Fluid Ecologies, Sovereignty, and Colonialism: Princely contestations over riverine islands in colonial India

Abstract

This article analyses the disputes over riverine islands between two princely states in colonial southern India in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These disputes arose because of changes in the islands’ landmass caused by water movements. Such tidal temporalities challenged cartographic rigidities and the established notions of sovereignty of states. What were assumed to be sovereign, undisputed and infallible were unsettled by such hydrological power and the fluid ecologies involved. A set of challenges emanated from external concepts arising from colonialism which undermined the native geographical understanding of the land-water continuum due to the monetisation of land. This article makes a critical appraisal of this double challenge to the traditional understanding of fluid ecologies while also highlighting the counter challenges from the princely states. These contests were particularly pronounced as the princely states had considerable autonomy in internal matters of administration and thus differed from the rest of the colonial territory directly ruled by the British in India. The article contributes to the study of riverine islands by investigating the nature and fluidity of shifting islands, whose variation in temporal contexts has been barely acknowledged in Island Studies to date.