| Summary/Abstract |
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Indian princes correlated the preservation and use of well-maintained hunting grounds rich in desirable flora and fauna with the enjoyment of higher status, stronger defences against foreign interference, and more compliant subjects. As a result, they carefully managed wilderness and wildlife in their territories. Major past impacts on environments and biodiversity, with ongoing relevance to the ways in which wildlife and wilderness are perceived in the subcontinent today, emerged from the widespread conviction of these rulers that their attempts to govern ecosystems and wildlife demographics were natural and necessary functions of the state. Evidence drawn from hunting memoirs, shooting diaries, photographs, paintings, archival records, and administration reports from a selection of North Indian states calls into question exactly how, and even if, wildlife or wilderness existed in separation from people and the realm of civilization. The intimate relationship between Indian sovereigns, wilderness, and wildlife, therefore, informs new understandings of princely identity, South Asian environmental history, and elite Indian receptions of European and colonial science and managerial practice relating to forests and wild animals in the era of British paramountcy.
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