Flora’s Empire: British Gardens in India
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Eugenia W Herbert
Allen Lane, 400 pages with 20 pages of photographs, Rs 799
The British created gardens in India not just out of nostalgia or homesickness, but also to put a stamp of ‘civilisation’ on an alien, untamed land. Colonial gardens developed over time—the ‘garden houses’ of the East India Company’s officials modelled on English country estates, the hill station gardens where English flowers could be coaxed into bloom, and the neat flowerbeds, gravel walks, well-trimmed lawns and hedges of the Victorian sahibs. In this deeply researched yet wonderfully readable history of Britain’s ‘garden imperialism’ in India, Herbert tracks the evolution of imperial ideas of governance through colonial gardens.
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