An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India

by Shashi Tharoor

The British cut down the forests of the Nilgiris and Assam to grow tea, and ravaged the forests of Coorg to grow coffee. Tea was not the only villain in the ecological devastation of the Nilgiris; the British also brought in several exotic species like eucalyptus, pine and wattle to produce viscose, which was sent to the UK to be made into fabric. Unfortunately, plants like eucalyptus thirstily drink up the ground water; thanks to their plantations, the British converted the once lush tropical rainforests of the Nilgiris into a water-shortage area. The same phenomenon occurred when the British forced Indian farmers to grow poppy in order to extract opium, which involved cutting down vast areas of forests in some parts of north India. In Assam, for instance, by the mid-nineteenth century, large numbers of trees were chopped down since the opium poppy could not ripen and flower in their shade. This practice of slashing trees to protect the poppy indirectly almost wiped out some of India’s most magnificent predators. The British wanted more land to be used for commercial crops, which would bring them revenue, so they put a bounty on the head of each predator, successfully erasing tigers, cheetahs, leopards and lions from vast parts of India. The tiger and leopard survived, albeit in reduced numbers, because they hid in the jungle. But the lion needed vast open spaces and could not survive—except in the one corner of the country, in Gujarat, where an Indian prince, the Nawab o...