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A City With a View: The Afforestation of the Delhi Ridge, 1883–1913

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2009

MICHAEL MANN  and
SAMIKSHA SEHRAWAT
MICHAEL MANN
Affiliation:
Fern Universität in Hagen and University of Strathclyde
SAMIKSHA SEHRAWAT
Affiliation:
Fern Universität in Hagen and University of Strathclyde
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Abstract

Despite the contemporary importance of the Ridge forest to the city of Delhi as its most important ‘green lung’, the concept of urban forestry has been explored neither by urban historians studying Delhi nor by environmental historians. This article places the colonial efforts to plant a forest on the Delhi Ridge from 1883 to 1913 within the context of the gradual deforestation of the countryside around Delhi and the local colonial administration's preoccupation with encouraging arboriculture. This project of colonial forestry prioritized the needs of the white colonizers living in Delhi, while coming into conflict repeatedly with indigenous peasants. With the decision to transfer the capital to Delhi in 1911, the afforestation of the Delhi Ridge received a further stimulus. Town planners' visions of a building the capital city of New Delhi were meant to assert the grandeur of British rule through imposing buildings, with the permanence of the British in India being emphasised by the strategic location of the ruins of earlier empires within the city. The principles of English landscape gardening inspired the planning of New Delhi, with the afforestation of the Delhi Ridge being undertaken to provide a verdant backdrop for—the Government House and the Secretariat—the administrative centre of British government in India. Imperial notions of landscaping, which were central to the afforestation of the Delhi Ridge epitomised colonial rule and marginalized Indians.

Keywords

arboricultureafforestationDelhiurban historyenvironmental historyRidge forestlandscape gardeningurban forestrypublic policyurban villagesimperial town planning
Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , March 2009 , pp. 543 - 570
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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References

References

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Sharma, Y. D.Delhi and Its Neighbourhood, 2nd edn. (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1974).Google Scholar
Singh, Ujagir. ‘New Delhi: Its Site and Situation’. National Geographical Journal of India 4 (1959), 113–120.Google Scholar
Stewart, G. H. et al. ‘The Re-emergence of Indigenous Forest in an Urban Environment, Christchurch, New Zealand’. Urban Forestry and Urban Greening, 2 (3) (2004), 149–158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The Delhi Ridge Forest: Decline and Conservation (New Delhi: Kalpavriksha, 1991).Google Scholar
Tillotson, G. H. R. ‘The Indian Picturesque: Images of India in British Landscape Painting, 1780–1880’, in Bayly, Christopher A. (ed.), The Raj. India and the British, 1600–1948 (London:National Portrait Gallery, 1990).Google Scholar
Treves, Frederick.The Other Side of the Lantern (London: Cassell & Co., 1906).Google Scholar
Volwahsen, Andreas.Imperial Delhi. The British Capital of the Indian Empire (Munich: Prestel, 2002).Google Scholar
Delhi State Archives, Deputy Commissioner's Office, 2/1883.Google Scholar
Final Report on the Settlement of Land Revenue in the Delhi District carried on 1872–77 by Oswald Wood and completed 1878–80 by Maconachie, R. (Lahore: Victoria Press, 1882).Google Scholar
Final Report on the Town Planning of the New Imperial Capital (Delhi: Superintendent of Government Printing, India, 1913).Google Scholar
Hardinge, Charles. My Indian Years, 1910–1916: The Reminiscences of Lord Hardinge of Penshurst (London: John Murray, 1948).Google Scholar
Scheme for the Afforestation of the Ridge, Delhi (Delhi: Superintendent Government Printing, 1913).Google Scholar
Special Report of the Delhi Town Planning Committee on the Possibility of Building the Imperial Capital on the North Site (Delhi: Government Printing, 1913).Google Scholar
Andrews, MalcolmThe Search for the Picturesque. Landscape Aesthetics and Tourism in Britain, 1750–1800 (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1989).Google Scholar
Bayly, Christopher A.Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars. North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770–1780 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983).Google Scholar
Banks, John and Brack, Chris. ‘Canberra's Urban Forest: Evolution and Planning for Future Landscapes’. Urban Forestry and Urban Greening, 1 (3), (2003), 151–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blake, Stephen P.Shahjahanabad: The Sovereign City in Mughal India, 1639–1739 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brosnan, Kathleen A. ‘Effluence, Affluence, and the Maturing of Urban Environmental History’. Journal of Urban History, 31 (2004), 115–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colvin, , B. ‘On the Restoration of the Ancient Canals in the Delhi Territory’, Journal of the Asiatic Society, Vol. 2, March 1833, pp. 105–27.Google Scholar
Delhi Gazetteer (Delhi Administration, 1976).Google Scholar
Fanshawe, H. C.Delhi. Past and Present (London, 1902; reprint Gurgaon etc.: Vintage Books, 1991).Google Scholar
Frykenberg, R. E. ‘The Coronation Durbar of 1911. Some Implications’, in Frykenberg, R. E. (ed.), Delhi Through the Ages. Selected Essays in Uurban History, Culture and Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 225–246.Google Scholar
Gupta, Narayani. ‘Military Security and Urban Development: A Case Study of Delhi, 1857–1912’. Modern Asian Studies 5 (1971), 61–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gupta, Narayani. ‘Delhi and Its Hinterland. The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’, in Frykenberg, R. E. (ed.), Delhi Through the Ages. Selected Essays in Urban History, Culture and Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 136–156.Google Scholar
http://www.ddadelhi.com/greens/environment.htm, accessed on 10 January 2005.Google Scholar
Hunt, John D.Studies in the History of Landscape Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1992).Google Scholar
Irving, Robert G.Indian Summer: Lutyens, Baker, and Imperial Delhi (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981).Google Scholar
King, Anthony D.Colonial Urban Development. Culture, Social Power and Environment (London:Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976).Google Scholar
Konijnendijk, Cecil C. ‘A Decade of Urban Forestry in Europe’. Forest Policy and Economics, 5 (2) (July 2003), 173–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kurian, Mathew and Dietz, Ton. ‘Irrigation and Collective Action: A Study in Method With Reference to the Shiwalik Hills, Haryana’. Natural Resources Forum, 28 (2004), pp. 34–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mann, Michael. ‘Pomp and Circumstance in Delhi,1877–1937 oder: Die hohleKrone des British Raj’, in: Brandt, Peter und Schlegelmilch, Arthur (eds.), Symbolische Macht und inszenierte Staatlichkeit. ‘Verfassungskultur’ als Element der Verfassungsgeschichte (Bonn, Dietz Verlag, 2005), pp. 101–34.Google Scholar
Manson, F. B. ‘Trees as a Protection from Hot or Violent Winds’. Indian Forester, VII (1) (1881–82), pp. 44–51.Google Scholar
Metcalf, Thomas R.An Imperial Vision. Indian Architecture and Britain's Raj (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).Google Scholar
Meyer, William. ‘Urban Heat Island and Urban Health: Early American Perspectives’. Professional Geographer, 43 (1) (1991), 38–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nilsson, Sten.The New Capitals of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (Lund: Studentlitteratur and Curson Press, 1973).Google Scholar
Percy, Clayre and Ridley, Jane (eds.). The Letters of Edwin Lutyens to His Wife Lady Emily (London: Collins, 1985).Google Scholar
Plumptre, George.The Garden Makers. The Great Tradition of Garden Design from 1600 to the Present Day (London: Pavilion, 1993), pp. 55–94.Google Scholar
Renton-Denning, J.Delhi the Imperial City (Bombay: Times Press, 1911). Front Outlet: Coronation Durbar, Delhi 1911 (Provisional Issue), 1 May 1911.Google Scholar
Rome, Adam W. ‘Building on the Land: Towards the Environmental History of Residential Development in American Cities and Suburbs, 1870–1990’. Journal of Urban History, 20 (3) (May 1994), 407–434.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosen, C. M. and Tarr, J. A.. ‘The Importance of an Urban Perspective in Environmental History’. Journal of Urban History 20 (1994), 299–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharma, Y. D.Delhi and Its Neighbourhood, 2nd edn. (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1974).Google Scholar
Singh, Ujagir. ‘New Delhi: Its Site and Situation’. National Geographical Journal of India 4 (1959), 113–120.Google Scholar
Stewart, G. H. et al. ‘The Re-emergence of Indigenous Forest in an Urban Environment, Christchurch, New Zealand’. Urban Forestry and Urban Greening, 2 (3) (2004), 149–158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The Delhi Ridge Forest: Decline and Conservation (New Delhi: Kalpavriksha, 1991).Google Scholar
Tillotson, G. H. R. ‘The Indian Picturesque: Images of India in British Landscape Painting, 1780–1880’, in Bayly, Christopher A. (ed.), The Raj. India and the British, 1600–1948 (London:National Portrait Gallery, 1990).Google Scholar
Treves, Frederick.The Other Side of the Lantern (London: Cassell & Co., 1906).Google Scholar
Volwahsen, Andreas.Imperial Delhi. The British Capital of the Indian Empire (Munich: Prestel, 2002).Google Scholar