Scientific Forestry, State Conservancy, and Indigenous Dispossession: Colonial Forest Policies in Malabar

This article examines how colonial forest regulations transformed the landscapes of Malabar and reconfigured indigenous life under the Madras Presidency. It argues that forest conservancy evolved from a revenue-oriented concern into a doctrine of centralized state necessity articulated through scientific forestry. Successive measures the Forest Charter of 1855, the Indian Forest Acts of 1865 and 1878, the Madras Forest Act of 1882, the National Forest Policy of 1894, and the Indian Forest Act of 1927 redefined forests as state property, formalized bureaucratic control, and curtailed customary rights. In Malabar, where British administration was direct (unlike in Travancore and Cochin), these policies were implemented with particular rigor. The article demonstrates how conservation rhetoric and commercial extraction converged to marginalize forest-dependent communities and recast lived landscapes into regulated reserves.