A not-so-great hedge

Many would have heard about the "Great Hedge of India" or the book on it by Roy Moxham. This was supposedly a British innovation started in 1803, meant primarily to block the free movement (a.k.a. "smuggling") of salt so as to be able to impose a salt tax or customs duty. It was also referred to as the  "Customs Hedge" (e.g. in Hume's Nests and Eggs ... ). The idea of live hedges appears however to be much older in India and is probably lifted from the Mysore and Madras regions.

Bound-Hedge, s. A corruption of boundary-hedge, and applied in old military writers to the thick plantation of bamboo or prickly-pear which used to surround native forts.
 1792-"A Bound Hedge, formed of a wide belt of thorny plants (at Seringapatam)."- Wilks, Historical Sketches, iii. 217. [Hobson-Jobson]

Dr. M.B. Krishna recently forwarded an old map of Bangalore (originally from the British Library collection)  made in 1800 by a certain James Ross (more on this man in the footnote) under the command of Colin Mackenzie (who pops up yet again!) and it shows a nearly circular hedge marked as the "Bound Hedge of the Cusba of Bangalore". A little research showed that this defence was a widespread practice in the Mysore and Coromandel regions. Thorny plants and some Euphorbia patches are found around the Nandi Hills and Savandurga and it is possible that some of them are really old remnants worthy of special protection. The hedge around Bangalore is perhaps less known.

Here is the relevant part of this very interesting map. The lake at the top with the bund along the road is presumably Hebbal lake. "Yesmunjepoor" is probably Yeshwanthpur.

The Bound Hedge of the Cusba of Bangalore (1800)

It seems like Bangalore just grew over this, leaving no remnants of this hedge. It would seem like the hedge either passed through or went very close to the campus of the Indian Institute of Science. There were some patches of Acacia and bad land that may have been part of this but it is also likely that some of these were cleared up to become parts of roads that we have today. 

Looking up more on this "bound hedge" led to several bits and it seems to be very specific to India. Most deal with the "bound hedge" around Tipu's fort at Srirangapatnam or the one around Pondicherry. Sidney (1868) writes about the "bound hedge" around Madras, which apparently was being extended around 1758 according to Barlow (1921) but may have been even older as it finds mention in 1748 in the diary of Ananda Ranga Pillai.

It is said that the town of Conjevaram was surrounded by a bound hedge "chiefly of agave americana" (Hamilton, 1820) but that sounds like an unlikely jump for a New World plant for that point of time. For a more detailed botanical description of the bound hedge at Srirangapatnam, see Pennant:

"The Bound hedge, the frequent concomitant of the fortresses of Hindoostan, appears here in great strength. It is the practice in the Polygar system of defence, and copied by the civilized natives from the wild warriors of the forests. Of the latter, the fort of Calicoil and that of Palam Courchy are strong examples.... These local defences are formed of every thorny tree or caustic plant of the climate. Palmira trees, or the Borassus flabelliformis, are the primary. These are planted to the depth of from thirty to fifty feet. In the interstices of the trees, which are very closely placed, are confusedly sown or set, the following plants. Pandanus odoratissimus, or wild pine; see my preceding volume, p.241; Cactus tuna, Euphorbia Tiraculla, or milky hedge. The juice of this is so caustic as to scald not only the human skin, but the hide of a horse, on whom it may fall in forcing through this infernal hedge. Several other sorts of Euphorbia; The Aloe littoralis of Koenig, Convolvulus muricatus, and other Convolvuli. The Mimosa cinerea, horrida, instia, and another, as yet undescribed, armed with most dreadful thorns. The Guiliadina unite their powers; intermixed is the Guiliadina Bonducella, G. bonduc, and another not laid before the public, to which Koenig gives the epithet lacinians, which it fully merits. The Calamus rotang, or rattan, and the Arundo bambo, often assist in the impenetrability. The last is remarked to be admirable for the purpose, since nothing equals it in resisting the edge of the ax, or the subtile fury of fire. ..."

Note: I have unfortunately not yet actually read Moxham's book and would like to know if he mentions bound hedges. There is also apparently an MS by William Sargeant on the topic.

25 May 2014: James Ross (aged 23) was apparently someone who ran afoul of his superiors. He was one among several "Native boys" (India born Europeans) who had been trained at the surveying school in Madras. He was accused of several misdeeds during his service. Hunting instead of doing his work, mistreating servants and others and last but not least of seducing a dancing girl at Nanjangud. His superior John Mather ordered him to release the girl from the home the pair had been found in and Ross threatened violence. Ross was finally sent back to Madras with an armed escort! (Robb, 1998)

October 2014: I met Roy Moxham in London on 11 August 2014 and he was aware of bound-hedges.

Further reading

• Barlow, Glyn (1921) The story of Madras. Oxford University Press, Madras. p.41 
• Cleghorn, Hugh F. C. (1853) On the Hedge Plants of India, and the conditions which adapt them for special purposes and particular localities. Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. 4:1-4, 83-100
• Dodwell, H. (ed.) (1918) The Diary of Ananda Ranga Pillai. Volume 6. Government Press, Madras.
• Hamilton, Walter (1820) A geographical, statistical, and historical description of Hindostan and the adjacent countries. Volume 2. John Murray, London. p. 448.
• Irvine, William (1903) The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its organization and administration. Luzac & Co. London. pp. 261-262.
• Johnston, T.H. and H. Tryon (1914) Report of the Prickly-pear Travelling Commission. 1st November, 1912-30th April, 1914 pages 25-28.  
  
• Barry Lewis (2009) Village Defenses of the Karnataka Maidan, AD 1600–1800. South Asian Studies, 25(1):91-111. [Reference suggested by Yashaswini Sharma, November 2016]
• Owen, Sidney (1868) Occasional notes on British-Indian subjects. Oxford. pp.158-165 
• Pennant, T. (1798) The View of Hindoostan. Volume 2. Henry Hughs, London. p. 85-86.
• Robb, Peter (1998) Completing "Our Stock of Geography", or an Object "Still More Sublime": Colin Mackenzie's Survey of Mysore, 1799-1810.  Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Third Series 8(2):181-206.

Hideous and patent symmetry

Urban parks such as the ones in Bangalore are largely controlled by the BBMP, who in turn contract it to vicious, uninnovative, and exploitative contractors who then use underpaid "gardeners" (usually a family that has been displaced from rural areas due to the lack of jobs, indebtedness or other problems). The parks themselves begin as a little plot of land that lies under high-voltage electricity lines or has been set aside  because of other legal obstacles to sale. The work begins by using equipment to level the ground, followed by a fence, typically a rectangular path, a central lawn, a flower borders, a bunch of concrete seats, circular gazebos and so on. The whole thing is so clichéd, so "hideous" that it is hard to begin a criticism. The problem is that alternative visions are so rare, yet they exist in many places. There is (or at least was, maybe it is called Chittoor Reserve Forest) a wonderfully wild park not too far outside the town of Chittoor that I thought was quite interesting in the way it had been let to go wild. There are similar wilderness areas in many small towns, but larger cities seem to have a way to destroy them. The usual approach involve the removal of existing vegetation, addition of exotic annuals for their flowers. The removal of undergrowth, artificial surfacing of paths, the inclusion of a very stereotypical playground, excessive lighting (powered by an undue fear of snakes) and various other actions that if avoided would have left the place far more satisfying to the urban dweller who needs a little bit of wild nature. The cost involved in enriching a place is actually zero, but because there is money to be made, there are hordes of people on the line waiting to destroy the few accessible wilderness areas - and why would they event want to be creative! This idiocy is not limited to city governments alone, the beautiful scrub forest of about 1800 ha of the GKVK campus of the University of Agricultural Sciences in Bangalore has been destroyed right under the eyes and noses of extremely knowledgeable and sensible people. Numerous species of insects have their type locality as GKVK. 

Saving even the campuses of educational institutions is a fight against the powerful

I was recently made aware of a beautiful essay by the great Indian naturalist M. Krishnan that, sadly enough, is not sufficiently well-known. It makes for such a lovely reading even fifty years on and it is clear that few people listen or learn. Thanks to Shanthi and Ashish Chandola for sharing the original which I post here. While modern writers talk about active processes like "rewilding", Krishnan uses a more passive term.

Non-Reclamation

The Sunday Statesman 

March 7 1954

M. Krishnan's Country Notebook

If I had a five acre plot of outlying cultivation as so many ryots have, a stony field at the foot of a hill or the edge of the scrub that would gradually repay the effort of reclamation, I would not make the effort. I would abandon my field to weeds and shrubs, even help it actively to run wild, and count myself as much a patriot as the man who, by sustained toil, adds it on to the struggling agriculture of our grain-hungry country.

And if I lived in a mansion set in an immaculate garden, with lawns and smooth paths and every annual in place, or if I were in charge of a spotless city park laid out in a geometrical pattern and with ornamental trees in rows - why, then too I would let my garden or park run wild, in part at least, and encourage thick bushes festooned with greedy creepers and the rank undergrowth.

I would do these things from no sense of cussedness or ennui, but because in a small way I would be contributing towards a less sterile life. We can grow more food by less wastefully extensive agriculture-an incredible extent of countryside is cut up and wasted by our loose agriculture and communications. And in towns and cities one can no longer find a bit of wasteland, leave alone woodland. Even the bird life of these places has been banished by an ugly craze for ferro-concrete architecture and tidy, well-tamed gardens.

In the old days urban gentlemen lived in bungalows with large, tree-filled compounds, and it was part of their gentlemanliness not to bother overmuch about the further reaches of their domain. Today the urban rich, when they do have a bit of garden space, have flowering trees near the road and rectangular lawns in front of the house in herbaceous borders; cannas flank the drive and crotons in pots decorate the portico, and if there is a plot in the backyard they grow anaemic tomatoes in it.

Our public parks display a hideous and patent symmetry; wide, hard paths intersect one another at right angles, rows of flaming Cassias and Poincianas stand stiffly in attention, there are sandpits and short-mown lawns for the children and concrete benches for older visitors. There is not enough undershrub and bushes anywhere to tempt a mongoose to stay or a warbler to nest. There is no lebensraum for the lesser fauna even.

Off and on, during the past thirty years, I have watched the bird life and lesser beasts of a city area dwindle and vanish, and I know at first hand how our extensive agriculture can drive out wild life in rural areas.

Even now it is not too late, if we follow a sensible plan of non-reclamation in the countryside and encourage gentlemanly neglect in city gardens and parks, to bring back the charm of wild life to these places. What many people (including enthusiasts for our fauna) do not realize is the power of nature to recoup, left to itself. The following extract from an editorial in The Times (London) of Dec 18, 1953, is significant:-

"Many cities in Britain have their acres of bomb-devastated land, once covered with houses but now overgrown with vegetation. Thee are places of great interest to naturalists; they can see what plants most readily and most permanently colonize ground on which no plants have grown, perhaps, for centuries past. Not only plants but also insets and birds and even mammals have been demonstrating how nature pours into any vacuum that is offered, and then stages a battle there for survival... In all, 269 kinds of wild flowers have now been recorded in the City of London, their seeds brought there within these last few years by air, in the fodder of horses, and by other agencies including birds. For birds, too, have been quick to colonize the ruined cities."

No need, of course, for our cities to face a blitz for the welcome return of nature - though it is true that ruined buildings offer splendid scope for wild things. Plant a section of every park and garden with native jungle trees (not forgetting a few fig trees) and thick bushes, allow creepers and the undershrub to grow, and the birds and smaller beasts will come back.

In the countryside all that is needed is to tighten up agriculture so that intervening wasteland can run wild, and be available to wild life sufficiently in large blocks. Unfortunately our wild life preservation effort is directed mainly towards the denizens of forests; the fauna of the open scrub receives little attention from anyone-excepting professional trappers.

When I was a boy I had ample opportunities for watching minor wild life in a city and in the countryside. Those opportunities are now gone, or are going. It is such a pity, and so wrong that urban children today should grow up in ignorance of the common wild life of the soil. The idea that our fauna should be penned up in national parks and preserves, and that our children should visit these pens or some remote countryside for a glimpse of the great heritage of nature that is theirs, revolts me. There is room enough for man and birds and beast in this hospitable land, if only men would be less covetous of space and curb their urge to claim and tame every plot of land in the neighbourhood for the sake of grain too hard won, or may be the sight of a row of Poincianas.

I have found a source for this hideous idea of aesthetics in the writings of M.S. Randhawa. In a 1964 pamphlet published by the ICAR we see the typical thoughts of what "beauty" is all about. Over time this has become so common that few people are even able to re-examine these ideas. The emphasis in the writings of administrators like Randhawa is on colour, placement and linearity. Here are a few of his statements from this pamphlet.

Colourful trees and flowers play an important role in making our cities and towns beautiful. They refine the minds of the inhabitants and also provide shade and shelter.

Most of the social conditions and tensions which develop in slums of congested cities are due to the fact that man is isolated from his natural environment. Vegetation and sun are the ancient influences which have fashioned our body and spirit. Our towns have snatched men from essential conditions of living-sun, space, and verdure. Unless the conditions of nature are established in man's life, he cannot be healthy in body and spirit. Hence, it is necessary that people in towns are brought in touch with nature by development of parks and avenues.

... We are indebted to Professor Lancelot Hogben for the term "bio-aesthetic planning which may be defined as conscious planning of the flora and fauna with the object of beautifying the country."

... Lancelot Hogben writes : "What generally gains admiration for the beauties of the English countryside is not nature as such. Untouched nature is generally monotonous. English park lands and hedgerows, and many of our woodlands are the result of human interference, sometimes by the deliberate action of enthusiastic pioneers of bio-aesthetic planning like John Evelyn, and sometimes as relics of past cultivation".

It is only in the nineteenth century that educated people began to admire the beauty of the mountains and forests. Since then the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. There is in some of us an undiscriminating and irrational adoration of nature. People who have never grown a herbaceous border of annual flowers in their own house, burst out into panegyrics on seeing a clump of anemones or potentillas in the hills. It is far from my intention to decry the beauty of alpine flowers in the Himalayan meadows as compared with the annual flowering plants in our gardens in the plains. On the other hand, I hold that in the magnificent setting of the Himalayan snows a planned alpine garden will look much better than anything nature has ever produced.

One can only imagine the clashes between the Randhawas of Indian administration and the Krishnans speaking out as mere citizens.