Calcutta Town Hall or Covent Garden? Colonial horticultural knowledge, mimicry, and its discontents (2020)
This article investigates the entanglement of knowledge regarding vegetable gardening in early colonial Bengal through the prism of the yearly vegetable exhibitions organized in Calcutta by the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India (AHSI, founded in 1820). The European members of the society thought that there were not enough vegetables grown in Bengal and that the commonly eaten vegetables were nutritionally inadequate. In order to ‘improve’ local vegetable cultivation, the society held a yearly exhibition in which Bengali gardeners received prizes for growing new vegetables, such as cauliflower and cabbage. To supply these exhibitions, the society ordered large shipments of seeds and then distributed them to malis (Bengali gardeners) around Calcutta. In the 1830s they extended this practice to their satellite societies across India. The end result was an increase in the cultivation of these vegetables, and eventually their absorption into local cuisine. Yet, Bengali gardeners continued to bring other vegetables to the exhibitions which were not from the AHSI seed. Eventually, the society’s officers reacted to these unsolicited contributions by including awards for them. However, many members were anxious and unsure about these changes, constantly trying to make the vegetable exhibitions mimic the vegetable market at Covent Garden in London. In order to contain the changing exhibitions, they reiterated a divide between ‘native’ and ‘foreign’ vegetables by holding separate exhibitions for each. As such, this article reformulates the idea of mimicry, focusing more strongly on British ambivalence and anxiety as they tried to reiterate colonial boundaries with mixed success.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Debjani Bhattacharyya;
(2018)
Empire and Ecology in the Bengal Delta: The Making of Calcutta
(/isis/citation/CBB311086106/)
Article
Axelby, Richard;
(2008)
Calcutta Botanic Garden and the Colonial Re-Ordering of the Indian Environment
(/isis/citation/CBB000931212/)
Book
Clare Hickman;
(2021)
The Doctor's Garden: Medicine, Science, and Horticulture in Britain
(/isis/citation/CBB723033254/)
Book
Luke Keogh;
(2020)
The Wardian Case: How a Simple Box Moved Plants and Changed the World
(/isis/citation/CBB901689985/)
Article
Tello, Enric;
Garrabou, Ramon;
Cussó, Xavier;
Olarieta, José Ramón;
Galán, Elena;
(2012)
Fertilizing Methods and Nutrient Balance at the End of Traditional Organic Agriculture in the Mediterranean Bioregion: Catalonia (Spain) in the 1860s
(/isis/citation/CBB001320673/)
Chapter
García Sánchez, Expiración;
(2008)
Utility and Aesthetics in the Gardens of al-Andalus: Species with Multiple Uses
(/isis/citation/CBB000760493/)
Article
O'Halloran, Sally;
Woudstra, Jan;
(2013)
The Gardener's Calendar: The Garden Books of Arbury, Nuneaton, in Warwickshire (1689--1703)
(/isis/citation/CBB001200807/)
Chapter
Secord, Anne;
(2007)
Hotbeds and Cool Fruits: The Unnatural Cultivation of the Eighteenth-Century Cucumber
(/isis/citation/CBB000773389/)
Book
Gabriel R. Valle;
(2022)
Gardening at the Margins: Convivial Labor, Community, and Resistance
(/isis/citation/CBB459634946/)
Article
Chakravorty, Animesh;
(2014)
The Chemical Researches of Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray
(/isis/citation/CBB001551714/)
Article
Manikarnika Dutta;
(2021)
Cholera, British seamen and maritime anxieties in Calcutta, c.1830s–1890s
(/isis/citation/CBB631964896/)
Chapter
Raj, Kapil;
(2009)
Mapping Knowledge Go-Betweens in Calcutta, 1770--1820
(/isis/citation/CBB000954195/)
Article
Orchiston Wayne;
Kapoor R.c;
(2024)
Indian Initiatives to Establish ‘Western’ Astronomical Observatories Prior to Independence. 2: Colleges and Universities
(/isis/citation/CBB657171788/)
Thesis
Sohini Chattopadhyay;
(2023)
Dead Labor: Urban Technologies of Mass Death in Colonial Bombay and Calcutta, the 1880s – 1950s
(/isis/citation/CBB122385036/)
Book
Debjani Das;
(2015)
Houses of Madness: Insanity and Asylums of Bengal in Nineteenth-century India
(/isis/citation/CBB059044611/)
Article
Cristina Pecchia;
(2022)
Ayurveda, philology and print. On the first printed edition of the Carakasaṃhitā and its context
(/isis/citation/CBB142020033/)
Book
Tapti Roy;
(2018)
Print and Publishing in Colonial Bengal: The Journey of Bidyasundar
(/isis/citation/CBB079096233/)
Article
Prakash Kumar;
(2016)
Plantation Indigo and Synthetic Indigo: European Planters and the Redefinition of a Colonial Commodity
(/isis/citation/CBB156645724/)
Article
Biswas, Arun Kumar;
(2013)
The Muslim Community Response to the Scientific Awakening in Nineteenth Century India
(/isis/citation/CBB001451230/)
Article
Julian Strube;
(2023)
(Anti-)Colonialism, religion and science in Bengal from the perspective of global religious history
(/isis/citation/CBB323728518/)
Be the first to comment!