FROM WASTELAND TO EARTH’S DELIGHT!

By the late eighteenth century, England had lost all her forests to the Industrial revolution: as such the demand for timber for the Royal Armada and the commercial ships drew the colonial gaze to the forests of India and Burma. As earlyas 1806, the East India Company set up a ‘forest department’ and created create a monopoly over teak from the Malabar coast for ship building activities. Over the next three decades, the EIC reserved forests of rosewood, ebony and sandalwood for their ‘exclusive ‘use. However in other parts of the country, especially in Central and North India, forests were treated as wasteland which did not yield any revenue, and Commissioners and Collectors encouraged the cutting of trees to bring land under the plough, for agriculture operations yielded land revenue. The legendary commissioner of Kumaon, George William Trail felt legitimate pride in doubling the land revenue from the Kuman hills. This was also the period when large tracts in Bengal (which included Assam) and Madras presidencies were cleared for plantations of tea, coffee, indigo and opium.

However the game changer was the establishment of railway lines. The first railway line was established in 1853. In less than two decades, the railway network grew from 32 km to 7,678 km, and this required quality sleepers made by the finest trees of shorea robusta (Sal). It was during this period that Lord Dalhousie (1856) sought the assistance of a German officer Dr Dietrich Brandis to organize the forest resources of India and Burmese territory. Dalhousie’s successor, Lord Elgin in his despatch to then Secretary of State for India, Sir Charles Wood wrote categorially that forest should henceforth not be treated as ‘wasteland’, but classified as Special State Domain. In 1863, Brandis was appointed as the first Inspector general of Forests, and he helped draft the Forest Act of 1865, which though amended in 1878 and 1927 set the ground for the classification of Forests into three categories: Reserved, protected and village forests. This led to some conflict and resentment between the forest administration and revenue officials, especially as in several revenue divisions, as in Kumaon hills, more than fifty percent area was placed under forest. Be that as it may the commercial gains to be made from forestry, and the strategic importance of laying railway lines made it imperative for the British Raj to organize the Imperial Forest service, and it should be placed on record that after the ICS, this was the second All India service to be constituted. The year was 1867, and the first selection to the Indian Imperial Police were made twenty-six years later – in 1893. In 1869, FR Desai was the first Indian to be selected for the Forest service, and sent for training to Germany. In the first two decades, 95 officers were appointed, but given the very harsh conditions of service, and the prevalence of malaria, the mortality rate was very high: hence the first mottos of the service were Meloria Speramus. We hope for a Better Future, and later Mens Sana in Corpore Sano Sound Mind in a Sound Body. Post-independence, the emblem of the Forest service is Aranya Te Prithvi Syonmastu ( )” The Forest is Earth’s delight”.
To be continued...

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY THE AUTHOR ARE PERSONAL

SANJEEV CHOPRA  The writer superannuated as the Director of the LBS National Academy of Administration, India’s apex training institution, and curates Valley of Words: An annual Literature and Arts festival at Dehradun, where he currently resides