Vol. 8, Issue 2, Part B (2022)

Abstract
In the mid-19th century, with the establishment of British colonial regime, the Indian subcontinent witnessed a paradigm shift in its primordial environmental ecosystem. In the context of Industrial revolution in Europe, the colonial establishment brought about an unprecedented exploitation of Indian Forests. The dense vegetation covers of these Indian forests are rich in huge timber resources, which were one of the mainstays of the then Western Industrial ecosystem, particularly for the transport & communication sector. By 1878, new ‘scientific’ regulations and laws for forest conservation were brought in, not basically to save forests, but primarily for sustaining the future resources of their own colonial economy. Hence began an age of indiscriminate exploitation of forest for the sake of timber collection. Estimate suggests how only between 1869-80, around 8,50,000 tons of timber were felled only from Sutlej and Yamuna River forests of North Western Himalayas, for supplying the railway sleepers. Just imagine how horrible would be the deforestation scenario if one equates these estimates over the entire forested land of the subcontinent for this whole span of time! Moreover, the colonial exploitation of Indian forestry not only destabilized the ecological balance of the region but also disturbed some of the ancient socio-cultural practices, particularly that of the indigenous tribes. The following paper would try to analyze this entire issue of timber exploitation in the Indian subcontinent, in brief.