Inlaks Research and Travel Grantee 2020: Himani Upadhaya
Himani Upadhaya is a 2020 Inlaks Research and Travel Grantee. She is a PhD student at the Ashoka University, Sonipat, Haryana. Her research is entitled Science, Geography & the Empire: The central Himalayas and Knowledge – Production (circa 1810- 1880).
With her grant Himani traveled to London to consult the archives and collection at the British Library, Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG), Kew, and the Royal Geographical Society.
Specimen of Allium Stracheyi, one of the species that bore Richard Strachey’s name. This specimen was collected from Ralam village in Uttarakhand. It is currently preserved at the Herbarium of Royal Botanic Garden, Kew. Digital Image © Board of Trustees, RBG Kew.
In the winter of 2021, with support of the Inlaks Foundation, I travelled to London on a 3-month research visit which helped expand avenues of research and archival work for me. My PhD thesis examines mapping and surveying practices in the Kumaon region (Uttarakhand) of the Himalayas in the nineteenth century and investigates the role of local communities in scientific knowledge-production. In London, I consulted archival collections of the British Library, the Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG), Kew, and the Royal Geographical Society. These included private papers, correspondence, maps and scientific specimens associated with the work of colonial surveyors, surgeon-naturalists, military officials and travelers who visited Kumaon.
One of the figures important to my study is Richard Strachey (1817-1908) of the Bengal Engineers who travelled in the Kumaon-Tibet borderland in the late 1840s. His observations on the physical geography of the Himalayas were published in journals of London-based societies such as the Royal Geographical Society. The Asia and Africa Collections of the British Library hold an extensive collection of his private papers, notes and manuscripts which comprise a major archival resource for my work.
At the Royal Botanic Gardens’ Herbarium, Archives and Illustrations Collections, I got the exciting opportunity to consult a diverse range of archival materials associated with the history of botanical research in the Himalayas such as letters, official reports, botanical specimens and paintings. Additionally, at the RBG’s Economic Botany Collection, I observed specimens of blocks of tea manufactured by the Kausanie Tea Company. Such specimens of economic botany provided me crucial cues to develop a component of my work that examines the interaction between scientific research and economic imperatives through a study of tea cultivation in Kumaon.
At the Temperate House, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew which houses plant species from Himalayan regions
Topographical and trigonometrical surveys in the Himalayas required the mobilization of resources, labor and skills of local communities such as Bhotiyas. On my visits to the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) at Kensington Gore, I consulted maps, survey reports and correspondence of British surveyors held in the Society’s Foyle Reading Room. It was particularly interesting to see Pundit Nain Singh’s name and photograph anchored on the walls of the Society. Nain Singh Rawat was a rare non-European recipient of the Society’s gold medal (1877). He was a Shauka (Bhotiya) from Kumaon who was trained by the Great Trigonometrical Survey to secretly survey trans-Himalayan routes to Tibet.
During my stay in London, I was a Visiting Student at Royal Holloway (Department of Geography), supervised by Prof. Felix Driver. This gave me a chance to share my work with cultural and historical geographers and participate in stimulating seminars such as those hosted by the London Group of Historical Geographers and the Landscape Surgery seminar.
Amid prolonged pandemic-related disruptions in the rhythms of academic work, my research stay in London was reinvigorating and motivating. This visit facilitated access to important archival materials and academic interactions which have enabled me to broaden my research and take it forward.
Cover Photo: At the Royal Holloway campus, Egham
