Histories of Rights in Nature
This is a study of the formation of legal rights in nature during British colonial rule in South India. Though focusing on a limited geographical area, it has relevance for land law within the colonies of the British Empire. It targets specifically rights of access and ownership of land in territories dominated by indigenous communities, whom the British administration defined as ‘tribal’. Chapter one introduces the larger theme and contextualises the Nilgiri Hills as the location of a close empirical study of land conflicts during its most intense period until the first more encompassing code of rights in nature in the Nilgiris in 1843. The chapter further juxtaposes contemporary debates on how the past and history have been a battleground for codifying such rights. Here, the chapter contrasts the production of history with memory wherein the critique of Eurocentrism has challenged long-term legacies of historismus. Oral history and memory that have been argued to be the privileged arena of subaltern and colonised populations are considered in view of written history being originally oral testimony. Other debates, foundational for the formation of legal codes, have targeted the impact of evolutionary science on history and the role of the resulting discipline as both an imperial and a modern project.