Enclosing the Pristine Myth: The Case of Madhav National Park, India

Abstract

"Through a historical account of the emergence, progression and politics of exclusion in what is now Madhav National Park (MNP or Madhav), Madhya Pradesh (MP), I attempt to build upon the position advanced in the recent TTF report. I track the development of exclusion at Madhav from the Mughal period (sixteenth century to early eighteenth century) to the mid-late twentieth century, and use this to challenge the perspectives held by proponents of the 'fortress' approach. Countering their view that prevailing local hostility to PAs is recent and merely the product of local 'irrationality' or refusal to value biodiversity, the paper positions present value-orientated tensions at Madhav within the context of long- standing local use of the park's nature as a material asset and, furthermore, within a deep-seated history of relentless elite/peasant material struggles over control of the Madhav land, and ever-expanding restrictions upon local people's traditional uses of that land since at least the sixteenth century."