 In 1902, years before a government proposal to declare Khajirunga National Park and few others in the flood plains of the Brahmaputra, as the secured habitat for the one horned rhinos came into being Guru Prasanna Lahiri and several others. All residents in the Bengal district of Rangpur wrote to Lord Karjan, the viceroy of India, a rather long memorandum. The authors of this memorandum introduced themselves as shareholders of Karabari Jamindari in Gwalbara. This is largely a northern part of Bangladesh. This Jamindari includes lands from Garuhils, a part of modern Meghalaya. The tone and the tenor of the memorandum was that of the Indian nationalists, very powerful, very, very provocative. And it put forward rather a very moderate demand. Lahiri's demanded that compensation given out to them in view of their exclusive right to hunt elephants in their Jamindari should be reconsidered. They had cited their rights, I quote them, rights of capturing elephants and other wild elements by means of caddas and of living peas for granting licenses to hunters of wild animals, caught in it. The government dismissed the pains of the Jamindars, but not before swimming through a fiercely contested legal dispute spreading over several decades, almost for three decades. This was not something unique. Throughout the 19th century, the Jamindars of Gwalbara, then the government disputed each other's rights over the elephant hunting. If the colonial government wanted to stake its monopoly right in the elephant hunting and trade, the Jamindars considered elephants both as a source of earning as well as a marker of their territorial authority. What we see throughout the second half of the 19th century, a series of prolonged legal disputes over absolute property rights over the big animal. Behind the fat and the very voluminous legal proceedings, mild details of elephants, one can find rich and complex ecological details of a reason and an animal which help us to understand an environmental history of Asian elephants in India's Northeastern setting. To be fair, there are rich histories of relation between environment and law, but my interest today is to explain how the complex environmental history of a big herbivores are interwoven with the contested history of colonial state-making process. And to do this, I have divided this presentation into four parts. First, I would like to briefly introduce the political economy of hunting and capturing of elephants in India's North East. In the second part, I have explained a complex forested and agrarian landscape where elephants found space to live in. In the third part, by drawing on the rich details of the Karagari-Zamindari dispute, I discussed the complex negotiation through which one Parajamindar's later game of exclusive rights to hunt and own elephants. In the concluding section, I discussed the interplay of governance, nature, which saved the fate of big animals in modern times. My first part is with the political economy of elephants. At least since the 17th century, the Bengal-Zamindars, traders from North India, and Mughal military officials all had their eyes on the elephants from this wider region of North East India. While elephants were present here in abundance, I have limited expertise to suggest that I'll shortly introduce a broad picture of the changing agrarian landscape. Elephants in eastern India had many rules to play in the pre-British era, as a wine level, as a royal gift, symbol of royal prestige, and source of profit for a few individuals. Within the geographic territory of Assam, the capture and domestication of elephants acquired mass sophistication during this period. The capture and domestication of elephants acquired sophistication and accounts of large scale transportation of elephants from Assam to the Mughal India in Delhi is widely available. Elephant capturing, domestication, and human-elephant relation often became part of a deeper social meanings, including wide range of elephant songs. Composed by popular ballad composers, such songs were part of a social life of large numbers of communities. Parallel to this, the handicraft industry, specializing in ivory, also flourished in this region. The pre-colonial knowledge of elephants came from local practices, understanding, and observation. Apparently, such knowledge had two utilitarian perspectives. One was for the protection of pedophiles, and other one was for their capture, management, and domestication. All these have passed into oral, as well as written, tradition. Large corposes of folklore from western Assam are proof of the extensive transmission and use of local knowledge about elephant. The hostage returnable, which is very popular when well-known text for all of you, an ornamented early 18th century manuscript, prepared under the direction of Downing's, exemplifies the extensive knowledge of the Assamese on the health and the well-being of the elephant. The manuscript, now available in the printed form, meticulously describes the several methods of elephant capturing, its breeding, domestication. The manuscript hints at how no one in particular was the chief patron of the elephants. Patronization was to be supported both by wealth and social sanctity. Trading elephant allowed individuals to gain both economy and the social capital. These classes of people came to be known Hathi Tony in Assamese pop-ability. Amongst the chief absence of elephant management and capturing in Assam were the religious heads, the Boussais and the Bosnopite priests. They were also the chief owners of hunted elephant. Many of them lived on the profit's arm from the elephant trade. The social practice of elephant hunting by the religious head continued even in the post-independent period. Then Zaminthar's Mughal officials, traders, all had their eyes on the elephants from this wider reason. Elephant from this reason suddenly acquired significant commercial importance since the 18th century in the shadow of new economic and expanding colonial forces. Indian princely rulers, Zaminthar's, European traders, and East India Company officials all found comfort of travel and better social status in owning elephants. Elephants from this wider reason made it new destiny. In 1770, Robert Lindsay, an official of the East India Company in Silat, which is in the south of Western Assam and popular hunting ground for elephants, mentioned how, and I quote him, in those days when the country demands for them, either in the war or department or pirate, Lindsay described a profitable trade in elephants. The average price at a distance station was from 40 pound to the 50 pound when sold safely. Their price varies as much as Highland Pony to the first new market racer, Cortens. The elephant then definitely came to play an important role since the early 19th century. They came to be used for transportation of the colonial administrators into the flooded agrarian landscape, extraction of timber, clearance of forest for the de-plantation, et cetera. By the mid 19th century, the colonial government began to assert its monopoly right in elephant catching and trade. By 1855, the colonial government moved towards new rules, declaring methods of elephant catching as a state monopoly and a state subset. Debates over the ownership of elephant continued for another two decades. Officials continued to emphasize the absoluteness of the right owned by the state over elephants. By now, the colonial government had firmly asserted it and I quote them, elephant is in Assam, a royal beast and can only be hunted under government license, Cortens. While such claim did not go on silence, at least till 1873, there was no distinct set of laws about the ownership of elephant. On the other hand, since the early 19th century, the government managed the tax of hunting and management of the elephant while they were captured through either Kada or government leasing out system. The responsibility of supervising, the capturing and training of elephant was entrusted to the Kada establishment based on in Dhaka, which came into the existence since the early 19th century. The Kada fulfilled several tasks. It monopolized the capture and trade in elephants and eliminated, ferociously, the community customs and practices. As a sequel to this high-end drama over elephants, in 1879, the Elephant Preservation Act was enacted in India and soon extended to Assam. The act clearly recognized the superior and exclusive rights of the government. Hands on word, elephants became a protected species all over British India, though they could not still be sought in private, could be sought in the private lands or if they proved to be dangerous to humans. It was in this context that the Western Garhwills, largely as a part of the Zamindari of Gualpara, became a highly contested place for elephant hunting and trade, both for the colonial government as well as for the Zamindars of Gualpara. But why Garhwills? About a fifth of the known world population of the Asian elephant, please correct me if I'm wrong, are found in the Northeastern region of India. This includes a wide variety, wide territory spreading in the areas of Gualpara and the Garhwills in the western-south bank of the Brahmaputra. To get a more clear picture of the 17,000 to 22,000 Asian elephants found in India and estimated 1,400 elephants occur over in forested areas of Meghalaya. A substantial volume of this elephant population is found in western part of the Meghalaya and large number of them occasionally sneaking to northern Bangladesh, obviously with our passbook. Elephants are present in this area since long, but what explains the presence of a dense elephant population in these areas? One probable explanation is a complex topography inhabited. An elephant habitat is largely defined by the availability of food and that sense of trade to their habitat, as you all know from the works of Raman Sukumar. And I, yeah, the elephants in the North-Eastern India share a diverse habitat from open flat plains grassland to dense forest. In 1879, W.W. Hunter, he was an official statistician of the British government, had such a complex topography in mind when he wrote, and I quote him, elephants moved in the lower hills and George Gorges on the valleys of the Suruma and the Brahmaputra. But more importantly, the Garuhils varied ecological texture is also due to absence of the permanent cultivation. Archival records clear regularly reported absence of a settled agriculture and the prevalence of sifting cultivation in the Garuhils. Failure to expand the settled agriculture in the hills came as a boon to the elephants, if not to their colonial government. Recent research on the habitat preference of elephants in the Garuhils and Southern Bank of Western Assam, largely coinciding with the territories from where the Zamindars of Karibari captured elephants. It suggests that elephants here preferred June fellows. Forests who is appeared in June land meet that elephants are attracted to a great diversity of food plants, less likelihood of these plants being protected by toxins and tannins and a higher proportion of available food being within the race of these most elephants. Garuhil was also the major source of cotton production, but this significant volume of cotton cultivation hardly caused disturbances to the elephant habitats. As the Garuhils and its foothills remained largely free and partially cultivated, elephants made it their homeland. Unmanned, mindful of the fires fight between the Zamindars and the government, the elephants carried out great on crops, plants belonging to the Zamindars, government or their subjects. I come to my next section, competing rights over elephants. The Zamindars of Western Assam, including that of Karibari, claimed exclusive and spatial rights over elephant habitats and hunted them for long, is spread over a very wide and complex ecological territory. Zamindars of Karibari carved out distinctive privileges of elephant hunting for long. The Mughals considered them at the frontier of their eastern frontier. Distance and an ecologically fluid landscape created opportunities for the Zamindars of Karibari to immerse powerful. Control over elephant was an additional source of power for these Zamindars of these frontier province. Definitely a superior privilege than the neighboring Zamindars of Bengal. What was interesting that, even by the middle of the 19th century, Karibari characterized by low-lying hills still remain largely a forested area with little cultivation. Out of the 800 square miles area belonging to the Karibari, more than 90% was still forested in 1853, when the touring jars from Bengal as the Mughals inquired about this Zamindari. Essentially, proceeds from this foreign present-based agriculture in this vast Zamindari state was extremely low. A low revenue from agriculture was replaced from the profits earned from the forest products from elephant hunting. Elephant catching was done surely a very lucrative trade for the Karibari Zamindari. In 1870, the William Hunter described elephant hunting in Garuse in this way. A considerable trade in wild elephant is carried on and parties of native huntsmen used formally to come up from Purnia, Rangpur, and Moimunsing to capture wild elephants. Lot of spelling mistakes. To retain control over their rights over elephant hunting, the Zamindars resulted to various mechanism. One was to assert control over the elephant catchers. The Zamindars of Western Assam, including that of Karibari and Mashapara employed Garuse as elephant catchers. Catching elephant was, and is still a highly specialized scheme and involves substantial labor force. If elephant hunting was considered as a source of lucrative trade for the Zamindars, the Garuse also hunted elephants for their meat. Keeping highly unsettled and mobile tribal population as labor force for the Zamindars was also an intricate process. Meanwhile, after the extension of the authority of the extended company into these areas, the Karibari Zamindari underwent several economic constraints. The Zamindari was auctioned off and subsequently it was partitioned between several shareholders. This made the Karibari Zamindari highly vulnerable and its survival was at stake. The new absentee Zamindari shareholders now tried their best to retain their right to hunt and trade in elephants as the only way out. Any decline in income from such sources was considered a direct threat to their existence. It was inevitable that they would resist any such attempt which threatens their economic and the political and the cultural privileges. However, since the second half of the 19th century, such paragraphs were silenced by the Assam administration and in the 1867, for the first time, the hunting rights were prohibited. Actual silenced, as I said earlier, came in the form of Elephant Preservation Act of 1879. Extension of this act into the Zamindari of Guapara Karibari was sure to raise even cry. Guru Prashant Nolahiri and others, the angry Karibari Zamindars protested before the Assam chief commissioner saying that, the men are in wish, the conditions, and under wish, the profits of our Elephant Mahals have been realized and the exercise of our rights interfered with. They were not alone. Several Zamindars having territorial claims over the Garhules have already put forward similar claims. In 1886, the Mesapara Zamindars filed a lawsuit against the government seeking a declaration of their exclusive right of catching wild elephants in the Garhules and also their right to appropriate and I got them their entire profits of their said hunting operation without rendering any account to the government. Dismissing the notion of exclusive rights of Zamindars on the Elephants, George Anderson, the superintendent of KEDA operation in Dhaka had categorically argued that the government had the exclusive right of hunting of elephants in disaster states on the ground that Elephant is a royal beast and therefore belong exclusively to the ground and if not exclusively, that the ground has an indefensible rights to hunting. The Assam administration refused to extend rights claimed by the Karibari Zamindari. In an agreement signed in 1878, it was asserted that henceforth the government of India do not hereby recognize the right of Zamindar of the Paragana of Karibari to catch wild elephants. The exclusive rights to hunt elephants in the Garhules claimed by the Zamindars was probably disputed by the Garhules. Garhules accepted a fine or says variously known as the Marang money or Mati Khazana for catching for each elephant killed or captured on their lands whether by the Zamindar or by the foreigners. The Assam administration categorically refused to extend these rights to the Karibari Zamindari. In 1875, in the absence of no legal framework and tackling the colonial government to assert its exclusive rights of elephants, opinions began to differ. Rather than an exclusive right to be exercised by the government, offer of compensation wasn't also met to the Zamindars. Such considerate approach emerges both from the absence of sovereign right of the government as well as practical difficulties of ensuring control without taking the Zamindars into confidence. When Guru Prashanta Lahiri wrote the memorandum in the early days of the 20th century, the colonial government was in no mood to succumb to the pressure and finally confirm its unwillingness to agree to the claims of the Zamindars and the government became the exclusive owner of the elephants, neither the Zamindars. Why would they abdicate a mass-priced social capital through arm through centuries of negotiation over local nature and people to the colonial masters whose fate is now safe, whose now fate is still uncertain? I now come to my concluding section, nature, law and environmental history. The protected legal battle fought by the Zamindars of Western Assam amply proved how the big animals became a source of intense negotiation between Indian riches and the British colonial government. It was only after a long drawn legal battle that colonial state was empowered with the absolute right over the elephant. This work then offers possibility to examine the rule of law and environment in ascertaining claims of the colonial government as well as the powerful Zamindars of elephants. The hills, forested spaces, and revenue they are in were not seen as an empty space but an integral to the larger space claimed by both colonial government as well as the Gualapara Zamindars. One cannot afford to do away with this economically lucrative space but all legal and social negotiations must be used fruitfully to retain authority over such a complex territory and animal. Laws of ownership over elephants was seen both by the Gualapara Zamindars as well as by the British government as a significant trait to their political and economic power. The Zamindars took recourse to the social and the cultural access and capital to the elephants to lay bold claims over the elephants. In this high drama, and the elephants not only acted as mediator between various forces at play, hills, jungles, Zamindars, and colonial government but was the active ascent of the colonial economy. The extraordinary economic and social capital that the Gualapara Zamindars could enjoy gave them the required weapons to remain at the loggerhead with their colonial masters. Throughout the 19th century, the Zamindars, by citing their historical claims on elephants, contested sovereign notions asserted by the British government. Despite resistance and willing to negotiate in the 19th century, the Zamindars began to relinquish their rights, their notion of sovereign did not find many takers. In the 20th century, the legacies of the Gualapara Zamindars slowly vanished away. Elephants are still predominantly present present in this space but face different forms of silences, more environmental than legal that their Guru Prasanna used to face. Availability of habitat is declining rapidly with the coming of permanent cultivation. The new masters of the Indian national states enjoys the rights of elephants which was settled long before in the early 20th century. Thank you so much.