NilgiriScapes: Forging Bonds That Endure
In times of acute polarisation, can researchers and the researched convene as equals? Can citizens and policy makers converge on shared goals? Can experts and practitioners convey common ideals? We, the organisers of NilgiriScapes, 2023, believe that the answer is an unequivocal yes, particularly when a overweening sense of attachment to, and concern for, place transcend the immediate in order that a future that responds to just such an impulse may be secured.
The Nilgiris is an ancient range at the confluence of the Western and Eastern Ghats, with biotic affinities from both, and with grasslands and upper montane forests, which are closer in species composition to the Western Himalayas than to the grasslands and forests of Sri Lanka. With a plenitude of communities that are of anthropological significance, as much for paucity of existing numbers (some fewer than 2000) as for continued unique cultural practice, the Nilgiris have counted among the most studied regions of the country for over two centuries.
The NilgiriScapes conference, held from the 18th to 20th August, 2023, in the RCTC Hall, Ooty/Udhagamandalam, Nilgiris (neelam – blue, giri - hills/mountains) District, Tamil Nadu, is the first of a novel series of seminars, as envisioned, relating to the region. The first edition brought together academicians, citizen groups, and non-governmental organisations on a common platform. This was the result of the combined vision of the organisers of the conference, who met nearly a year ago through common passion for a place that at some point or the other they have known as home, and who were immediately excited about the possibilities of collaborative work in the Nilgiris through periodic conferences, as well as through the mooting of a template for similar work elsewhere. The inaugural meeting included plenaries, invited papers, citizen panels, and cultural events, enveloped in an exhibition that told the story of a contemporary Nilgiris under the heading ‘Landscapes of Change’.
The organisers of NilgiriScapes, through their experience of the first conference, are immediately aware of both possibilities and fault lines, as they negotiate motives, knowledge practices, accountability, and even inherent contradictions in approach. What has emerged is a space where both specialists on aspects of the region, ecological to economic, anthropological to historical, engage with local inhabitants, and where scholarship is immediately brought under the closest of scrutiny. Among the most prominent outcomes were the sharing of existing research, response to ideas, and the raising of questions that might otherwise never have been asked. One significant desideratum is to bring that which has already been collected, such as century old records of the Todas and the Kotas saved on wax cylinders, for instance, into conversation with more contemporary sources of information, even as NilgiriScapes endeavours to make as the cornerstone of its efforts a living repository of information relating not just to the Nilgiris District, but to the biosphere reserve that transgresses state boundaries, thereby bringing into its fold Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. In such a collection will be found myriad voices, ranging from inhabitants of anthropological significance to long standing communities from different parts of the country that have come to inhabit the Nilgiris. Throughout, there will be a constant questioning of what the word local connotes, but on what the organisers depend is a sense of common purpose, rooted in a love for the region, and a desire that it may endure, in the Nilgiris, and for the Nilgiris. Will there be another NilgiriScapes conference, therefore, or even several? Given the obvious gains that the first iteration has made manifest, our hope is that such a question has already been answered, resoundingly, in the affirmative.