British hunters in colonial India, 1900-1947: The Gentleman Hunter, New Technology, and Growing Conservationist Awareness

Abstract

I hope to fill the scholarly void on British hunters in colonial India. There has been relatively little scholarly work on hunters in India in general in comparison to Africa where there is a proliferation of academic work done on hunting. This paper deconstructs the hunting experiences of British men in India by drawing upon a collection of hunting books, private papers, and letters. These men include eminent sportsmen like James Best and humanitarian hunters like Jim Corbett. By the 20th century there developed a conservationist ethos among many hunters and the colonial state to protect wildlife as a system of laws, licenses and permits was instituted along with the use of guns, restraint and reliance on shikaris or native hunters. My argument is that the character of British hunting changed and can be summarized as gentlemanly masculine, as well as imperialist. Distinct differentiation between tribals/poachers and British sportsmen were also clearly defined in the 20th century. By the 20th century, humanitarian hunters appear who only hunted to protect villagers, new technology becomes intertwined with hunting, a greater sense of nostalgia for the past makes its presence, a greater introduction of emotion, artificial rearing appears in the subcontinent, and sahibs (British males) emulate maharajas or native princes.