Ecological Imperialism: A Study of Erased Tribal Ecologies in Sarita Mandanna’s Tiger Hills

Abstract

Sarita Mandanna’s Tiger Hills (2011), set in colonial and early twentieth-century Coorg (Kodagu), narrates the ecological and socio-cultural transformation of the region and its tribal inhabitants under British rule. This paper studies the role of British in changing the indigenous tribal communities’ relationships to their land and nature through the lens of Alfred W. Crosby’s concept of ecological
imperialism. It analyses how the introduction of a foreign species like coffee to Coorg soils, Western education, and colonial land tenure systems alters the sustainable tribal lifestyle and ecologies and replaced them with commercial and anthropocentric practices. While the land-owning Kodavas gradually adopted a Western lifestyle and commercial attitude towards their land, the landless Poleya
and forest-dwelling Korama tribes retain deeper ecological knowledge and remain rooted to their land. The novel illustrates how colonial domination operated through the systematic replacement of indigenous knowledge systems with European ones, producing what Crosby terms as “Neo-Europes” in the tropical countries. The paper also examines the complicity of local elites in ecological
dispossession which eventually led to changing the natural landscape of Coorg and Kodava’s nature centered lifestyle in the light of anthropocentrism.