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How the British Changed South Asia’s Landscape by Jaya Bharathi
India is known for its rich heritage, culture, and biodiversity. A country that has snow and coastlines, deserts and forests, each face of India is different from the other, each passing state border unidentifiable from the next. One can argue that this is due to the amalgamation of cultures, ethnicities, and the people in India - a few decisions by choice a few by force And while some influences on our culture and environment have been accepted, some other decisions our conquerors made have had ripple effects of dire consequences even decades after our independence.
For a little context - specialists have a way of classifying flora – local or exotic. The local species are that of the land, growing in its ecosystem and thriving, helping the site-specific inhabitants and microenvironment. Exotic species, however, are specimens that have been carried into the land – by the sheer luck of nature’s forces or the conscious decision of people- travelers and invaders alike. Some of these exotic species become naturalized and thrive in the ecosystem and some become invasive – growing rapidly and destroying everything in their path. Unfortunately, almost all the species brought to India by our colonizers are of the invasive type. The reason some species are naturalized and some are invasive is that some of these plants are grown in the same climatic conditions, and have similar species, soil, and pollinators. And some are invasive because they find themselves in a foreign land in isolation, without pests and predators that help reduce the fast-paced growth in a thriving environment. One such example is the eucalyptus plant, native to Australia and an invasive exotic to India.
Before the colonizers brought their beautiful flowering plants to India, Tipu Sultan and his horticulturalists brought the eucalyptus plant to Bangalore. As a Karnataka native, there’s a firsthand experience of all the faults Tipu Sultan’s plant has on Bangalore’s system today. While some might argue about Tipu Sultan’s impact in establishing a successful kingdom and his pioneering contributions in rocketry and successful wars against the British, his decision to plant the eucalyptus trees in India might not have been the best. Bangalore was a city known for its lakes, streams, and ponds – something Tipu’s predecessor Kempe Gowda elevated and protected. Bangalore’s founder – Kempe Gowda set out to build his dream capital around the 1530’s building lakes and planting trees, this led to Bangalore’s golden era of lush trees and strong water ecosystem ricocheting off each other and flourishing. And while Tipu Sultan recognized the garden city’s importance for the landscape it also became a place of sanctuary by the water. This meant the typical large Mughal gardens in the place of heavy forests with the new addition of transplanting eucalyptus. The concept of Bangalore being a sanctuary would later be carried on to our colonizers, Bangalore a hub for farmers and retirement spots during the imperial rule – along with our colonizer's flowering trees.