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Issue 2 (51)

MARCH-CUM-TRAVEL: A PRAGMATIC APPROACH TO INDIAN LANDSCAPE AS REFLECTED IN CORRESPONDENCE OF A BRITISH OFFICER (1809)
Year	2016	Number	2(51)
Pages	61-70	Type	scientific article
UDC	94(540)”18”	BBK	63.3(5Инд)5
Authors	Glushkova Irina P.	Topic	ANTROPOLOGY OF TRAVEL
Summary	British domination in South Asia kept on growing by practical implementation of diverse information gathering, including the knowledge of landscape obtained through high mobility of the colonizers who represented a ‘long-range culture’ from outside. Their attention was focused on their main rival force – the Maratha Confederacy and its military leaders who since the second half of the eighteenth century had embodied an internal ‘long-range culture’ and had virtually defined the political fate of entire Indostan. The position of Thomas Duer Broughton (1728–1835) as a ‘military resident’ at the court of Daulat Rao Sindia implied his participation for the purposes of control and supervision of the adversary’s actions along with provision of intelligence to the East India Company — in the Maratha army’s various ‘marches’. During this mission Broughton, known for his propensity to literary writing managed to have narrated his ‘travels’ in ‘letters to brother’ thus satisfying Indomania prevalent in the metropolis of the early nineteenth century. Broughton’s letters, notwithstanding their primary focus on drawing an ethnographic portrait of an exotic ethnic group, routinely count the miles traveled and sum up the characteristics of plains, roads, mountains, rivers, vegetation, etc. of the surrounding areas. Through this, a pragmatic ‘portrait’ of the landscape is created, and some ‘slips of tongue’ of the author reveal a practical assessment of its utility for the needs of colonial administration and its army, which provide another evidence of the travelogues’ role in the process of colonization.
Keywords	‘Travelling gaze’, ‘politics of traveling’, a traveler-cum-intelligence officer, travelogue, landscape, colonization, colonialism, ‘long-range culture’, Maratha Confederacy, Daulat Rao Sindia, the East India Company, Rajputana
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