Between the Cup and the Lip

source

The acquisition of the Doon Valley by the British as a result of the Anglo-Gorkha War of 1814-15 opened up a Pandora’s Box for them. They not only got possession of a region that was in many ways unsurpassed in natural charms with a climate that was salubrious and congenial to the European constitution, but also opportunities opened for a range of profitable ventures.

Of the many cultural preferences that the British had, for long enjoyed and also bequeathed as a pleasant legacy, was tea drinking – the virtues of which were extolled by Cooley Cibber, the poet:

“Tea! Thou soft, thou sober, sage, and venerable liquid,… thou female tongue-running, smile-smoothing, heart-opening, wind-tippling cordial, to whose glorious insipidity I owe the happiest moment of my life, let me fall prostrate.”

Not surprising, the benefits of tea were lauded by the Chinese philosopher Lo Yu:“Tea tempers the spirits, harmonises, prevents drowsiness, lightens and refreshes the body and clears the perceptive faculties.”

Just two decades into their newly possessed Doon Valley, the Board of Directors of the East India Company, the epitome of entrepreneurship and perseverance, excitedly put on drawing boards plans to commercially cultivate tea in the Valley.

A rather distinguished group of British botanists and naturalists consisting of Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Govan, Dr. Wallich, Dr. Falconer and Dr. Royle were vigorous in their efforts to bring the attention of the Board of Directors of the East India Company to the possibility of commercially cultivating tea in certain geographically suitable regions of India. It did not take long for the Company to seize the potential in this idea. Already, the East India Company was at a disadvantage in its Tea imports from monopolistic China over which Britain had no power, unlike India where it was virtual master over much of the land. Thus, in 1834, Lord William Bentinck, the Governor General, constituted a committee headed by Dr. Wallich to investigate the prospects of successful introduction of commercial tea cultivation in India. These pioneers put their heads together to examine the prospects of tea plantations in Doon and that, too, with the vision to further expand to other areas of Garhwal and Kumaon that offered suitable conditions for propagation of tea plants and commercial production of processed tea.

Much of typical British enthusiasm and energy was spent in trying to surreptitiously import tea seeds, plants, equipment and also some Chinese tea workers so as to start nurseries for propagation of tea saplings to be further supplied to the proposed tea plantations. Some intrepid individuals managed to get this essential wherewithal from China in the late 1830s, when it was discovered that tea bushes indigenous to India were already happily available in Assam, Manipur and nearby areas of the north east of the sub-continent. A government tea nursery was established at Kaulagarh in the Doon Valley spread over 400 acres. This was under the supervision of Dr. Jameson, who had succeeded Dr. Falconer of the Saharanpur Botanical Gardens, and the forerunner for the idea of setting up such a nursery.


source


Interestingly, in the successful, and no less in significance, management of Doon tea estates, important roles were played by three categories of people, none of whom were native to the Valley. The tea estates were owned by the British, while the manual work on the tea plantations were carried out by “Purbiya” labour, especially got from eastern United Provinces (present Uttar Pradesh). The security of the estate and its extensive properties was in the hands of Gorkhas who had only a few decades earlier fought the British at Nalapani and Khalanga and subsequently a number of them settled in the Valley. It was only at a later stage that tea estates changed ownership with the entry of landed native gentry in some of the cases.

Thus, while the tea estate owners were motivated by profits from land grants on easy terms, the Purbiya workers and Gorkha security guards contributed to the prosperity of the owners and revenue for the state exchequer. Later, these early Purbiya settlers encouraged and invited others from their native villages to come to Doon and seek employment in the tea gardens and also sugarcane plantations that were also coming up due to the government’s efforts to extend agriculture on recently cleared forest lands.

Doon’s tea gardens were largely in the western portion of the Valley or what was then known as Pachhwa Doon. There were some which were practically in the present-day city limits: Harbanswala, Arcadia, Sirmour Tea estates. Further to the west lay Ambari, Herbertpur, Annfield, Hopetown, Udiabagh and Goodrich tea estates. In the city proper, what is today Dalanwala was the tea estate of Colonel Dick before it became an English hamlet of cottages, bungalows and gardens separated by green hedges. Several of the western Doon tea gardens were managed by two tea companies, The Dehra Dun Tea Company Ltd and the East Hopetown Estate Company Ltd.

In the more inaccessible eastern part or the Parwa Doon, there were just four tea estates: The Raipur tea estate on the land granted to Raja Lal Singh of the Lahore Darbar and his descendants; the Banjarawala tea estate in one of the earliest settlements of Doon; the Gorakhpur tea estate (at present Defence Colony) owned by Mr Quarry and, then, there was the Mohkampur tea estate, the property of Shiekh Mohammed Inamullah where today is located the Indian Institute of Petroleum. Thus, where the tea estates were owned and managed by British and Europeans like the Quarrys, Raynors, Dicks, Herberts in the decades to follow native landowners like Colonel Shamshere, Rai Bahadur Jodha Mall, Lala Balbir Singh, Ch Sultan Singh and also the Darbar of Guru Ram Rai came to acquire these tea estates, more so after independence and in the 1960s.

For Doon, the British Raj era in its social manifestation was best exhibited by the tea estate owners and their families. They lived their lives in comfortable isolation on their rambling estates with their exclusive resident staff. Their spacious bungalows had a unique character of colonial architecture with amenities for a comfortable lifestyle, where a cosy library and a billiards room were at hand. Most Doon tea estates had well maintained lawns, gardens and often an orchard of leechie, mango, plum and guava trees. Many of these tea plantation owners participated in the popular annual Flower Show in which, for years, entries from Mr Quarry’s Gorakhpur tea estate won the first prizes. Late afternoon tea parties were routine and customary in the tea estate circle where cups of tea were enjoyed with cucumber sandwiches and Hartley and Palmers rich tea biscuits.

This company made special biscuits suitable for dunking in tea without affecting its flavour. Not surprisingly, Huntley and Palmers expanded their trade almost at the same period the British tea gardens started ruling the international tea trade from the latter part of the nineteenth century and Doon gardens made their humble contribution in this too. Ironically, many tea gardens of Doon came up on land cleared from forests and, in the heydays of the British tea trade, the wood of the beautiful tea boxes was furnished by Doon and also Simla and Rangoon.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Van Gujjars, the “Lesser People”

Image
The Doon Valley and its Himalayan hinterland for over two thirds of its undulating length and width were clothed in forests of varied flora and fauna. The geomorphology and ecology was unmatched in its beauty, enriched by the boon of two mighty and revered rivers, the Ganga and the Yamuna, and delineated in the south by the verdant Siwaliks. Its charms were legendary as they were enchanting. Memoirs of travellers to the Doon Valley are studded with descriptions of the unique grandeur of its wilderness. In the summer of 1835, Captain Trower crossing the Doon Valley penned his observation: “I cannot describe the mingled emotions of awe and delight which thrilled me as I came up, through these magnificent mountains. I have endeavoured to give an idea of the kind of scenery but pen and ink cannot convey the effect.” The swathe upon swathe of forested Siwaliks and foothills of the upper Doon Valley while pleasing to the eye were nevertheless not very hospitable to the needs of everyday exis...
Read more

Clement Town, A Chequered Century

Image
Railways came to the Doon Valley in 1900 and in more than one way their coming ushered in a new phase in the growth of the district, particularly the central part of the valley. The once logistically challenging travel that visitors to Doon had always found irksome, if not outright daunting, became a thing of the past, evaporating like the steam from the labouring train engines that hauled the bogies to Dehradun. The coming of the railways also brought in its wake a wide spectrum of people to Doon. The salubrious climate and the fabled beauty of the valley and the spell-binding vistas of the snow peaks on the northern horizon had already become a part of folk lore through the memoirs of travellers to the valley like J.B Fraser, F.V Raper,Emily Eden and Fanny Parks. Now the valley became doubly attractive to all manner of Indians especially the British from different walks of life: traders, hoteliers, missionaries, retiring civil servants and army officers who sought to be posted here. ...
Read more

Dacoits: Their Dreaded Decades in Dehradun

Image
Legendary Dacoit, Sultana Daku Dehradun, as cities and towns go, is a relatively young one. In India, the antiquity of many towns defies accurate dating and, in cases of cities like Banaras and Haridwar, these revered precincts of the Hindus are often called “eternal cities” with unfathomable age, where temple bells and oil lamps have been heard and seen without a break in recorded history. The Doon Valley that keeps Doon in its bosom was for much of known history considered ‘terra incognita’. But no place can be an island to itself for all times; thus sometime in the medieval period of our history (1500 AD or so onwards) the Valley began to see contests amongst princely houses for its possession. The main contenders in this tussle for territory were the royals of Garhwal and Sirmaur. The fate of the Valley thus fluctuated periodically with gains to the one who flexed military might to its advantage. In the balance, the Rajas of Garhwal retained the Doon Valley more often, whereas the...
Read more