Shooting a Tiger
Big-Game Hunting and Conservation in Colonial India
Vijaya Ramadas Mandala
1
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ISBN-13 (print edition): 978-0-19-948938-1
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To my parents and family
For Mahesh Rangarajan, John MacKenzie, and Harriet Ritvo
Figures
2.1 Lake Yercaud, Shervaroy Hills, Tamil Nadu. Etching by Douglas Hamilton in mid-nineteenth century 111
2.2 The Pillar Rocks, Pulney Mountains. Etching by Douglas Hamilton in mid-nineteenth century 111
2.3 A successful sambur stalking 128
4.1 The King of Oude’s cheetahs dispatched to the then governor general 231
4.2 The conclusion of a cheetah hunt at Cambay, original drawing by Lady Malet (nineteenth century) 233
4.3 A cheetah chasing a deer with huntsmen on horseback and elephant in Barrackpore Park, the Bengal Provinces, c. 1802 233
4.4 A hunting party posing with five dead tigers and one rhinoceros, possibly in the late 1930s (Indo-Nepal region) 249
4.5 Lord and Lady Curzon at a tiger hunt organized by the Nizam of Hyderabad in Warangal, India, in 1902 250
4.6 Viceroy Lord Irwin and the Maharaja of Alwar during a tiger shoot in 1926 252
4.7 The Royal visit to India, arrival of the Prince of Wales at Agra (artist: William Simpson?); double-page print from engraving of the prince and various Indian dignitaries on elephants 255
5.1 Flashlight photograph of a tiger, taken by F.W. Champion around 1926 in northern India 281
5.2 Leopard in the Indian jungle; photograph by F.W. Champion 281
5.3 Three cats: a lion standing on a rock, a leopard curled up underneath, and a tiger prowling (later nineteenth century). Reproduction of an etching by T. Landseer after E.H. Landseer 305
5.4 A tiger hunt in a tropical forest with the hunting party riding animals. Etching by W. Daniell and engraving by J.W. Lowry 310
6.1 Geographical map of Uttarakhand, based on Jim Corbett’s description 331
6.2 The plaque presented to Jim Corbett for killing the Champawat man-eater 336
6.3 Corbett with the Bachelor of Powalgarh 344
6.4 The grandson of the last victim of the Talla Des man-eater 346
6.5 The man-eating tiger of Sonaripur shot by Richard Burton on the back of a moving elephant, 1924 364
Abbreviations
BL British Library
BNHS Bombay Natural History Society
CIE Companion of the Indian Empire
CSAS Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge
ILN Illustrated London News, The
IOR India Office Records
NAI National Archives of India, New Delhi
NGA Nilgiri Game Association
NMML Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi
OBE Order of the British Empire
PWD Public Works Department
RCSL Royal Commonwealth Society Library, Cambridge
RSL Radcliffe Science Library, University of Oxford
RSPCA Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Foreword
John M. MacKenzie
Hunting wild animals as a statement of elite authority is as old as empires themselves. As Bernhard Gissibl has written,
Egyptian pharaohs, Persian satraps, Mongolian khans, Mughal emperors, Ottoman sultans, European kings, colonial governors in imperial provinces, Nazi leaders as well as Communist party leaders used hunting as a ritual assertion of political power within far-flung, heterogeneous polities. Empire was a political ecology constellation in which animals were resources as well as agents, and their violent appropriation was a dominant and continuous theme in imperial history.1
1 Berhard Gissibl, ‘Hunting and Empire’, in The Encyclopedia of Empire, vol. 2, edited by John M. MacKenzie (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2016), p. 1131.
This is by no means a complete listing of all the historic empires for which hunting played this key cultural role. Moreover, few activities appear as regularly in the art of these empires since here was an elite engagement with the beasts of the natural world that was immensely visual in all its complexities. Such complexities included the privileges and authority of elites in their display of ecological power, their command of the technical rituals of the hunt, as well as the assertion of rank and social hierarchy, the performance of forms of protection, the demarcation of the frontiers of imperial authority, the power of life and death over beasts (as well as invariably over humans), and a means of recreation with a purpose which additionally drew upon and illustrated personal courage and skills. Thus, hunting often constituted a ritualized signal of territorial control, a warning to neighbours to keep their distance, and an environmental coding of power within the state, one which entailed the means of marshalling large numbers of auxiliaries, thus constituting a rehearsal for war. More recently, hunting has also been examined in the context of gender studies, in the assertion of forms of masculinity and also in the revelation of the emergence of female hunters during the later decades of modern empires. It has additionally come to be considered in terms of the British royal tours, for example, of the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII) in 1875–6 and of the Duke of York (later George V), and a number of other royal tourists in the twentieth century, since hunting trips were always an important component of such visits to India.
Despite the cultural significance of the hunt and the publication in modern times of large numbers of books devoted to descriptions of hunting, hunting inspired very little in the way of scholarly analytical attention, at least in the Anglophone world, until thirty years ago. As I wrote then, studying hunting seemed rather like ‘advancing on trackless wastes’ with few of the scholarly signposts we expect to find in most research.2 However, since then a remarkable number of scholars have taken up the various aspects of hunting in, particularly, North America, Africa, and Asia. Some hunting had considerable international economic significance, for example, in the fur, skin, horn, and ivory trades,
2 John M. MacKenzie, The Empire of Nature: Hunting, Conservation and British Imperialism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), p. 3.
but it is in the examination of the cultural, environmental, and political aspects of the phenomenon that such scholarship has been most suggestive. In these, studies of hunting (or shikar) in India have proved to be an emblematic case study and a rich source of publications. Now Vijaya Ramadas Mandala has produced a work that is distinguished by the breadth of its research, the detail of its analysis, and the sophistication of its interpretations. His work is distinguished by a number of significant advances. The first is in the recognition that hunting was essentially a political phenomenon, which not only asserted authority, but also created opportunities for various forms of interaction with elements of Indian society, from the princes to the peasants, as well as played a role in surveillance and intelligence gathering. It was also significant in the exploration of liminal space (for example, at frontiers and in the mountains), therefore, in the unveiling of key topographical information, and also in the establishment of vital points of settlement, for example, in the establishment of hill stations and military sanatoria (the latter were places where soldiers could recover their health). But of course it was also a ‘sport’ (indeed the word sport became synonymous with hunting in the British imperial period), an activity which once again had a variety of resonances, including the assertion of masculinity, the display of courage, the understanding of the characteristics and habits of the prey, their environmental contexts, and of the developing technology of firearms. Mandala has also demonstrated the manner in which hunting has to be understood in different ecological and political contexts, whether on the plains, in the mountains, or in the forests of India, in the areas directly ruled by the British or in the preserves of the princely states. He deals not only with human hierarchies, but also with the zoological gradations from acceptable animals to ‘vermin’ which became part of the evaluation of the qualities of the preferred prey. His book concludes with the apparently paradoxical ways in which celebrated hunters such as Jim Corbett and Colonel Richard Burton increasingly turned their attention to conservation; at the same time Mandala recognizes that such concerns were still rooted in imperial attitudes, resulting in the further heightening of discrimination against indigenous hunters. Thus, conservation did not necessarily imply a revulsion against the ideologies of hunting, but the addition of a new approach designed to ensure that it continued to be a viable and (in modern terms) sustainable activity. This book is, therefore, a most important addition to the literature of imperial hunting and of
environmental studies which should be read by all those concerned to understand and develop the growing analytical sophistication of such work. The ‘trackless wastes’ have become a much better mapped scholarly topography. Mandala is to be congratulated for adding so considerably to these welcome developments.
Acknowledgements
Writing this book was not easy, but the supreme satisfaction of completing an in-depth research work carried out over many years is, in the end, worth the effort. Over the last seven years this project experienced several delays due to the lack of funds. However, my passion for historical research and rational bearing allowed me to rise above such limitations to complete this book.
The book would not have been possible without the help and support of many people, be it academic colleagues, lawyer friends and civil servants, history enthusiasts, or travellers passing by, on trains, at airports, in the streets, who have on a regular basis inspired my commitment to work in an ordinary fashion. Though the writing and shaping of this book has mostly been an individual effort, over the years the participation of various people gave me the opportunity to discuss ideas and new lines of thinking and approaches, thus honing my understanding of the subject. Parts of the research contained in the book were delivered in the form of talks, lectures, seminars, and workshops at the University of Manchester in the UK and at various higher education institutes including Indian
Institutes of Management, Indian Institutes of Technology, law universities, and central universities across India. The response, in the form of questions and suggestions, at these venues really helped me broaden the horizon of the subject of hunting and conservation, and investigate the ways in which it was intimately related to colonial governance. The junior fellowship of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), New Delhi, between 2014 and 2016 also helped enhance the overall scope of the book, and a new chapter on hunting on the hills or hill sport was written based on the feedback of the Manchester University Press’s (MUP’s) imperial history series editor. The seminar talks and public lectures delivered by academics, conservation biologists, field ecologists, national parks directors, and naturalists at NMML widened my understanding of the cultural geography of varied landscapes and the issues of biodiversity, and the need for conserving endangered species, especially tigers, elephants, and rhinos in contemporary India. After-seminar conversations at NMML with audience members on a daily basis also provided a convivial environment, where the subject matter of the book and its progress were regularly discussed.
Though the thought of writing on the subject of hunting and conservation in colonial India took root at the University of Manchester during my PhD days, converting my doctoral thesis into a book and developing, researching, and writing a new chapter and many new sections in other chapters with an array of newly unearthed archival material happened in India at home in Visakhapatnam, after the completion of my PhD.
I would like to thank all those people who have been around me in those wonderful and exciting years in Manchester for their joyful companionship, inspiration, help, and support while I was moving forward on this research project. I am thankful to Ashburne Hall and my group of best friends for their incredible support during otherwise difficult times, which they transformed into thriving years of brilliant stay in Manchester.
I am grateful to Dr Anindita Ghosh at the University of Manchester for offering critical input and professional discipline, questioning and interrogating my research ideas, and providing constant encouragement over the years, which helped me to write the initial drafts of the book. I appreciate the early comments and criticism of Dr Max Jones and Dr Natalie Zacek at the University of Manchester on some chapters in
the book. The enchanting years of walking in the corridors of the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures as a graduate teaching assistant and researcher and the history faculty’s constant inquisitive interludes on the subject of hunting and conservation further strengthened my unflinching commitment to the subject.
The additional feedback and areas of further research outlined by Dr Sujit Sivasundaram (University of Cambridge) and Professor Ana Carden-Coyne (University of Manchester) greatly helped me to revise the book in some very significant ways. Suggestions and comments by Professor John MacKenzie and Professor Harriet Ritvo (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA) further enriched the textual interpretations on the subject matter. Professor Mahesh Rangarajan’s mentorship was an all-round inspiration, especially when the project was plunged into economic difficulties and I had to continue the tasks at hand during the book’s transition from MUP to Oxford University Press (OUP). Professor Rangarajan was a regular enquirer of my research progress whilst I was completing my postdoctoral fellowship at NMML between 2014 and 2016. I would like to thank MUP’s editorial director, Emma Brennan, for initially administering my book project and the development of its several excellent revisions between 2012 and 2016. I am grateful for the feedback and criticism I received from MUP’s three anonymous reviewers, which helped me to reinforce the scope and the lines of argument in the book in a lucid and coherent manner.
The team at OUP, India, in Delhi was very friendly and helpful in coordinating the further review process. I appreciate their unwearied spirit in the face of an array of difficult administrative tasks. I am grateful for the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback and comprehensive thought, which helped me streamline the remaining areas of progress and the overall quality of the book. I am very grateful to the team of editors at OUP for helping with the book’s overall progress, for providing administrative support, and for preparing the manuscript for publication.
My fellow historians and friends in the USA, Ezra Rashkow and Julie Hughes, were helpful with their stimulating discussions on the history of hunting and conservation pertaining to South Asia during our regular correspondence and the exchange of ideas. A seminar and question–answer session on the book’s subject matter, which lasted
more than 90 minutes, accompanied by excellent conversation with MA (History) students in the Department of History at University of Hyderabad, India, has been a notable recent event. I express my gratitude to Dr Anindita Mukhopadhyay for organizing this wonderful talk and putting forward many questions and for suggesting areas of further exploration on the subject. I am thankful to Professor Sanjay Subodh, head, Department of History at University of Hyderabad, and the history faculty, which includes Professor Rekha Pande, Dr V. Rajagopal, Professor Bhangya Bhukya, and Professor Atluri Murali, for their regular academic engagement and general encouragement for my commitment to historical research.
Various archives, libraries, and museums in the UK and India have offered timely help in providing access to the primary sources, records, private papers, official documents, collections, images, and photographs during the course of my research. The wonderful service they have rendered in a timely fashion upon my request would remain a testimony of their professionalism. I would like to thank the staff at National Archives of India in New Delhi and Bombay Natural History Society in Mumbai in India as well as the British Library in London, UK, for furnishing various archives and colonial documents pertaining to my research. I am thankful to Colin Harris of Bodleian Library and the staff at Radcliffe Science Library at University of Oxford, UK, for giving me access to plenty of colonial sources and official and unofficial documents. John Rylands Library in Manchester was also useful in locating some of the British sportsmen’s memoirs. I am grateful to Rachel M. Rowe, Smuts Librarian for South Asian and Commonwealth Studies, and Dr Kevin Greenbank, the CSAS Archivist at University of Cambridge, UK, for granting me access to their archival collection and colonial images. I am thankful to Cambridge University Library and Picture Library coordinator Domniki Papadimitriou for granting permission to use some of their archival images in my book. I am equally indebted to Wellcome Collection, London, for granting permission to use some of their colonialera images in my book, including the book’s front cover. I am grateful to James Champion (grandson of F.W. Champion, colonial forest officer and famous wildlife photographer in early twentieth-century India) for sharing some ideas on my research and providing his grandfather’s photographs on wildlife in early twentieth-century India, which have been incorporated in Chapter 5. I am indebted to the staff at NMML
and Central Secretariat Library in New Delhi and State Central Library in Hyderabad for their help in consulting their archives and history books. The National Archives in the UK had also provided access to some of the important sources and private papers related to my research.
My ‘Cambridge grandmother’, Susan Reeves, provided excellent accommodation for me in 2009 for the consultation of archives at the University of Cambridge. The warmth of friendship, breakfast and evening conversation every day, and discussions of politics and current affairs—Susan’s discussing, not surprisingly, the colonial background of her ancestors who migrated to New Zealand and Australia in midnineteenth century, including her uncle who had worked in colonial India and was a shikari (hunter) in the 1930s—made my overall stay in Cambridge a highly enriching experience. Punting on River Cam only soothed what was otherwise a heavy load of collecting and wasting no time in glimpsing through hundreds of colonial files and letters of correspondence, identifying key primary documents for consultation at the Centre for South Asian Studies and university library. I am also grateful to Mansfield College at University of Oxford for a convivial stay during my archival consultation work.
Earlier versions of Chapters 5 and 6 of the book were published as the following articles. I would like to thank Cambridge University Press, UK, and the White Horse Press, UK, for granting me permission to to reprint these materials in their revised forms:
1. ‘The Raj and the Paradoxes of Wildlife Conservation: British Attitudes and Expediencies’, The Historical Journal, vol. 58 (2015): 75–110 (Cambridge University Press, UK)
2. ‘Go after a Man-Eater That Has Killed a Hundred People? Not on Your Life!’ Global Environment, vol. 7, no. 2 (2014): 572–609 (The White Horse Press, Cambridgeshire, UK).
Finally, I am glad to have the privilege of love, understanding, and wonderful support from my family for all these years and all the way through, which cannot be expressed just in words. This was especially true in the face of adverse situations faced in the British universities and the subsequent economic difficulties in researching and publishing high-quality academic articles and the book without any institutional sponsorship or support. My mother, sisters, Lakshmi and
xxii Acknowledgements
Kala, brother-in-law, Suryanarayana, and brother Prasad have provided a comfortable stay in the beautiful surroundings of home and delicious home food every day after my return to India. The children in the family Dhanunjay, Sowgandhika, and Maitreyi simplified my life with the joys of childhood and play, going to the seashore, walks, and excursions in the midst of writing and completing this book’s revisions.
20 March 2018 Vijaya Ramadas Mandala Hyderabad
Introduction
Shikar in South Asia
This book studies hunting in colonial India as an integral aspect of colonial governance. My research positions shikar or hunting at the heart of colonial rule by demonstrating that, for the British in India, it served as a political, practical, and symbolic apparatus in the consolidation of power and rule. What became established as mere recreational sport in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was later identified as critical to the continuation of colonial commercial and political functions and the extension of territorial control, particularly evident in the government’s ruthless policy regarding forest populations and the utilitarian approach to wildlife conservation. In addition, shikar also constituted an area in which colonial hunters could exhibit their manly prowess and superior martial and shooting skills in a deadly display of raw power. As this book aims to demonstrate, sporting big-game exploits as colonial metaphors of rule were eminently exportable and instrumental in impressing not just local subject populations but also the British metropolitan audience.
ShootingaTiger:Big-GameHuntingandConservationinColonialIndia
Vijaya Ramadas Mandala, Oxford University Press (2019). © Vijaya Ramadas Mandala. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199489381.003.0001
Following colonial forest legislation, the Indian princes were privy to these exclusive sporting privileges exercised by the ruling classes and they played a critical role in sustaining the lavish hunts that became the hallmark of the late nineteenth-century British Raj. Hunting was not, however, just ‘sport’. It was also a way of life in colonial India, undertaken by officials and soldiers alike alongside their everyday, routine duties; it was necessary for their mental sustenance and vital for the smooth operation of the colonial administration. The world of hunting was a microcosm of officialdom, replicating its strictly graded structure of rank and privilege, and closely watchful of access and social mobility among hunters.
Hunting was an important aspect of the imperial showcasing of power in colonial India as well as a vital means of governance and rule. The figure of the white hunter sahib standing with a gun in hand over the carcass of a tiger was one of the most powerful and enduring images of the empire, inspiring awe and respect among viewers. The killing of man-eating predators especially cemented the role of imperial hunters as rulers and protectors of indigenous populations. But what is less well known, as this book will examine, is the fact that hunting was not just a symbol but also a method of rule. Such issues of colonial governance originated in the early nineteenth century when the Company government declared a policy of clearing jungle areas to open up fresh tracts for cultivation. By rendering arable and (later commercialized) forest tracts and nearby regions safe, depriving forest populations of the right to hunt and encouraging them to turn to agriculture instead, using hunting as a ruse to conduct surveillance operations, and mercilessly quelling any opposition to these policies, the colonial government pursued its inherent objective of maximizing the agrarian revenue and extracting the natural resources of the colony. This explains why the nineteenth century was historically significant in the institutionalization of colonial agendas.
In the context of big-game hunting, the book further explores the complex qualities inherent in the colonial hunter versus wild predator discourse which emerged during the nineteenth century in India.1
1 Lieutenant Colonel C.H. Stockley, Big Game Shooting in the Indian Empire (London: Constable and Company Ltd, 1928); Captain J.H. Baldwin, Large and Small Game of Bengal and North Western Provinces of India
During this period, Britons devised a hunting discourse which led to the colonial construction of ‘fear’ and ‘terror’ of carnivores such as tigers and leopards as well as ‘dangerous’ elephants and rhinos. This ‘fear’ reinforced a societal belief system that already reflected sociocultural as well as political and economic realities, thereby moulding the consciousness of rural and tribal societies in India. It is possible to argue that in the history of the Indian subcontinent only the British elaborately documented the depredations of tigers, ‘rogue’ elephants, and other big-game animals from the beginning of the nineteenth century, following the establishment of their rule.2 Many of the imperial hunters (London: Henry S. King and Co., 1877); Samuel Baker, Wild Beasts and Their Ways (London: Macmillan and Co., 1890). Also see Harriet Ritvo, The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989); Callum McKenzie, ‘The British Big-Game Hunting Tradition: Masculinity and Fraternalism with Particular Reference to “The Shikar Club”,’ The Sport Historian, vol. 20, no. 1 (May 2000): 70–96.
2 The Monthly Review, or, Literary Journal, vol. 39 (London: 1802), pp. 25–6. Also see, Joseph Fayrer, The Royal Tiger of Bengal: His Life and Death (London: J. and A. Churchill, 1875), p. 40, and Journal of the Society of Arts (London, 1878), p. 198; C.J.C. Davidson, Diary of Travels and Adventures in Upper India (London: Henry Colburn, 1843), p. 301; Jubbulpore Roads, Mirzapore, Measures for Destruction of Tigers (1834–1837), India Office Records (IOR)/Z/E/4/14/ R495, British Library (BL); Gratuities to Families of Victims Killed by Tigers and Wild Beasts, IOR/Z/E/4/16/W177, BL and IOR/E/4/760, 345, 645, BL; Kandeish, Tigers (1846–1849), IOR/Z/E/4/19/K63, BL; Cuttack, Salt, Reward Offered for Destruction of Tigers (1846–1849), IOR/E/4/794, 741, BL; Reward Offered for Destruction of Tigers in Vicinity of Parnsnath Hill (1846–1849) OR/E/4/798, BL, p. 174; Correspondence Relating to Rewards for Destruction of Tigers in Districts Through which Mail Road Passes Bombay Roads (1853–1854), IOR/E/4/821, 99, BL; Reward for Destruction of Wild Elephants (1844–46), IOR/E/4/786, 863, BL; Rewards for Destruction of Wild Elephants in Bhaugulpore (1834–1837), IOR/Z/E/4/14/B702, BL; Acting Collector, Tinnevelly, to Grant Rewards for Destruction of Elephants (1838–1842), IOR/E/4/957, 457, BL; Natives, Zamindars, Tinnevelly, Acting Collector to Grant Rewards for Destruction of Herd of Elephants (1838–1842), IOR/E/4/957, 457, BL; Acting Collectors, Tinnevelly Civil Service, to Grant Rewards to Persons Who Assisted in Destruction of Herd of Elephants (1838–1842), IOR/Z/E/4/45/C629, BL.
were encouraged by the colonial government to dispatch troublesome ‘man-eating’ tigers and leopards or ‘destructive’ elephants or wild pigs to safeguard villagers and their agricultural base. These instances indicate a public consensus in favour of organized action against tigers and other troublesome wild animals, uniting the Indian village populace with the colonial government. The British colonists and the majority of villagers, as well as many indigenous tribes, generally agreed that tigers or leopards known or suspected of killing people or their livestock should be destroyed.3 By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the British had exploited the ideology underlying their role as responsible ruler and benefactor in order to restrict hunting and sporting privileges solely to the ruling elite.
Power and authority is, therefore, represented widely in the hunting field as it was implemented by the British under the licence of colonial governance. It is reflected most obviously in the protection of local populations from predatory attacks and the simultaneous elimination of tigers, leopards, rhinos, elephants, and to some extent lions and other wild animals, especially during the first three quarters of the nineteenth century. The British also exploited their acknowledged position as protector and benefactor in the hunting arena to counter opposition in the political sphere: alleged non-conformist or dissident groups who rebelled against British rule were marginalized and portrayed as ‘criminals’, akin to the lawless forest beasts preying upon the vulnerable subject populace and posing a threat to civilization. Furthermore, the colonial authorities also established new settlements, for both European and plains people, in fringe and frontier regions, which not only extended the diffusion of hunting but also led to the emergence of new genres of hunting in the hills. In this way big-game hunting, which symbolized the rights and responsibilities of the British rulers, and conservation in India collided and became a politically contested subject during the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This explains how the establishment of colonial authority over Indian subjects and extension of hegemonic
3 Daniel Johnson, Sketches of Indian Field Sports (London: Robert Jennings, 1827), pp. 12–13; Robert Armitage Sterndale, Seonee or Camp Life on the Satpura Range (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1877), pp. 274–5; W.V. Grigson, The Maria Gonds of Bastar (London: Oxford University Press, 1938), p. 84.
control over peripheries and new geographies of empire made tremendous ideological, political, sociocultural, and economic demands on British colonizers.
Indeed, the symbolic value of hunting cannot be understated. Anne McClintock argues that commodity capitalism helped to reorder metropolitan culture for the display of imperial power; thus, ‘London was one of the primary spaces’ in and through which this reconfiguration occurred.4 Shikar or hunting narratives from the colonies constituted an essential part of this show and created a lot of excitement among the literate public of Victorian England. In addition, trophies including tiger skins, elephant tusks, deer antlers, and hunting portraits were objects of great interest in certain circles. Thus, for example, Captain B. Rogers, after serving in the British Army in India, gained much fame by sharing his hunting experiences at places such as the Society of Arts in London.5 A ‘model trap’ invented by Rogers for the purpose of destroying tigers was also exhibited at the South Kensington Museum.6 Such displays offered tantalizing glimpses of empire to the youth of British public schools, encouraging them to join the colonial services for a profitable career. According to J.A. Mangan, ‘Ignorant of the realities of war, many a public-school man [entered imperial service with a] … firm conviction that war was a glorified form of big-game-hunting.’7
Such representations of empire as portrayed through accounts of hunting were also inherently gendered. Recent scholarship has demonstrated that the culture of masculinity was integral to the empire and was an important component in defining the historical and social contexts of colonial lives in the British Raj. John Tosh has thus argued that manliness as a ‘cultural representation of masculinity rather than a
4 Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Context (New York: Routledge, 1995), p. 16.
5 Frayer, The Royal Tiger of Bengal, p. 39.
6 Frayer, The Royal Tiger of Bengal, pp. 39–40. Displays of such exploits occurred during the lifetimes of many imperial hunters of the nineteenth century, such as the famous Gordon Cumming of colonial Africa.
7 J.A. Mangan and Callum McKenzie, ‘“Pig-Sticking Is the Greatest Fun”: Martial Conditioning on the Hunting Fields of Empire’, in Militarism, Sport, Europe: War without Weapons, edited by J.A. Mangan (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 108.
description of actual life’ should be seen as a code of ‘empire building’.8
John M. MacKenzie too argues that it was ‘the economic value of empire’ of the early nineteenth century—later enshrined within the cultural sphere, which he refers to as ‘popular culture’—that served as a powerful vehicle for the emergence of dominant British imperialist and militaristic notions during the later nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. As J.S. Bratton writes, ‘Whether in Northern Britain or Northern India, the ritual of good government is played out by its doomed devotees.’9 Thus, Kipling’s heroes were placed at the heart of imperial propaganda as they were bound by the notions of ‘duty, power and responsibility’.10 Defined by their militaristic culture and the use of arms in the practice of certain sports and games—hunting in particular—British imperialists had become synonymous with martial chivalry.11 It was a code both imagined and obeyed across the colonies of the British Empire. For colonial men propagating imperial values to a mass audience back in Britain, the priorities were clear. As this book aims to demonstrate, hunting was a key area where the notion of masculinity was at play, and through which the British projected the dominant culture and ideology of the ruling power.
In the relationship between imperial hunters and Indian wild predators, the former were driven by a need to vanquish their jungle adversary in much the same way as the Indian rebels (the groups opposed to British colonial rule), proving to themselves their virile energy and martial prowess. For these imperial men, shikar also defined the character of sportsmanship and their ability to stand up to dangerous animals. In colonial Indian hunting narratives, wild animals were constructed as savage and ferocious, both to heighten the excitement of the kill and to justify the brutal act. Taking this historical aspect of the hunt as a focal point, Chapters 2 and 3 will aim to show that one of the driving ambitions of ordinary British males to join the imperial services was
8 John Tosh, ‘What Should Historians Do with Masculinity? Reflections on Nineteenth-Century Britain’, History Workshop, no. 38 (1994): 181, 197.
9 J.S. Bratton, ‘Of England, Home and Duty’, in Imperialism and Popular Culture, edited by John M. MacKenzie (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986), p. 81.
10 Bratton, ‘Of England, Home and Duty’, p. 81.
11 Bratton, ‘Of England, Home and Duty’, p. 81.
