Locating Local Elites in Negotiating Access to Forests: Havik Brahmins and the Colonial State 1860-1920

Abstract

This paper is an exploration of how colonial forest policy in Uttara Kannara district of present day Karnataka was critically shaped by the interests of the Havik Brahmin community. Despite the protests of the forest department, the Havik community was provided a remarkably generous forest settlement to enable their production of areca nut, a high revenue earner for the revenue department. We explore the contours of the debates of the time and the strategies deployed by these areca nut cultivators. Ultimately, as is illustrated here, the forest department was able to enforce a restrictive conservation regime vis-‡-vis only certain sections of the population. By highlighting the capability of certain elites in negotiating with the state, we attempt to bolster the argument that colonial forest policy was neither excessively oppressive nor completely pliant in the face of local resistance.