The catastrophe of blazing forests, hills in flame and the failing British during 1916-1921

Abstract

One of the fair, straightforward and challenging task before the present academicians is to resurrect for posterity the hidden accounts of injustices done, mass-destruction of resources both natural and human, crimes committed by the colonial masters under the pretext of rules and regulations that were framed only for continued exploitation and the element of protest amongst the colonized people for protection of men and environment. “Acts” of protest lesser known; that may be individual or autonomous have hidden repercussions. The growing control of the colonials over resources and territories affected living traditions and life-styles thereby imposing upon the natives; be it masses or the rulers, a repressive process of acceptance and submission either coercively or persuasively. Denial to conform had its own dangers yet the living consciousness of natives opposed restrictions and absurd demands at every step. During 1916-1921, the hills of Kumaon saw incessant fire that would continue for days informed to be caught by accident to the British administration which in reality would be set ablaze by the village people of the hilly regions of Kumaon. The same men/women, who had post-independence, started the Chipko Movement for the protection of forest-wealth used to burn their forests overnight to protest against the Forest Regulation Act imposed by the British. The village women who in the Chipko movement would cling to trees to oppose their vehement destruction would silently watch the whole region burn. This form of silent resistance added to the increasing administrative failures, enormous anxiety, discomfiture and apprehensions amidst the Britons. In this paper, I propose a re-engagement into the Forest Regulations Act as imposed and the active resistance of the hill people who were stereotyped as “simple and law-abiding hillman” as there was an absence of protest in the first century of British rule. A revisionist remaking of the past and re-invention of a new tradition becomes an act of creation. History, as retained in the memories of the people, contains symbolic power. They become the symbolic projections of peoples’ hope, values, fears and aspirations.