*),%)"0*)"=*%"(E2#!")3*%".#()8%-,4;8 Scientists and and knowledge. Her most oft quoted line about poverty as an
ecological activists, both from India and overseas found her a 41:,3",$%)43A.,#*!)4)-,11*#*%")6*4%,%&)=0*%)#*4-)4!)74#")$1)4)
communicative and a serious listener. The futurist Buckminster longer epistle. She asked,
Fuller, designer of the geodesic dome and the tetrahedral city, “Are not poverty and need the greatest polluters? The
counted himself as an old friend.9 Over a decade and a half environment cannot be improved in conditions of poverty.
later, the polymath and critic of high technology, Fritjoff Capra Nor can poverty be eradicated without the use of science and
felt in a oneonone meeting that her silence was a signal for technology. For instance, unless we are in a position to provide
having, ’a conversation of substance.’10 She was as much at for the daily necessities of tribal people and those who live in
ease with the ‘more with less technology’ of the former as with and around our jungles, we cannot keep them from combing
the more philosophical inclinations of the latter. This ease and the forests for their livelihood, from poaching and despoiling
Running title missing???? / 229
the vegetation. When they themselves feel deprived, how can ".#%?)0*#)14"0*#),-*%",2*-)"0*)74%&$',%?)4%)$/!3.#*)!64'')4%")
we urge the preservation of animals?” eating mammal by referring to FW Champion’s The Jungle
Rejecting extreme views, she posited herself in favour in Sunlight and Shadow, a pioneering work of natural history
of a more holistic view, blaming neither population growth photography of animals in the wild.21)8%)!$',"4#()3$%2%*6*%")
%$#) *3$%$6,3) 41:.*%3*) 4'$%*;) <0*) 3$%:,3") =4!) /*"=**%) in Ahmadnagar fort, Jawaharlal wrote to his sister excitedly
conservation and reckless exploitation, not between progress about the arrival of a pair of migratory wagtails, “the heralds
per se and ecological values.17 of a new season.”22
This went beyond harmless pursuits of leisure among a
‘Heralds of a New Dawn’ %4!3*%")@%&',!0)*-.34"*-)6,--'*)3'4!!;)8"),!)-,123.'")1$#).!)"$-4()
to capture the sense of excitement about new developments
Of course, speeches and interviews were but a small part of a especially in physics and chemistry in the years preceding and
long and tempestuous political life. Born in November 1917, during the Second World War. This was the age of Einstein,
at time of war, upheaval and revolution, she was the only Rutherford and Bohr. Two letters from Switzerland in early
daughter of Kamala and Jawaharlal Nehru. Her political and 1940 testify to a fascination with modern technology and the
personal lives were intertwined from the start. Her life spanned new frontiers of discovery. Chemistry could provide humans
much of the twentieth century, a time that witnessed a secular with artifacts in every way, “superior to the natural product”,
shift, a fourfold expansion of the number of humans on the she told Nehru. There was this new textile called nylon,
7'4%*";)8"),!)"#.*)"04")!0*)=4!?)1$#)0*#)2#!")"0,#"()(*4#!?)6$#*) Elastic, strong, transparent and opaque, it can be made into
closely concerned with an equally crucial and historic change anything from tooth bristle to women’s sheer stockings. The
in politics, the emergence into freedom of new nation states, as more it is pulled the tighter it gets.
the colonial era came to a close. A fourth of the world was under Every week saw a new discovery, with change a harbinger
the Union Jack when she was born, but by the century’s end, of new opportunities.23
there were four times as many nation states as in 1914, when It was never mentioned openly but her own health hinged
the Great War began.18)R$=)!0*)#*:*3"*-)$%)4%-)#*!7$%-*-) on her vulnerability to tuberculosis, a disease that had already
to these two major secular shifts had much to do with India’s claimed her mother’s life. It was only as recent as 2001 that
engagement with issues of nature and power in her time. As her a perceptive biographer, Katherine Frank, herself a social
Stockholm speech indicated, inequities within societies could historian of TB uncovered Indira’s long battle with what was
have much to do with how the tradeoffs of equity and ecology always in her time referred to as ‘the problem’. Her month
were made or unmade. An examination of her work cannot long stay in Leysin, in the upper Rhone valley, in the winter
/*)-*',%C*-)1#$6)0*#)#*3$#-),%)$123*)4%-)7$=*#?)/.")4)!*4#30) of 1939 was aimed at a cure. This ‘white frozen world of
6.!")/*&,%)"0*)#*4'6)$1),-*4!)4%-),%:.*%3*!),%)"0*)*4#'()(*4#!; sickness and death,’ did not work any magic and her departure
While a fuller treatment of the multiple engagements of from the mountain resort came soon after. It was only 17 years
Indian nationalism, with the problem of nature, lie well later with new post war drugs that she became ‘an unusually
beyond the scope of this essay, Indira Priyadarshini Nehru is 0*4'"0()4%-)2")=$64%9;)R$=*+*#?),"),!),67$#"4%")"$)%$"*)0$=)4)
best seen against a larger backdrop. A rare only girl child in dangerous organism had claimed the life of a parent (Kamala)
her generation and for her class, her familiarity with nature and threatened her with ill health till the age of forty.24
began early. Growing up in Allahabad, she was to be schooled In this light, it is even more remarkable that science was
at a variety of locations including Delhi and Santiniketan, not seen by her simply as a project of human dominance over
Switzerland and Oxford. The Nehrus —and not just father nature. The American botanist, DC Peattie gets approving
and daughter — had a keen eye for natural beauty. This was nods in a letter. He reminded all of how, “the life of all living
indirectly reinforced by the Gandhian impact, for it forced a things are bound together,” but his Flowering Earth was not
reassessment of lifestyles at a personal level. This had included alone among the books she was familiar with.25 In a rare
an end to shikar, or ritual hunts, often a pursuit of middle class essay as Prime Minister in a women’s magazine, she later
Indians in smaller towns and cities, on weekends.19 The world recalled The Faber Book on Insects and Maeterlinck’s books
of nature was instead a balm for nonviolent soldiers against the on bees.26 Looking back, it is only natural that technology
S4T;)O")",6*!?)4!)7$',",34')7#,!$%*#!)"0*(),-*%",2*-)=,"0)4%,64'!) was seen often as a Janusfaced phenomenon by two Indians
that were victims. Writing of the Dehra Dun jail, Nehru was who had traveled Republican Spain and heard accounts of the
upset by the capture of a pangolin by a jail employee: bombing of Guernica by the Condor Air Legion, dispatched by
When asked by the goaler what he proposed to do with it, the Fuehrer to aid the royalists against a doomed democracy.
he replied with a broad smile that he would make a bhujji, a Nehru and the young Indira were sure that science should
kind of curry with it.20 be allied to life, and development to peace, not war. But how
There were compensations. The drongo, an elegant and would the choices be made as freedom dawned in the middling
!7#,&0"'(),%!*3")*4"*#)=4!)46$%&)"0*)/,#-!)!0*),-*%",2*-),%) years of the century? Nehru had cause to differ with Gandhi.
early 1943. The Book of Indian Birds by Salim Ali, a German Although known as the one who would speak the latter’s
"#4,%*-)$#%,"0$'$&,!"?)4%-)"0*)2#!")O!,4%)"$)/*)4)P*''$=)$1)"0*) language when he was gone, his views of modern technology
Royal Society, was at her side on more than one occasion. In and large industry were different in content and emphasis.
230 / Mahesh Rangarajan
In his book, The Discovery of India, he was appreciative G$3,*"(?)$1)=0,30)8%-,#4)X4%-0,)/#,*:()!*#+*-)4!)5#*!,-*%";)
of Gandhi’s distrust of technology as a cure all. However, This was prior to her stint as Congress President in 1957.
he himself was clear that there was a choice between two Malcolm MacDonald, the British High Commissioner was
paradigms and one would be “dominating and paramount”. another enthusiast. To date, she is the only Indian Prime
Planning would limit the evils of technology, while big Minister (there have been 13 in all) to have headed a naturalists’
machinery had to be accepted.27 By this time, if not earlier, it society in her younger days. An aide was amazed at how she
was the younger man who was more in step with the Congress’ and her colleagues had learnt to “recognize birds by their
mind. On freedom’s doorstep the future seemed to lie with sound.”32 However, politics and public life never left much
industrialisation, not its alternatives. Steel mills and atomic time for such privacy. She once complained to a friend of
power, not spinning wheels and village selfrule would be the how even nearing a glacier 16,000 feet above sea level, there
centre piece of a new India. The latter could endure, but only were people with requests, all of whom “come only to get or
as a complement to the former. ask something.”33
Nehru had all along been drawn to rivers, but she felt
‘A Perfectly Entrancing Place’ closer to the mountains.34 Her elder son, Rajiv was a budding
photographer whose pictures show his younger brother Sanjay
The coming of independence and Partition in August 1947 was fording a stream.35 It was the summer of 1960, and she was
a troubled time, but it opened up new horizons. Indira Gandhi on vacation with her husband, the Member of Parliament
became and remained till May 1964, the Prime Minister’s Feroze Gandhi and their two sons. They were in Daksun, ‘a
0$!"*!!) 4%-) 3$%2-4%"*;) <0*() ',+*-) "04") *%",#*) ",6*) ,%) "0*) 7'*4!4%")7'43*?)7,%*)4%-)2#)1$#*!")4%-)"#$.")!"#*46!)4%-)4''9;)
Teen Murti House, a vast residence formerly occupied by the This was where bears came down from the wooded hills to
>$664%-*#E,%E30,*1;) U,"0) !"4"*'() "#**!) 4%-) :$=*#) /*-!?) ,") gorge themselves on stores of maize and on the grain ripening
also included an old hunting lodge, or shikar gah built by the ,%)"0*)2*'-!;36)G",''?)V4)C,%&2!0*#)346*)#,&0"),%"$)$.#)!,"",%&)
fourteenth century ruler Feroz Shah Tughluq. Her sons Rajiv room and a swift had perched on Rajiv’s shoulder.”37 Such
and Sanjay lived with their mother and grandfather. The love joy was short lived. This all too brief holiday in Kashmir was
of animals continued. There were two tiger cubs, later gifted to just weeks before her husband Feroze Gandhi’s death. The
a zoo, well before they had become adults, “muscles rippling 6$6*%"!)$1)34'6)=*#*)/."):**",%&;)
with power and grace”. More famous was a friendly and
photogenic red panda, presented on a tour of Assam. Nobody ‘I Don’t Ever Want us to Beg for Food Again’
in the entourage quite knew what the creature was and it was
$%'(),-*%",2*-).!,%&)V4)/$$C)$%)8%-,4%)4%,64'!W;)G$$%)T$,%*-) By the early 1960s, Indira Gandhi’s role in public life was
by a mate, it was housed in a special tree house. Fed bamboo larger than before: it became more central as Nehru’s health and
shoots by Nehru each morning, the pair spent their winters in political standing suffered after the China war of October 1962.
Shimla.28 This was an India where the Raj habit of hunts was It was no surprise she was Union Minister of the Information
alive and well. On a visit to the Gir Forest, the lion’s only home and Broadcasting Ministry in the ministry headed by his
outside of Africa, Indira Gandhi wore a khaki coloured coat, to !.33*!!$#)Y4')B404-.#)G04!"#,)ZHIJ[)K)HIJJ\;)<0*)'4""*#9!)-*4"0)
avoid alarming the big cats. Still shot by special permission, and a bitter inner party succession struggle propelled her to the
the prides were wary of humans.29 top in January, 1966. She would soon draw on a range of new
Her exposure to peoples and cultures was also extensive. ideas about water and wildlife, forests and the environment
Preparations for the Republic Day pageant of 1952, found at large. However, there was a more pressing matter at hand:
Indira Gandhi working closely with tribal dancers. Pupul food or rather the lack of it in adequate amounts for those who
Jayakar, close associate and keen cultural! "#$%&'"(& felt needed it the most.
"0,!)=4!)0*#)2#!")3$%"43")=,"0)"0*)adivasi or tribal people.30 The India she came to lead in January 1966 was a country
In August 1961, she was virtually present as the old map of heavily, even excessively, reliant on the monsoon. Nature’s
European rule folded up in Africa. Over a dozen of its nations =#4"0)=4!)6$#*)*+,-*%")"04%),"!)/*%*23*%3*])4%-),")=4!)"0*)
were on the doorstep to independence. She met with leaders food crisis that commanded immediate attention. Over 70 per
of major Kenyan nationalist groups, but as always wrote home cent of India lived off the land. Her visit to Washington DC two
from the Indian High Commission. Meeting Jomo Kenyatta 6$%"0!)'4"*#?)4!)!0*)3$%2-*-)"$)"0*)+*"*#4%)T$.#%4',!"?)8%-*#)
the future President of Kenya was not the only thing to report Malhotra, was aimed to, “get food, aid and foreign exchange
back to her father from Nairobi. The Amboseli game reserve, without appearing to ask for it”.38 Her visit to Washington was
she wrote, was a “perfectly entrancing place” to view lions deemed a success. Charmed by the young Premier, President
and lionesses, with her two sons. Lyndon Johnson asked the US Congress to double food aid to
Unexpected frolic took place right in front of my hut in the seven million tones. The World Bank increased lending to 1.5
pale hours of dawn, — elephants, giraffes, zebras, gazelles billion dollars. Already embroiled in a land war in Vietnam,
were thoroughly enjoying themselves.31 Johnson saw India as a bulwark of democracy in an Asia
Horace Alexander, the Quaker and sympathizer of the vulnerable to communism. India’s grain imports in the next
freedom struggle had founded the Delhi Bird Watchers’ "=$)(*4#!)=$.'-)"$"4')HI)6,'',$%)"$%%*!;)<0*)2#!")$1)"0$!*)(*4#!)
Running title missing???? / 231
4'$%*?)$%*)$.")$1)*+*#()2+*)C,'$!)$1),%)04#+*!"*-),%)"0*)FG) important was the food stock kept by the federal government
headed India’s way. This was aid not outright purchase. India which increased to nine million tonnes by 1971.44 By then, the
was to devalue the rupee and accept economic measures the acreage of hybrid wheat varieties had increased to over four
US saw as essential. Even as she phoned the White House for million hectares.45
more food, she told an aide that December of 1966, “I don’t It was ironical that it was the Rockefeller Foundation, which
ever want us to beg for food again.”39 facilitated cooperation of US and Indian scientists to get hybrid
The honeymoon was short lived. There was a storm of seeds for the farmer.
protest for the PM at home, not the least, within the ruling President Johnson assisted in such a shift, seeing himself
party. Relations soured by July. Washington never came 4!)4)-#,+,%&)1$#3*)1$#)304%&*;)G./#464%,46)#*:*3"*-)(*4#!)
through with the quantum of assistance it had promised. India later that the President saw himself as a District nawab (or
soon condemned the American bombing of North Vietnam. overlord). Himself an agronomist, hailing from the cultivating
From ‘understanding’ America’s anguish in Vietnam to community of Gounders in Tamil Nadu, CS was clear that the
‘condemning’ the bombing, she traveled a great ideological motive force for change came from Indians themselves, and
distance between March and July of 1966. That latter month not the Americans. Looking back it is unclear if America was
saw her in Moscow, where the statement called for a halt of being used more by India than the other way round. Yet, it was
bombing of Hanoi and condemned ’imperialist and reactionary touch and go till late in the day, with shipments of food often
forces’.40 Relations became bitter, even as Indian reliance on held up when they were needed most.46 The transformation
American largesse had, perforce, to continue. In 1967, she sent also had a critical political dimension. The rise of the Maoist
personal greetings to Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh on his insurgency at Naxalbari, a village in West Bengal in May 1968,
!*+*%"(E21"0)/,#"0-4(;)<0#**)(*4#!)'4"*#)!7*4C,%&)4")4)3$%3'4+*) and later elsewhere in the country made it imperative to raise
of the nonaligned countries in Lusaka, she drew parallels agricultural production and generate rural jobs.47 The Green
between the nuclear peril and what was ’more insidious,‘ Revolution did not put an end to food imports or indeed to
’daily pollution of the environment. What crossed the line hunger. What it did do was to make India less reliant on the
was clear: the chemical contamination of animal and plant vagaries of the monsoon or on US food aid. When food imports
life in Vietnam.41 Ecological warfare was a symbol of assault soared in 1976, India bought over 12 million tonnes, but paid
on nature as much as on freedom. Charming Washington had for it. The aid era was at an end.48
given way to standing up for Asia and Africa. Such a narrative cannot possibly do justice to the complexity
Yet, a strident stance abroad required serious reform at of events, but the denouement does reveal two interlinked
home. This was clear on the public platform. A year into her 143*"!) $1) 8%-,#4) X4%-0,9!) 8%-,4;)O&#,3.'".#4') ,%"*%!,234",$%)
Premiership, at varsity convocation in Bangalore, she sketched and nature protection went hand in hand. The two were
out connections between water scarcity and denudation of complementary or at least seen to be so. More than that,
forest cover. Hydel projects and mines were imperative, but preservation was part of a larger nationalist enterprise with the
“our building zeal is not accompanied by respect for the needs leadership throwing its weight behind innovators precisely at a
of conservation.” Nor was this a matter of choice. For, there time of maturing internal and external crises. There was more
was a clear linkage between the widespread drought and to saving forests and wildlife than the fates of the wild. Higher
the factor. She rued the fact, that, “We had cut down many yields per acre meant more land did not have to be ploughed
forests.”42 It was even clearer in the executive action on the up in order to grow more food. There was a shift to intensive
farm front. The Green Revolution, focused as it was on high cultivation as opposed to government sponsored colonisation
yielding varieties and higher prices to cultivators in a few select as had been the case in the tarai (wet grassland and marsh) in
regions were a concomitant of such conservation. Its roots, north India in the Fifties.
earlier, literally lay in the induction of C Subramaniam to the
Agriculture Ministry under her predecessor in 1964. ‘CS’ as ‘An Abundance of Irony’
he was known, gave the work of Indian scientists already in
touch with Norman Borlaug, and a driving force at the very Preserving nature was integral to the effort and has often been
apex of the polity. Results were not long in coming. Speaking !**%)4!)4):4&!0,7;)8%)4)"*'',%&)!,&%)$1)"0*)",6*!?)4#$.%-)HILM?)
to a gathering of Asia’s scientists in 1968, Mrs. Gandhi was at the Bengal tiger began to be referred to as the Indian tiger.49
pains to refute the image of peasant conservatism. Tobacco and It was a patriotic enterprise, with Indians being asked to rally
groundnut farming had been transformed: ’similar changes‘ around to save a heritage in peril, natural as much as national.
lay ahead for cereal crops.43 The forester Kailash Sankhala had long exchanged his shot gun
)<0*)$+*#4'')14#6)&#$="0)#4"*)2&.#*!)43".4''()!0$=*-)4)-,7) for a camera, getting the PM to even name two tiger cubs in the
1#$6) "0*) 7#*+,$.!) 7*#,$-?) 14'',%&) 1#$6) M;I) 7*#) 3*%") ZHIJHK) city zoo. As a Jawaharlal Nehru Fellow he submitted a research
1965) to 2.1 per cent in the succeeding four years. However, report detailing the decline of the species due to overhunting,
"0*!*)=*#*)6,!'*4-,%&;)<0*)$."7.")$1),%),%3#*4!*-)/()2+*) poaching and loss of habitat.50 Exports of big cat skins had
7*#)3*%")4)(*4#?)1#$6)HIJJ)$%=4#-?)1$#)4)7*#,$-)$1)21"**%)(*4#!;) already been banned. Sport hunting by safari companies, a
At a time when Malthusian fears were the fashion, this was valuable source of foreign exchange also ended. When a Task
more than twice the rate of growth of India’s population. More Force reported in September 1972 that the tiger required safe
232 / Mahesh Rangarajan
havens where it could live and multiply with adequate cover Bangladesh war. She had faced down the party bosses, then the
and wild prey, a nationwide effort was launched the very next US, and now ruled via loyal followers both in New Delhi and
April. As Indira Gandhi said, Project Tiger abounded in irony. in all but one state. As an astute observer later recalled, “The
The species was in a struggle to survive in the land that had poor man in the village began to walk with a bit of swagger,
been its abode for millennia.51 A major concomitant of these because of a combination of naiveté and a genuine awakening
efforts was the widening of horizons of wildlife to extend to of consciousness.”59
4'').%3.'",+4"*-):$#4)4%-)14.%4)4%-)%$")T.!")/,#-!)4%-)4%,64'!;) ^R4%-!)$119)%4".#*)04-),"!):,7)!,-*!;)8")=4!)%$)3$,%3,-*%3*)
Each tiger reserve, and there were nine in all, had core zones that the word ‘sanctum sanctorum’ with its quasi religious
closed off from tree felling by foresters, grazing of cattle overtones was used to describe the core zones of the tiger
or human habitation.52 Radical preservation won advocacy reserves,60 Unlike in the 1950s when Salim Ali urged Nehru
from key opinion makers outside the government such as M to save a wetland, or the late 1960s when studies by the
Krishnan, naturalist and photographer par excellence.53 Also a Smithsonian informed efforts to secure the lions of the Gir
Nehru Fellow, he saw the Project as a turning point in securing Forest, science took a back seat. Indian foresters claimed for
India’s unique identity, no less linked to irreplaceable natural knowledge over ‘their’ tigers. The Smithsonian’s Director
features as to monuments or cultures.54 Saving the tiger was complained of ‘an evolving nationalistic pride’ and he was not
a route to a larger appreciation of landscapes, arid or wet, far off the mark.61 Yet, Indian relations with the United States
hillside or desert: they were not simply seen as raw material were in the deep freeze from 1970 on, as Nixon tilted towards
or potential arable or as waste.55 Such ecological patriotism the military regime in Pakistan. India may have closed doors
put pristine nature at the centre of a project for the nation state. to America, but a leading UN agency got involved with efforts
This shift from an overly commercial view of nature to a to save crocodilians. Soon after, the British naturalist Gerald
more holistic appreciation of nature as a common heritage Durrell‘s Jersey Wildlife Trust was allowed to advise on saving
had a social and political context. November 1969, when the the pygmy hog, a rare small mammal in a sensitive border
government banned tiger skin export, was also the month state in Assam. A leading European expert even researched
when chief ministers came together for a conference on land the Kashmir stag in the Dachigam sanctuary to help evolve
reforms.56 The end of sport hunting companies was a blow protective strategies. Project Tiger itself was to get a million
to the owners, many of whom were former princes, a class -$''4#!)1#$6)"0*)U$#'-)U,'-',1*)P.%-;)8")=4!)!,&%,234%")"04")
whose privileges were now abolished for good. The abolition its key leaders were European. Prince Bernhard was Dutch
of the privy purses of princes, a holdover from the time of their royalty and Guy Mountfort a British advertising czar.62 In
accession after independence, was a major battle cry of the fact, far from being nationalists with a blind spot, the Indians
Congress, as it entered the general election campaign of 1971. had played their wildlife wealth to advantage and wooed the
The campaign to ‘Save our Skins’ against the fur trade got Europeans in place of the Americans.
under way around the same time as the Finance Ministry raided In the early Seventies there was still a heady dose of
black marketers and hoarders. Bank nationalization rallied nationalism. It was all the more heady as it evoked the specter
those who had had little access to credit; nature protection of a crisis. Just as agricultural scientists, long at work, were to
looked like a similar defense of a common wealth against loot. be at the forefront of new techniques in the farm, so too were
These ’carefully chosen targets‘ were past oppressors, whether there new thinkers on the ecological front. Conservation, like
princes, bankers or conservative judges. However, they gave agricultural innovation was driven by a sense of crisis. Failure
her legitimacy for larger schemes including those that sought meant the end, success was all. Indira Gandhi gave them an
to ‘make room for nature’.57 ear and much more, a milieu in which their ideas acquired
Both Krishnan and Sankahla formed a part of a larger milieu force and momentum.63 It also reached back into the past. The
that marked the early years of the new Prime Minister. This is movement to have national parks in India for a proponent ’as
%$")"0*)7'43*)"$)&$),%"$)-*"4,'?)/.")4)1*=)74#4''*'!)=,'')!.123*;) old as Indian history,‘ and it was common place to cite Asokan
Their call for sustained state action was in line with the wider edicts of the third century BC.64 This evocation of the tiger
political agendas of her left wing advisers, once she took on as a symbol of unity reached its apogee as Project Tiger got
the old Guard or Syndicate in 1969. The government takeover underway after 1 April, 1973, barely a year and 18 days before
of 14 private sector banks was ideologically underwritten by the nuclear tests at Pokhran. Later in 1974, India launched a
her Secretary and former Foreign Service diplomat, the erudite !743*)!4"*'',"*?)%46*-)477#$7#,4"*'()*%$.&0)41"*#)4)21"0)3*%".#()
PN Haksar. Crackdowns on smugglers and black marketers astronomer, Aryabhatta.
were a hallmark of the Minister of State KR Ganesh. The Coal Getting out of one crisis did little to avert another. By 1972,
Minister and former communist, Mohan Kumaramangalam the mood was changing. Narasimha Rao put it dryly. “The
piloted the Bill to nationalise the coal sector. In all these cases, more the euphoria”, he wrote, “the deeper and quicker the
there was a pitting of the interests of many versus the few, and disillusionment.”65 War had brought in 10 million refugees.
of an attack on privilege.58 Agriculture suffered under successive droughts in 1971 and
The mood lasted till after the general elections of 1971, 1972. The Arab Israeli war of October 1973 was accompanied
which the Congress won on the slogan of abolishing poverty. by the oil price shock. Finally, prices of consumer goods rose
It carried over to the State Assembly polls of 1972, after the by over 20 per cent a year for two successive years. By mid
Running title missing???? / 233
1974, the polity was heading for a breakdown. A year later, the in Delhi. They stand out, even by hindsight, as the one time
Prime Minister when unseated by a court in a disputed election when the number and population of slum dwellers actually
4-+,!*-)"0*)5#*!,-*%")"$)*+$C*)@6*#&*%3()7$=*#!;)P$#)"0*)2#!") declined due to coercive displacement. As with centralist
time since its independence India, was no more a democracy. impulses for preservation, the concept of unauthorized slums
Yet, the Emergency was built on notions of centralist predated the Emergency. The latter transmuted power into
governance with a large middle class constituency. It had an authority overnight, enabling coercion to be exercised out in
appeal along advocates of conservation that was easy to miss. the open.71 There were limits to the process. An aide recalled
One common rallying point among preservationists was the an incident in late 1976, where the PM was visibly shaken
issue of the states’ rights over forests. Leasing of wetlands when shown a report about school teachers being coerced to
by the centre had long been advocated by the country’s get ‘volunteers’ for vasectomy. She began to search of ways
top ornithologist. State governments were also a target of to end the impasse.72
attack for abetting forest conversion to farm land in a host of
ways. Only ‘an integrated authority’, wrote the irrepressible ‘The Centre Cannot Hold’
Krishnan, could avoid the mantle of protection from being
taken apart altogether.66 They may not have been unaware that The Emergency era ended suddenly in January 1977, as
the Prime Minister too was thinking aloud on similar lines.67 the Prime Minister had the House dissolved and called for
The Fortysecond Constitution Amendment carried into effect elections. Her party’s rout was total and it was out of power
,%)_4%.4#()HILL)-,-)6.30)"$)=*4C*%)"0*)-*6$3#4",3)*-,23*?) 1$#)"0*)2#!")",6*),%)"0#**)-*34-*!;)R$=*+*#?)!0*)=4!)/43C),%)
but it also placed ‘Forests and Wildlife’ on the concurrent as $123*),%)T.!")Hb)6$%"0!;)<0*)7*#,$-)$1)HILI)K)HIbN)64#C*-)4)
opposed to the States’ list. This meant that both the federal and turning point in political fortunes for the leader who was back
state governments had jurisdiction. However, in the event of at the helm, again with a massive two thirds majority.
a difference, it was the Union whose will would prevail. It is Where did all this leave preservation? In a sense, now the
!,&%,234%")"04")*+*%)41"*#)!0*)'$!")7$=*#),%)`4#30)HILL?)4%-) sense of crisis was less on the wildlife front and more of a
the Opposition Janata Party came to power, it did not undo rapid expansion of the existing programmes. By the end of
this provision. the Eighties about four per cent of the land area was under
Conservation got a boost as its darker side became apparent. !4%3".4#,*!)4%-)74#C!?)4!)3$674#*-)"$)$%*)*,&0"0)"0*)2&.#*)
Ironically, while shutting out American wildlife biology, Indian in 1970. The Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 remained the
foresters also reinforced their own monopoly over wildlife key legal instrument, but programmes such as Project Tiger
watching and monitoring. Nowhere was this as stark as in the were now routinized. Its Director even wrote a paper entitled,’
pugmarkbased tiger counts, whose results became a subject of What to do when you have succeeded’.73 The tiger, like India,
controversy. Greenough has drawn parallels of the small pox seemed to bask in success.
eradication and tiger protection campaigns. Actually, there was c*"?)"0*#*)=4!)4)34.'-#$%)$1)/#*=,%&)3$%:,3"!;)G$6*)04-)
a game of numbers, but it was with the multiplication of the "0*,#)&*%*!,!),%)"0*)2#!")8%-,#4)7*#,$-?)/.")04-)"4C*%)",6*)"$)
striped beasts and the rising numbers of sterilized humans in crystallise. What had begun as a project of protection driven
"0*)@6*#&*%3(;)B()HILJ?)5#$T*3")<,&*#)$123,4'!)=*#*)3'4,6,%&) /()"0*)5#,6*)`,%,!"*#9!)d123*)/*346*)4%)4#",3'*)$1)14,"0)1$#)
a surge in tiger populations. This was questioned by an expert political leaders of different parties. When an International
team from western organizations, but the report was not known Symposium on the Tiger had been held in February 1978, when
to anyone in India till well after the Emergency. The Mid Term she was out of power, it had been inaugurated by her former
Assessment did more than call for more sciencebased studies. associate and now bete noire, Jagjivan Ram.74 Protecting tigers
It also asked for a far more accommodative approach for village for their own sake had once been a radical, even outlandish
level livelihoods in the buffer zone of the Tiger Reserves.68 It idea. It had become a new orthodoxy.
hardly caused a ripple. Although hardly radical, it looked at the Looking back what is striking is how far displacement of
landscape as two biologists and a civil administrator would. residents, by 1977, became itself the sine qua non of wildlife
It was at variance on key issues with the way foresters saw 7#*!*#+4",$%;)8")=4!)$1"*%)"0*)2#!")#4"0*#)"04%)"0*)'4!")#*!7$%!*;)
preservation simply as an issue of enforcement.69 8%,",4''(?),")04-)/**%)3$%2%*-)"$)4)1*=)!*'*3")04/,"4"!)$1)#4#*)
The issue of sterilization by coercion was more explosive and species: the swamp deer (Cervus duaveceli branderi) in central
at a human level far more serious. It did much to undermine India or the Asian (or Indian) lion (Panthera leo persica) in
the Congress rock solid support among the under classes on Gujarat. A handful of tiger reserves followed suit, the issue of
whose strength it had won such a huge mandate only a few habitat contiguity and prey availability taking priority over
years earlier. It was estimated that the target of 23 million continued human habitation. Those that moved out — whether
sterilizations would be met in thirtysix months. Three million pastoralists, Adivasi (or for that matter nontribal) cultivators
!"*#,',a4",$%!) =*#*) 34##,*-) $.") ,%) T.!") "0*) 2#!") 2+*) 6$%"0!) $#)2!0*#6*%?)$1"*%)1$.%-)3$7,%&)=,"0)%*=)!"('*!)$1)7#$-.3",$%)
from July to November of 1975.70 Backed by her son and heir arduous.75 Displacement from conservation areas for wildlife
apparent Sanjay Gandhi, it also focused neo Malthusian fears was not new: there were a few precedents. They became an
on the poor, the Scheduled Castes and the religious minorities. ,-*4') 1$#) 1$#*!"*#!) "$) !"#,+*) 1$#;) >$%:,3") 3$.'-) /*) +,$'*%";)
It was also closely linked to urban slum demolitions, especially There was serious, bloody confrontation in the buffer zone of
234 / Mahesh Rangarajan
the Sundarbans Tiger Reserve, where the forcible eviction of 1982, even as it stepped back from the Forest Bill, the Union
refugees led to violence and massacre. This incident in West government also passed orders against leasing out government
Bengal, long forgotten, took place in 1978, and has been forest land to private companies. Of course, state governments
documented in detail by scholars. Such violent displacement often went their own way, and leases such as those in Madhya
was undertaken by a Left Front government elected in Pradesh, the state with the most extensive forest acreage, were
1977, and one with an enviable record of land reform and never cancelled.82
devolution. Yet, when it came to dealing with refugees settled <0*)'4#&*#)#./#,3)$1)"0*)3$%:,3"!)=4!)/*"=**%)#,+4')#*!$.#3*)
on government forest estates earmarked for tiger habitats, its users; increasing demand for biomass from industry was
response was brutal.76 There were other instances of closure contending with usufruct right holders. If the government
of access, including one in November 1982, leading to police came down more clearly on the side of the forester, it was part
2#,%&),%)X04%4?)"0*)=4"*#1$=')#*!*#+*),%)B04#4"7.#;)R*#*?)"0*) of a larger secular shift in the politics of the Congress. Indira
issue was not eviction, but tightening of controls, as the site Gandhi’s politics had edged away from socialist rhetoric and
went from being a mere sanctuary to a national park. Deprived populism to a more ‘pro business’ attitude. Critical changes
of grazing access overnight the villagers broke the rubble wall in the licensing policy eased technology imports, and capacity
4%-)*%"*#*-)"0*)74#C;)5$',3*)2#,%&)1$''$=*-;)<0*)&$+*#%6*%") expansion with wealth creation, not redistribution, was the
stood its ground and did not give way. Eviction if possible and focus of the policy. This was symbolised by a dinner in her
enclosure if not was becoming a norm.77 honor in an elite Delhi hotel. The host was Dhirubhai Ambani,
The fate of the forest was a keen subject of contest. As with 4'#*4-()8%-,49!)'4#&*!")7#$-.3*#)$1)7$'(*!"*#?)"0*)!(%"0*",3)2/#*)
"0*)@6*#&*%3()*#4)#*&.'4",$%!?)4-6,%,!"#4",+*)24")4%-)3$*#3,$%) that would over time displace cotton as the poor man’s fabric.83
04-) "0*) *4#) $1) "0*) $123,4'-$6;) <0*) P$#*!") Z>$%!*#+4",$%\) New policies to assist private investment in electronics were
Act in 1980 made Union government clearance mandatory integral to the larger economic changes. It was around this time
for the clearance of forest areas of over ten hectares. This that Wipro, a company known for its vegetable oil business
centralised powers, even as there were new pressures on entered the software business, as did Infosys, and today’s
forest land due to agricultural extension and large industrial software giants were set up.84 If silicon and not steel would
projects. By October 1982, she lectured state forest ministers -*2%*)"0*)3*%".#().7)40*4-?)"0*)/*&,%%,%&!)'4()0*#*),%)"0*)'4"*)
on how the country needed some really ’hard measures‘ to 8%-,#4)7*#,$-;)<0*)&#$="0)!"$#()=4!)/*""*#)"04%),%)0*#)2#!")!",%")
halt denudation of hill catchments.78 The difference was that in power and this was not just so for large industrial houses.
in the India of the Eighties, public opinion mattered a lot more. Growth rates through the 1980s were at a steady clip coming
The Congress’ victory had in part been enabled by a sweep of close to six per cent; almost double that of the rocky decade of
most parliamentary seats reserved for the Scheduled Tribes. the Seventies. These changes were counterbalanced by higher
By 1982, many Adivasi groups were up in revolt against a rates of growth, especially so in agriculture. Farm growth rates
new proposed Forest Bill. A Delhibased group put it simply, were high, as the Green Revolution spread beyond North West
calling the legislation part of an ‘undeclared civil war’. Forest India, helped by diesel pump sets for drawing groundwater, and
$123*#!) =*#*) "$) /*) &,+*%) 64&,!"*#,4') 7$=*#!) $1) -*"*%",$%]) "0*)&#$="0)$1)3#*-,";)8%)HIbe)K)HIb[?),")=4!)7*&&*-)4")4!)0,&0)
customary access would be effectively criminalised. The 4!)b;H)7*#)3*%";)<0*!*)2&.#*!)4#*)-#()4!)2&.#*!)34%)/*?)/.")-$)
issue brought together a multihued coalition of opponents: indicate a very different context form that of the Seventies.85
liberation theologists and tribal mass organisations, as also, As with the politics of ecology, the economic scenario was a
urban ecologically aware youth and human rights groups. A mixed one. The overall drift was clear, but there were checks
fusion of ecological and justice themes emerged in the course and balances. It is plausible that more farm and nonfarm job
of the campaign. The Bill was never tabled.79 The multiple creation took some of the edge off natural resourcerelated
shades of green, or of green merging with other colors of a 3$%:,3"!)4%-)"*%!,$%!;)
more radical or liberal hue, did not always lead to rejection This rapprochement with industrialists had its external
or repression. In fact, it was striking to see how personal counterpart. Despite the outbreak of a new cold war especially
ties were central to Indira Gandhi’s politics. This had been around the Afghan issue, India entered into a closer dialogue
4) 64#C*-) 1*4".#*) $1) 0*#) 2#!") "*#6;) Q$=?) *+*%) 4!) 0*#) 74#"() with Reagan’s America. Economics was never too far from
lacked leaders of experience as in the past she drew on a wider either his mind or the Indian PM’s. This also helped cement
ecumene.80 By 1980, protests against monoculture taken up by IndoAmerican ties in biological research, with a bounty
the Chipko movement in the Western Himalayas from 1973, for new research programmes. A new generation of wildlife
had their counterparts elsewhere. In the Jharkhand plateau the biologists outside of the Forest Department and working on a
cry against commercial forestry pitted the sal (Shorea robusta) #4%&*)$1)04/,"4"!)=*#*)/*%*23,4#,*!)$1)"0*)"04=;86
against the Sagwan or teak (Tectona grandis). Livelihood was
in opposition to commerce. It was around this time that there ‘Not Starting from Ground Zero’
was a shift in the policy. This did not end the clear felling of
mixed natural forests for monocultures, but at least it was no The storm over large dam projects soon found her at the centre.
more a policy. A major project for pine plantation, for paper She was not an advocate of appropriate technologies. Her
pulp in Bastar, central India, was shelved after a review.81 In #*64#C)"$)>47#4),%)HIbe?),!)=$#"0)#*:*3",%&)$%?)V81)8)3$.'-)
Running title missing???? / 235
start from zero, I would do things differently. But I have to be "0*)=*4'"0)$1)=4"*#!)4%-)%$")=0*"0*#)"$)-46)"0*,#):$=)4")4'';)
realistic. There is a large technological base in India which I All this did not mean that Indira Gandhi could not take a
can’t throw away.” stand against such projects. She did and this could make all,
The issue, she told the physicist, was how to choose the or much of the difference. In 1973 (the same year as Project
technology appropriate to the task at hand. There was, she Tiger), power engineers set their sights on Silent Valley, to
freely admitted an issue of technology ’destroying the existing build a dam on the river Kuntipuzha. The 240 Mega Watt
culture.’ She might have added, not just cultures but the project was initially cleared for construction by Prime Minister
integrity of ecosystems was under threat.87 She was both part Morarji Desai, in 1978. He agreed to the scheme in return
and parcel of a tradition of commissioning large projects. There for letting the left wing state government go easy on his pet
is an uncanny echo of Jawaharlal Nehru, who used a similar project: prohibition. Indira Gandhi, then in the Opposition, was
idiom in a closed door meeting of Gandhi’s closest associates unable to get her state Congress unit to distance itself from the
only weeks after his death. Industrialisation was not a matter of proposed dam. The grass roots campaign of the mass people’s
choice or simply of survival; it was imperative for the defence science movement, the Kerala Shastra Sahitya Parishad gained
of India. Speaking as he was, only weeks after the winter war impressive support; and scientists the world over appealed
$1)HI[L)K)HI[b)$+*#)f4!06,#?)0,!)=$#-!)04-)4%).#&*%3()%$%*) against the dam. A committee of experts, headed by naturalist
of the senior Gandhians missed.88 D414#)P."*04''(?),%+*!",&4"*-)"0*)7#$T*3"])/."?)6$#*),67$#"4%"'(?)
By 1980, the legacy of large projects was all too real. In just the larger committee continued to lobby Desai’s successor,
thirty years ending in 1980, India had built nearly 900 large Charan Singh. In January 1980, as PM, Indira Gandhi had to
dams, more than any country after the US, USSR, Japan and devise a way out. Her sympathies clearly lay with advocates
China.89 Yet, Indira Gandhi was aware of the larger debate on of preserving a site critical as a rain forest.95 However, she
dams. Prior to her electoral rout in 1977, she had ordered a publicly admitted to being under pressure. There were, after
comprehensive environmental impact assessment of all large all, legitimate regional level aspirations for power and water.
and medium irrigation projects. Although nothing came of this, North Kerala, a backward region had legitimate demands that
it does show a keen awareness of larger issues.90 By 1980, the could not be overlooked.96 It took until 1983, for the M.S.
senior civil servant, B.B. Vohra, a Punjab Indian Administrative Swaminathan Committee’s report to secure the rain forest,
G*#+,3*)$123*#?)=,"0)4)!7*3,4'),%"*#*!"),%)'4%-)4%-)=4"*#),!!.*!?) while developing alternative sources for power and irrigation.
had honed together a sharp critique of large multipurpose river This was not the only such case where her intervention was
valley projects. She had given teeth to his ideas by creating critical to staving off a hydel project. The Moyar Dam that
Land Use boards, although these were but paper tigers.91 In would have inundated the Mudumalai wildlife sanctuary in
her case, there was more of a willingness to look at options, neighbouring Tamil Nadu was also set aside.97 This was even
mainly for ecological rationale as in the cases of Moyar and more critical as it formed part of a vast habitat of intact forest
Silent Valley. Big dams were as integral to Indira Gandhi’s and scrub comprising of as many as four large Protected Areas.
world view as to the late Jawaharlal Nehru’s. Neither was an If both Silent Valley and Mudumalai remained intact to this day,
uncritical admirer, but both were advocates.92 any assessment would have to give some credit to her openness
In 1974, she inaugurated stretches of what would become to the idea of ecological integrity and species diversity.
the Rajasthan Canal, one of the largest human made inter The (NCEPC), to be superseded in November 1980, by the
basin water transfers in the country’s history. The canal was Department of Environment, had played a key role in the turn
4'!$)3$66*6$#4"*-),%)4)6*6$#4/'*)2'6)/()"0*)+*"*#4%)43"$#) of events.98 However, in the Silent Valley case, she had gone
Sunil Dutt, Reshma aur Shera. Fittingly, the hero loses his beyond the committee or the newly constituted Department
life in bringing waters to the parched land. Such projects were of Environment. Any such lobbying had selfevident limits.
-,123.'")"$)433$67',!0)&,+*%)"04")'4#&*)#,+*#!)#4%)"0#$.&0)6$#*) Prime Ministerial authority could only be invoked in
than one state. In 1974 and again in 1981, she got the chief exceptional cases. As in so much else, her personal role
ministers of the riparian states of the river Narmada around a may have averted the crises, but it came at the cost of sound
table. Contrary to the image of an inveterate centraliser, she ,%!",".",$%4') 6*304%,!6!;) <0*) 7$=*#) $1) "0*) $123*) 4%-) "0*)
was often cautious about statelevel aspirations, urging the person who held it was central to her aura. It is tempting to
two key states along, rather than issuing a diktat to the two ask if each such crisis really needed intervention at the highest
Congress chief ministers. On the second occasion, in 1981, level, and that too in a country the size of western Europe and
much more than earlier, these were men who owed much to her with well over half a billion people.
politically. Arjun Singh in Madhya Pradesh and Madhavsinh Much of her career at the top had been about the push and
Solanki were populist leaders of the populist alliances of the pull between populist development ideas and elite conservation
’lower‘ castes and the Adivasis. However, even here, there agendas. There was little doubt that she espoused both very
was only so much the Union government could do.93 Larger categorically. However, there was a pronounced and clear
critiques of the Narmada projects that combined displacement !0,1") "$=4#-!) &#$="0) 2#!") "04%) $+*#) #*-,!"#,/.",$%;)O'#*4-()
and ecological dimensions had been compiled by 1983, but by the mid Seventies, many of her left wing advisers had
were yet to reach centre stage.94 Political leaders were faced gone from the scene. The easing of import restrictions for
with a more prosaic if not the less vexed issue of how to divide ,%-.!"#(?) 4'"0$.&0) ',6,"*-?) =4!) "$) /*) $1) &#*4") !,&%,234%3*;)
236 / Mahesh Rangarajan
These included initiatives for a more stringent legislation on Congress’ ways, there was empathy for the under class, but less
forests and a much more successful enactment of the Forest of a recognition of rights than a careful dispersal of patronage.
Conservation Act that gave New Delhi a decisive say in the Looking back there is little doubt that the legacy is one
conversion of forest land to alternate use. "04")-,+,-*!)4!)6.30)4!),").%,2*!;)>$%"#4#()"$)"0*)304''*%&*)
By 1983, the political picture was fast deteriorating. This of a contemporary history that is marked by detachment or
was helped, in no small way by the crisis in her own party. distance, over time, there is only more to move the student of
The economy picked up pace. However, her party lost its her record to empathy as much as outrage, admiration as much
hold on two southern states that had stood by it even in 1977, as criticism.101 In common with other political leaders, her ideas
Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Furthermore, concomitant with and practices evolved over time. As her conservation initiatives
her pro business stance, she also began courting Hindu cultural collided with state powers, federal government structures and
nationalism, especially in handling sensitive issues of identity the aspirations of the poor, especially rural and tribal people,
in two Border States where Hindus were in a minority. The "0#*4"*%*-)/()74#C!?)1$#*!"!)4%-)#*!*#+*!?)!0*)'*4#%")"$)3$%:4"*)
die was cast by the time of the army action in the summer of her ideals and nationalism.
1984 in Punjab. Her assassination in October ended a long and Her personal inclinations and the demands of practical
tempestuous life. When asked whether she was losing her grip, statecraft were an ever changing mix. In general, there were
a journalist close to her publicly said, she had never regained two critical paradigm shifts in Indira Gandhi’s approach to
3$%"#$')41"*#)0*#)#*".#%)"$)$123*;)8%)4)7#,+4"*)3$##*!7$%-*%3*) questions of conservation in the period after 1969. There
a year earlier, Indira Gandhi had quoted Yeats,’ Things fall =4!)4)&#$=,%&)412%,"()"04")-*+*'$7*-)/*"=**%)0*#)4."$3#4",3)
apart. The centre cannot hold.’99 approach to government and nature, after 1972. This was
concomitant with her general deepening hold on power, both
‘Room for all of us’ at the federal and state levels, to a level unprecedented in
independent India. Many of the initiatives were to outlast
Historians of the late twentieth century India can scarcely avoid 0*#) -*1*4") 4%-) *+*%) 0*#) #*".#%) "$) $123*;) R$=*+*#?) *A.4''()
"0*)#*3$#-)$#)"0*)'*&43()$1),"!)2#!")=$64%)5#,6*)`,%,!"*#;)R*#) !,&%,234%"?)=4!)"0*)143")"04")"0*#*)=4!)4%$"0*#)!0,1"?)!,&%!)$1)
action and words counted even before she came to power and which were evident in the mid Seventies, but which was to
,%)"0*),%"*##*&%.6)=0*%)!0*)=4!)$.")$1)$123*;)8%)4)!7**30) fructify fully after 1980, of a more authoritarian and centralised
to the heads of state and government gathered at the Non framework. This took time to mature and was never fully
Aligned Summit in Delhi in 1983, she spoke of how the earth 0*&*6$%,3?)/*,%&)'$3C*-),%)3$%:,3")=,"0)4!7,#4",$%!)0*#)*4#',*#)
had ‘room for all of us’. Of course, in the eyes of both critics populism had been shaped by.
and admirers, especially so of her environmental record, it This still leaves us with a question with larger philosophical
looked rather different. There seems to have been room for implications. Was Indira Gandhi an ecological nationalist by
only one of us.100 Indira Priyadarshini Nehru Gandhi was a ideological conviction, or was she opportunistically nationalist
product of a vibrant and active nationalist awakening. It was to justify the expansion or arrogation of federal and statist
one that engaged with issues of ethics and science, technology powers in the area of nature conservation? As with all else,
and nature to a far greater extent than we often give credit. there is no easy way of unwrapping the puzzle. There was much
She was a statist, and in her father’s mould, a modernizer. But that was driven by the impulse to centralise powers. It was no
far more than him, she was deeply sensitive to more than just coincidence that the subject of forests and the environment
the call of the wild or the question of making room for nature were placed on the Concurrent List in the Fortysecond
in the worlds’ secondmost populous country. In fact, in the Amendment, enacted during the Emergency. Similarly, there
Seventies as in the Eighties there was close correspondence were major gains in terms of New Delhi’s clout over forest
between her political turns and her environmental policies. If areas and designated natural zones in the 1970s and 1980s.
,%)"0*)2#!"?)!0*)"$$C)4)'*1"=4#-)3$.#!*?)"0*#*)=4!)3$,%3,-*%3*) Yet, it was far too mechanical and simplistic to see the one
of targets in politics as in conservation. The Eighties saw a as the outcome of the other. There was a larger drift towards
movement to the centreright and there is no doubt at all that centralisation and also to the accretion of the power above, but
the authoritarian impulse of the Emergency was alive and this does not deny or detract from the depth of concerns that
well, although in homeopathic doses. The absence of works were often ecological and nationalist. This was clearest in her
of the timbre of Discovery of India may indicate less in terms emergence as a spokeswoman for a carefully crafted position,
of scholarship, but there is no doubt at all of the quality of as an advocate of a Southern way of looking at planetary
intellect that grappled with dilemmas of development. By predicaments that emerged in 1972, and was reiterated in
the Eighties, it was more than the economy that had matured. HIbN)4")"0*)=$#'-)1$#4;)`$#*)!$?)"0*)*1:$#*!3*%3*)$1)%4".#*)
As democracy struck deeper roots, new impulses came to the #*!*#+*!)4%-)"0*)04'")"$)!7*3,23)-46)7#$T*3"!)04-)-**7*#)#$$"!)
fore. This was as true of the forest as of the polity as a whole. in a notion of a nation, where nature had a place. There was
Institutional disarray and decay were masked by her sense of no doubt her initiatives were intensely and deeply political,
energy and engagement with crises. Nature was framed for her /.")"04")-,-)%$")-*"#43")1#$6)4)!,&%,234%3*)"04")=*%")/*($%-)
by the nation state, for its birth and reinforcement were central her immediate political concerns.
to her life. In keeping with the shifting kaleidoscope of the She engaged more closely with issues of ecological nature
Running title missing???? / 237
than any Indian Prime Minister and had a worldview far 5. Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2006. Joining the Dots, Report
more nuanced, developed and sophisticated than that of her of the Tiger Task Force, Delhi: Ministry of Environment and Forests.
late father, Jawaharlal Nehru. There is little doubt that there 6. Sankhala, S. 2008. I remember. In Sahgal, B. Ed. 2008. Lest we forget,
Kailash Sankhala’s India. Mumbai: Sanctuary Books. See p.8.
were authoritarian elements on the projects of saving nature
7. Thapar, V. 2006. The Last Tiger. See p. 304. An earlier instance of such
or remaking the environment, but the shadow cast by them a view can be found in K. Sankhala, who wrote of the tiger poaching
was not all encompassing. The access to women and men in Rajasthan that, had She (Indira) been there, many heads will have
of science and the ability to engage with diverse activists, rolled’. Sankhala, K. 5 November 1993. After the Carnage. Frontline.
Gandhian or nature lovers had roots in an older more eclectic See pp. 7881.
style of nationalism. This larger ecumene outlasted her left 8. The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dweller’s
(Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. See the special issue of
=,%&) 4-+,!$#!?) !.77$#"*#!) 4%-) 3$''*4&.*!?) =0$!*) ,%:.*%3*) Seminar, August 2006 and the various articles in the debate section
had waned by the mid Seventies. It did not and indeed could of Economic and Political Weekly, 19 November, 2005, Vol. 40.
not prevent her and the larger forces arrayed with her, from Unwittingly or not, the latter coincided with the 88th birth anniversary
coming up with strong radical and populist opposition by the of Indira Gandhi.
early 1980s. 9. Gandhi, I. 1969. Science to solve man’s problems, Speech welcoming
Buckminster Fuller at the J Nehru Memorial Lecture, 13 November
A quarter century after her passing, the issues and legacies
1969. In Speeches 1969, pp. 411412.
of the times she lived in are very much with us. It is a complex
10. Fritjoff Capra, F. 1988, 1989. Uncommon Wisdom, Conversations with
#*3$#-)"04")34''!)1$#)3#,",34')#*:*3",$%)4/$.")"0*)%4".#*)$1)7$=*#) remarkable people, London: Hutchison; Reprint by Flamingo Books,
and of knowledge and the manifold ways in which they are pp. 320340, p. 336.
intertwined in our world. In many ways it is a history that is 11. Krishen, P. 2006. Trees of Delhi: a Field Guide. Delhi: Dorling
very much part of the living present. It calls from moving on Kindersley. See especially the section, “Where exactly is the Ridge?”
from mere condemnation or iconic acclaim towards historically pp. 2226.
,%1$#6*-)#*:*3",$%)4%-)-*/4"*;) 12. Kalpavriskh, April 1980. Appeal to the Prime Minister to save the Delhi
Ridge. April 1980, unpublished, Delhi: Kalpavriksh; on the Ridge, see
Parthasarathi, A. 2007. Technology at the Core, Science and Technology
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS under Indira Gandhi. Delhi: Pearson Longman, pp. 275277.
13. Malhotra, I. 2006. Indira Gandhi, Delhi: National Book Trust, p. 184.
I owe a debt to many people, but must above all record my 14. Gandhi, S. Ed. Two Alone, Two Together, Letters between Indira Gandhi
appreciation to all my colleagues and students at the Department and Jawaharlal Nehru, 194064. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1992.
of History, University of Delhi. An earlier version of this article The volume on the earlier period while not used in this essay is an equally
insightful source, Gandhi, S. Ed. 1989. Freedom’s Daughter, Letters
was presented at a workshop on, ‘Nature, Knowledge and
between Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, 19221939. London:
5$=*#9?)0*'-)4")F%,+*#!,"()$1)F77!4'4?)G=*-*%?)Hg)K)HLO.&.!"?) Hodder and Stoughton.
2008. Many ideas in this article emerged from sustained 15. Sharada Prasad, HY 2003. The Book I won’t be writing and other Essays.
discussions with the three individuals who are no more here: Delhi: Chronicle Books. See p. 15.
Prof Ravinder Kumar, R Rangarajan and Kailash Sankhala. I 16. Parthasarathi, Technology, pp. 250251.
am also grateful to Gunnel Cederlof, Harish Damodaran, Leela 17. Gandhi, I. 1972. Man and his World, Speech at the UN Conference on
Gandhi, Heather Goodall, Ramachandra Guha, Ullas Karanth, the Human Environment, Stockholm, June 14, 1972. In Gandhi, I. On
Aromar Revi, Valerian Rodrigues, Vijay Sanghvi, Aarthi Peoples and Problems. Hodder and Stoughton, London 1982, second
edition, 1983. See pp. 6067.
Sridhar, Ajantha Subramanian, R Sukumar and Himanshu
18. McNeill, J.R., 2000. Something new under the sun, An environmental
Thakkar. The usual disclaimers apply. history of the twentieth century, Penguin, Allen Lane and for nation states
see Hobsbawm, E.J. 2006. Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism.
Notes New York: Little Brown .
19. Hasan, M. 2007. The Nehrus, Personal Histories. Delhi: Lustre Press,
1. Gandhi, I. 1969. Preserving wildlife, Address to the General Assembly Roli Books, pp. 4647 photo entitled, ’On a hunting expedition’ shows
of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), New 4)-477*#)_4=404#'4')=,"0)'*4%,%&)4&4,%!")4)#,:*;)
Delhi, 24 November 1969. In Publications Division. In Indira Gandhi 20. Nehru, J. 1936, 2004. An Autobiography. London: John Lane: The
1975. The Years of Endeavour, Selected Speeches of Indira Gandhi, Bodley Head, 1936; Delhi: Penguin 2004. See p. 374. Nehru himself
August 1969 to August 1972 .New Delhi: Publications Division, had stopped hunting even before he came under Gandhi’s spell, see
Government of India (Hereafter, Speeches 1969). See pp. 264267. Autobiography. See p. 33.
2. Thapar, V. 2006. The Last Tiger, Struggling for Survival. Delhi: OUP. 21. Gandhi, I. 1943. Indira Gandhi (IG) to Jawaharlal Nehru (JN). 17 July
See p. 65. 1943. In Gandhi, S. ed. Two Alone. See p. 240.
3. Greenough, P. 2003. Pathogens, pugmarks and political ‘Emergency’, 22. Nehru , J. 1943. J.N. to Vijaylakshmi Pandit, 19 Oct. 1943. In Sahgal,
The 1970s’ south Asian Debates on nature. In Greenough, P. and Tsing, N. Ed. 2004. Before Freedom, Nehru’s Letters to his sister, 190947.
A Ed. 2003. Nature in the Global South, Environmental projects in London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson. p. 284.
South and South East Asia. Delhi: Orient Longman. See pp. 201230;
Guha, R. How much should a person consume? Thinking through the 23. Gandhi, I. 1940. IG to JN, 9 February 1940. In Gandhi, S. Ed. Two
environment. Delhi: Permanent Black. See pp. 125151 appropriately Alone, pp. 260262.
titled ‘Authoritarianism in the wild’. 24. Frank, K. 2001. Indira, the Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi. Delhi: Harper
4. For instance, see Malhotra, I. 1989. Indira Gandhi, A Personal and Collins. See pp. 146164. p. 145, and on her cure: see pp. 239240.
Political Biography, London: Hodder and Stoughton. 25. Gandhi, I. 1940. IG to JN, 13 April 1940. In Two Alone, pp. 2845.
238 / Mahesh Rangarajan
26. Gandhi, I. article in Eve’s Weekly, 2 November 1967 quoted in Bhagat, 49. The point is made by Greenough, P. 2003 op cit. For a more
U. 2005. Indiraji, through my eyes. Delhi: Penguin Viking. See pp. comprehensive treatment see Rangarajan, M. 1996. The Politics of
45146. Ecology: The Debate on People and Wildlife, 197095. In Saberwal,
27. Nehru, J. 1946, 2004. The Discovery of India. Calcutta: Signet Press; V.K. and Rangarajan, M. Eds. 2003. Battles over Nature, Science and
Delhi: Penguin, 2004, pp. 45451. A careful reading of the chapter, the Politics of Conservation. Delhi: Permanent Black. See pp. 189239..
especially pages 445448 shows a critical view of farm mechanization 50. Sankhala, K. 1978. Tiger! The Story of the Indian Tiger. London:
in the densely peopled Ganga basin and sharp criticisms of the blocking Collins. See pp. 141, 161. For tiger cubs see Sankahla, K. 1973. Wild
of the natural drainage paths of rivers in the plains. Beauty, Delhi: National Book Trust, no pagination; Sankhala, K. 1970.
28. Gandhi, I. (presented by F Pouchpdass) 1981. My Truth. Delhi: Vision The controversial tiger, A study of ecology, behavior and status, May
Books. pp. 7273. 1970 to April 1972, Quarterly Report to the J Nehru Memorial Fund,
1st Quarter, MayJuly 1970. Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund.
29. Divyabhanusinh 2005. The Story of Asia’s Lions. Mumbai: MARG.
See p. 173. 51. Indira Gandhi 1973. Message for the launch of Project Tiger, March
26, 1973. In Department of Environment 1984. Indira Gandhi on the
30. Jayakar, J. 1988. Indira Gandhi, an Intimate Biography. Delhi: Penguin. Environment, Delhi: Indira Gandhi Memorial Fund’, See p. 112.
See p. 144.
52. For a detailed examination see Rangarajan, M. 2001. India’s Wildlife
31. Gandhi, I. 1961. IG to JN August 25, 1961. In Gandhi, Two Alone. See History, an Introduction, Delhi: Permanent Black in association with
p. 587. the Ranthambhore Foundation. See pp. 94108.
32. Anonymous 1950. The Delhi Bird Watchers’ Society. Journal of the 53. See his writings in Guha, R. Ed. 2000, 2008. Nature’s Spokesman, M
Bombay Natural History Society (Hereafter JBNHS) 49: 595. Bhagat, Krishnan and India’s Wildlife. Delhi: OUP, Reprint Penguin.
Indiraji. See p. 151.
54. This shift was authored mainly by Krishnan, himself a BSc. in Botany,
33. Gandhi, I 1963. Indira Gandhi to Dorothy Norman, October 13, 1963. Indian Board for Wildlife 1970. Wildlife Conservation in India, Report of
In Norman, D. Ed. 1986. Indira Gandhi: Letters to a Friend, 195084. the Expert Committee. Delhi: Indian Board for Wildlife, p. 1. (Hereafter
London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson. See p. 96. Wildlife, 1970) The older view that wildlife equals animals is elaborated
34. Gandhi, I. 13 July 1958. Manali: A place for contemplation. The Sunday in Gee, E.P. 1962. The management of India’s national parks and wildlife
Statesman. sanctuaries, Part V. JBNHS 59: 45386.
35. The photo is published in Gandhi, S. 1994. Rajiv’s World, Delhi: Viking 55. Ishwar Prakash, I. 1975. The Amazing Life in the Indian Desert. In
Penguin. p. 9. This family holiday was a rare moment together in an The Illustrated Weekly of India, Annual, 1975: 96121.
estranged marriage but foreshadowed tragedy. Her husband Feroze died 56. Indira Gandhi 1969. Importance of Land reforms, Chief Minister’s
two months later, aged only 48 years. Frank 2001. Indira, p. 256. conference on land reforms, 28 Nov. 1969. Speeches. See pp. 267273.
36. Gandhi, I, 1960. IG to JN, 27 June 1960, House Boat Argonaut, Nagin 57. These points are forcefully made in a perceptive piece by K. Ullas
Lake, Kashmir’ in Gandhi, S. Ed. Two Alone. See p. 566. Karanth 15 August 2007. Making room for nature. Bangalore: The
37. Gandhi, I, 1960. IG to JN, HB Argonaut, Nagin Lake, Kashmir, 18 June Hindu.
1960. In Gandhi ed., Two Alone. See p. 566. gb;) d%)fS)X4%*!0)!**)6*6$,#!)$1)!*%,$#)#*+*%.*)!*#+,3*)$123*#)P;X;)X,'4%,)
38. Malhotra, I. 1989, 1991. Indira Gandhi, A Personal and Political under the pen name Iqbal Masud. Masud, I. 1997. Dream Merchants,
Biography. London: Coronet Books. See p. 95. Politicians and Partition, Memoirs of an Indian Muslim. Mumbai: Harper
Collins. See especially p. 106. All those named in this paragraph had
39. Kux, D. 1993. The United States and India, 19471991, Estranged
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Democracies. Washington DC: National Defence Press, 1993. See p.
257. IG to H.Y. Sharada Prasad, Dec. 1966, quoted by Kux. 59. This was of course, PV Narasimha Rao See Rao 2000 The Insider.
Delhi: Penguin Viking. See p. 623.
40. Frank, F. 2001. Indira, The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi. London:
HarperCollins. See pp. 299, 297. By November she was in Moscow 60. Krishnan M. 1972. Delimit sanctum sanctorum in national parks and
for the Anniversary of the October Revolution. wildlife sanctuaries and exclude all human disturbance including forestry
operations. In IBWL, Indian Board for Wildlife, IX Session. Delhi:
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Ministry of Food and Agriculture. See pp. 2023.
Summit, Lusaka, May 1970. In Gandhi, I. 1983. On Peoples. See pp.
5055, 55. 61. Lewis, Inventing Global Ecology. See pp. 235236.
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Management Plan for Dachigam sanctuary, 197175. Srinagar: Forest
43. Gandhi, I. 1968. Tasks before Asian Scientists, Inaugural Address to
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63. Parthasarathi 2006. Technology, pp. 241277. Among those involved
44. Panagariya, A. 2008. India, Emerging Giant. Delhi: OUP, pp. 7173. with environmental policies were Pitamber Pant, MS Swaminathan
45. Gandhi, I. 1980. Stimulate Economic Growth without Damage and public health specialist JM Dave. Issues taken up included diesel
to Ecological Harmony, Address at the Fifteenth FAO Regional exhaust by Delhi buses, pesticide plant residues outside of the capital
Conference, New Delhi, March 10, 1980. In Gandhi, I. 1983. On 4%-)"0*)`4"0.#4)#*2%*#()3'$!*)"$)"0*)<4T)`404';)
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47. See the penultimate chapter of Rao, P.V. Narasimha 1998, 2000. The 66. On wetlands, Salim Ali, S. 1968. Some problems of assessing wildfowl
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of the Tiger in India A Report to the Chairman of the Project Tiger on Wipro and Infosys, Subramanian, India’s Rise. See p. 42.
Steering Committee on a midterm study of Project Tiger, Delhi World
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especially pp. 18, 3839 and 4849. 86. Lewis 2003. Global Ecology. See p. 247; for an account of such
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1979. Socioeconomic aspects of preservation of tigers. Tiger Paper 6: management. Indian Forester, 112: 867873.
56. 87. Capra, F. 2004. Uncommon Wisdom. See pp. 338, 337. Emphasis added.
70. Frank 2001. Indira. See p. 407. 88. Gandhi, G. Ed, 2008. Gandhi is Gone, Who will guide us now?
Sevagram, March 1948. Delhi: Permanent Black, p.. 64.
71. DuPont, V. 12 July 2008. Slum demolitions in Delhi. Economic and
Political Weekly 43(28): 7987, Table 1, p. 81; Tarlo, E. 2000. Welcome 89. Khagram, S. 2005. Dams and Development, International Struggles for
to history: a resettlement colony in the making. In Dupont, V. Tarlo, Water and Power. Delhi: OUP, p. 37.
E. and Vidal, D. Ed. 2000. Delhi, Urban space and human destinies. 90. Khagram 2006.Dams. p. 42.
Delhi: Manohar. pp. 5174. 91. Vohra, B.B. 1980. A Land and Water Policy for India, The Sardar Patel
72. Dhar, P.N. 2000. Indira Gandhi .The ‘Emergency’ and Indian Democracy. Memorial Lectures. New Delhi: Manager of Publications.
Delhi: OUP, pp. 3434. 92. See Rangarajan, M. 2009 Of Nature and Nationalism: Rethinking India’s
73. Panwar H.S. 1984. What to do when you’ve succeeded: Project Tiger Nehru’, in John McNeill, R. Jose Padua, J.A. and Rangarajan, M. Ed,
Ten Years Later. In McNeely, J. and K. Miller, K. Ed., Conservation and 2009. Environmental History: As if nature existed. Delhi: OUP, pp.
Development, The Role of Parks in Sustaining Society, Smithsonian, 101119.
New York, pp. 18390. Panwar, then Director of Project Tiger later 93. See Khagram, Dams, footnote 37, p. 239. Khagram’s account of the
became Director of the Wildlife Institute of India. Q4#64-4),!!.*),!)4)2%*'()/4'4%3*-)433$.%";)d%)"0*)8%-,#4)(*4#!?)!**)
74. Ram, R. February 1978. Union Minister for Defence, Inaugural Address, esp. pp. 7887.
First International Symposium on the Tiger. Delhi, Typescript. The 94. Kalpavriksh and the Hindu College Nature Club 1983. Kalpavriksh 1988.
veteran Minister was no newcomer to the issues having held the Narmada: Development or Destruction. Delhi: Kalpavriksh. Narmada:
Agriculture portfolio at crucial times in the 1970s. A Critique. Delhi:
75. For a review of issues on relocation see Rangarajan. M. and Shahabuddin 95. This account owes much to D’ Monte, D. 1985. Temples of Tombs,
G. 2006. Relocation from Protected Areas: Towards a Historical and Industry versus the Environment, Three controversies. Delhi: Centre for
Biological Synthesis, Conservation and Society 4(3) : 359378. Science and Environment, pp. 4561. In neither of the other cases, the
76. Annu Jalais, A. 2005. Dwelling on Morichjhanpi: When tigers became #*2%*#()%*4#)"0*)<4T)$#)"0*)1*#",',a*#)7'4%")%*4#)B$6/4()=4!)#*'$34",$%)
‘Citizens’, Refugees ‘TigerFood’. Economic & Political Weekly 40: even considered. An important early critique of large dams was Sharma,
17571762. Also see Jalais, A. 2009. The Forest of Tigers. Delhi: L.T. and Sharma, R. Ed., Major Dams: A Second Look, Delhi: Gandhi
Routledge.. Peace Foundation, 1981.
77. Kalpavriksh, December 1982. Death in a sanctuary, Report of the fact 96. Gandhi, I. 1983. Centenary Address, Hornbill, February issue: 116117.
2%-,%&)"*46?)i*'0,j)5#,+4"*'()7./',!0*-;) 97. D’Monte 1985. Temples, pp. 7475.
78. Gandhi, I. 1984. Speech to the Central Forestry Board, 25 August 1982. 98. The Department of Environment was formed on recommendation of
In Department of Environment, Indira Gandhi on the Environment, a Committee headed by senior Union Minister Narain Dutt Tiwari. Its
Delhi, 1984, pp. 5354. 2#!")0*4-)=4!)4)64#,%*)/,$'$&,!")$1)#*7."*?)G;)D40$$#)k4!,6])'4"*#),")=4!)
79. People’s Union for Democratic Rights(P.U.D.R.) 1982. Undeclared Civil headed by an eminent botanist, Triloki Nath Khooshoo. This convention
war, Defend the rights of tribals, oppose Forest Bill. Delhi: PUDR. was soon set aside in favor of civil servants who soon ousted scientists
from the top post.
80. For instance see veteran Chipko leader’s Sunderlal Bahuguna’s warm
memories of the late PM, Bahuguna, S. 18 June 1995 Interview: My 99. Malhotra 1989. Indira. p. 285.
work will go on even if I fail. Delhi: The Hindu . For an analysis of the 100. This is also true of my own earlier and very preliminary engagement with
differences among various activists see Guha, R. 1989, and Revised the subject. See Mahesh Rangarajan, M 2006. Ideology, the environment
1999. The Unquiet Woods, Ecological change and peasant resistance in and policy: Indira Gandhi. The India International Centre Quarterly 33:
the Himalaya. Delhi: OUP, Revised edition, especially see pp. 179184. 5064.
81. Anderson, R.S. and Huber, W. 1988. The Hour of the Fox, Tropical 101. Guha, R. 2008. The challenge of contemporary history. Economic and
Forests, the World Bank and Indigenous Peoples in central India. Delhi: Political Weekly 43: 192200.