It's an interesting work, for it is able to talk to its readers creatively. It speaks about the importance of cartographic practices in influencing the perception about Indian lands to British public in general and the Company Directors and other persons of influence in particular; from latter half of eighteenth century to early twentieth century.

How land was imagined? How was it converted into territory? How did it influence the policy, attitudes of populace and opinions of the powers that be?

Drawing away from the meta narratives of the humongous machinery of Raj, Barrow digs deeper excavate, examine, explore, ideate, and reconstruct the smaller nuts and bolts like cartographic practices that made the facade of the empire look invincible. Here, it was a different world. A world far away from the quite serene settings of the East India Company board rooms, distanced from the studied civility of the aristocratic Britain, it was a bloody, contested, complex, unknown, uncharted, debated, refuted, struggled, and a challenged space.

This book looks at one of the methods employed by the British to unpack, unveil and understand by what we now imagine as the Indian subcontinent.

THE JIST:

In the late eighteenth century James Rennell adopted associative history in order to attach the name of a distinguished company soldier, Warren Hastings, the then Governor General, to the maps. By doing so made it seem as if the lands depicted were conquered and controlled in a responsible manner.

By the early 19th century trigonometrical surveys saw their new techniques and perspectives as superior to older route maps survey methods and consequently infused their surveys with a sense that their work was a symbol of the progress that accomplished colonial power.

In the mid 19th century the surveying establishment wished to revere its former head by naming a mountain, Everest, after him. The reverence for the accuracy of the surveying methods made it seem appropriate to give his name to a mountain.

In the 1860's the Survey of India, while still lauding trigonometrical techniques, also reintroduced long outdated route surveys in an effort to add adventure to their activities. A romantic history was adopted which involved the training of Indians to survey in circumstances reminiscent of the 18th century. The willingness of Indians to risk their lives for the empire and for geographic science regarded by the survey, in an atmosphere still preoccupied by the memories of the mutiny, as a sign of thoroughness and correctness of the British rule. The figure of Bengali Pundits, Sarat Chandra Das, Radhanath Sickdhar, Ram Dyal De, and Kintup emerges and acquire significance in the narratives emanating from the Survey of India.

By the turn of 20th century a nostalgia for the original moments of the British Raj led Lord Curzon to the Black Hole, a site where many Britishers were killed by suffocation, onto a pavement in Calcutta. the display was an effort to instill in the viewers a pride in the character of the British rule and to reinforce the notion that India was British for legitimate reasons.

In drawing map of Indian possessions cartographers also drew British National Identity. By inserting the British Nation into the conquest of India by insisting that British mathematical and scientific acumen was superior to that of Indian, by revisiting the sites of original national tribulation an triumph, cartographers buttressed a sense of satisfaction in being born British.

THE IDEA:

 Territory is a land that is controlled/ dominated/ acquired. Cartography

is the mathematical imagination of a land on paper. Barrow argues that, 'British mapmakers drew territory into creation and suffused history into maps, all with a view to justify colonial rule.' It started with route maps. The earlier surveyors of the land were instructed to record the climate, diet, festivals, languages spoken, common diseases and its cures, weather and local hierarchies of lands surveyed. This practice led to building of a considerable source of material on various local, regional and provincial lands. The development of epistemology grounded in conceptions of Enlightenment led to a structured, methodical unpacking of the subcontinent. When the first maps were drawn, lands were depicted as British controlled, while in reality they were only given permission, by the local Mughal administrator to collect taxes. The subtle altering of truth by incorrect visualization proved beneficial to the Company, in terms of public image, stocks and opinion among the rulers.

Mapping of a land primarily leads to two things, firstly it 'reinforces the status quo and freezes socio economic relations with charted lines' [Harley], and secondly, it 'regulates the conditions of access'. It becomes a teleological instrument as it speaks the language of power. The Britishers creatively exploited the imaginations of cartography to convert unconquered territories into possessed lands.

The politics of cartographic discourse is well charted in the book. Beginning from the 'sentimental' conquest of Bengal, where references in the map would include churches, country inns, lodging inns, British institutions, offices, and schools etc, which were at once familiar and identifiable to the British public. It generates evocative narratives about India and also led to the formation of imagined homeland among the resident Britishers . In the process of manufacturing national identities of the conquered lands of empire, the idea of 'Britain' was forged as a relative response to these fabricated 'nations'.

THE ARGUMENT:

The book looks critically at the cartographic practices of the said time, situate them at a historical moment and subjects it to a rigorous academic analyzes. It critics the discourse of identity politics in governance and tries to explore the intricately nuanced dynamics of statecraft.

The debates around naming of Mount Everest seemed interesting . It brings to light the integrity of some British officers for their resistance to name the peak XV, after George Everest, as, the tradition of Survey of India demanded no tinkering with local names. However several local names like Deodhunga, Bhairava Langur, Bhairavathan, Gnalham thanga and Gaurishankar were ignored through protracted debates, claims and counter claims of authenticity and novelty. Opinions were manipulated, maneuvered, and mobilized to eventually name the peak after Everest. Of naming Barrow insightfully writes, 'is a parental prerogative conveying both a sense of ownership and an acknowledgement of responsibility'. East India Company was fighting two battles at that time one was a Battle of conquest, where actual acquisitions were being made and other was the battle of opinions about the morality and justification of the orient. That ironically sounds like the 'Coalition of the Willing' in the Middle East. The formulae for the empire are universal. Naming helped in making the distant unknown, unfathomed, Orient, familiar. Imagine how would we react to now what is, say, Oxford, were it named, 'Raja Harish Chandar Vishva vidayalaya'!!

The story of the figure of Kentup- a native who was poorly trained by the survey officials, assigned to find out the route of Bhramaputra river, goes to Tibet and disappears only to resurface four years later, and tells the survey officials about the route orally, as he was an illiterate, becomes a delicate yet powerful thread with which the fabric of narratives, around the Survey Of India was weaved. Barrow's insight lies in tearing this fabric asunder while critically engaging with the discourse. The Survey likened the co-option of the native with the idea of 'Enlightenment'. Romance was fed into this idea. Acceptable risks, adventurers' forays and scientific conquest of land. Far from it, the natives were given outdated training or customary instructions, and ancient instruments to map those lands that were not under British control. While their log books, diaries and comments were translated and pushed for circulation in popular and scientific journals to generate hysterical imageries about the loyal natives' exploits, escapades and cartographic excavations.

Towards the latter half of nineteenth century craving for home became more pronounced within the British establishment in India. The nostalgia generated iconographies of an idealized land, civilized people and cultured environment. Simultaneously it also generated relative converse imageries about India. The black hole incident, [ Sirajuddulah the Navab of Bengal incarcerated a group of Britishers in a cell of which only twenty three survived, the rest died of suffocation] for instance fuelled these narratives about the Orient. Maps of these times are full of graphic descriptions of the Black Hole and presents a Calcutta, which looks more like a British rather than an Indian town.

Barrows analysis of a banal, and taken for granted object like map opens new debates about identity, representation and politics of cartography. One wonders about the extent of influence of cartographic practices upon the bureaucratic establishment now.

The recent road maps of Delhi has predictably enlarged sections of the Lutyen's Delhi, and Cannught place. What was the thinking which led one to imagine that people of Delhi and those outside it will frequent these heavily policed, surveilled, restricted spaces more, than say the AIIMS crossing or Karol Bagh?