Retracing the Journey
200 Years Later
Retracing Francis Buchanan’s Journey of 1800-01 through parts of Southern India
I first came across Francis Buchanan’s Journey while working on my documentary film, The Curse of Talakad. It was at the Mythic Society Library in Bangalore that I chanced upon his volumes. In spite of the excitement of finding that Buchanan had visited Malingi – a small village opposite Talakad across the river Kaveri – which gave me a crucial breakthrough in “solving” the mystery of the curse, I vividly recall another thought which struck me while flipping through the pages of his book: wouldn’t it be great to retrace his Journey?
That was some fifteen years ago. Although we have still a long way to go in retracing the entire Journey, it defined the scope of most of our initiatives since then. From research on iron smelting and currency to documentary films on coarse blanket weaving, the Journey has kept us engaged over the years. Through this website our aim is not only to put together the findings and output of these efforts so far but also induce us to accelerate the task of retracing his entire route.
But why retrace the Journey? It is useful to articulate the reasons for doing this. The first reason for retracing Buchanan’s Journey is also the most obvious. To see what has changed in the last 200 years, what hasn’t? The continuities and discontinuities in lives, livelihoods and landscapes. Are the places, peoples, monuments, tanks and even rivers that Buchanan saw still there? Have they disappeared? How have people’s occupations changed? Or can we still find remnants of a time gone by? A record of life and landscapes then and now. What remains and what’s lost, what’s changed?
Our own journey will be in the nature of a record; we consciously try not to make value judgments on whether the changes that have taken place are for the better or the worse. Though we often succumb to nostalgia while reading history, Buchanan reveals the past may not have been the way it is painted to be. Life was hard, although for reasons quite different from what we face today. But there are some changes that are a cause for worry. Forest and tree species that Buchanan recorded at many places may have vanished altogether. Wildlife too has been wiped out from many areas. With development now taking place at an ever-accelerating pace, we wonder what might remain in the next 200 years. At the same time, there is hope too. A greater awareness and consciousness of our environment and history may mean preserving what we have. The challenges posed by expansive economic growth and development, however, are overwhelming. Over time, optimism has slowly but surely given way to a more pessimistic optimism.
As historians, there is something else which should fascinate us about the Journey. It is about ordinary places, ordinary people and their day-to-day lives and livelihoods. Buchanan had visited some important places, but these were not chosen for their historical importance. Many of the places are difficult to locate on the map let alone on the tourist circuit. His accounts are of common people; farmers, blacksmiths, shepherds … and of landscapes that we often do not bother to gaze at. This is something we usually miss while reading history textbooks and academic papers. We wonder what life may have been like for ordinary people, the thoughts which preoccupied them, their concerns, and their priorities. The Journey gives us a glimpse into this facet of life in southern India.
As economists and social scientists, retracing the Journey can shape and reshape our ideas and understanding of the process of development and change. And this is where our objectives of retracing the Journey intersects with the objectives of FAIR, which has been actively involved in understanding the process of development since its inception in the 1970s through its involvement in various projects and initiatives in India’s social sector.
We do not cover Buchanan’s route as one long continuous journey. Instead, we visit places and/or a short distance between a few places along the route and record our observations. Sometimes these have turned into research papers published in academic journals, sometimes short articles in the popular press, sometimes short video reports and sometimes full-length documentary films. We are also consciously innovating with new ways to communicate our findings; through art perhaps and even new technologies like augmented reality (AR). You can read and view these as you explore this website. And as we continue our efforts along the route, we will add what we expect; fascinating insights into the lives and, livelihoods of people in and of the landscapes of southern India.
Retracing the Journey is not merely a then and now exercise; it is a contemporary study of the past to understand the present and imagine the future.
So, sit back and explore the Journey with us …
Sashi Sivramkrishna
Accompanied on different occasions by Mahadev Naik, Lingaraj G. Jayaprakash,
Venkatesh Parthasarathy, S. Sreedhar, H. Bison Singh, S. Murali, Shashank Adiga, Sandeep Rao, Amalendu Jyotishi