Real and false goegraphies of the himalaya

Trans-Himalayan travel, however it might have been portrayed, was not the exclusive pastime of Western adventurers. But geographies are created according to the needs of the day.

In a recent essay on exploration in the Greater Himalaya, travel writer Stephen Venables remodels the mountains to suit the tastes of Western consumers. Venables touts the Himalaya as the "greatest mountain barrier on Earth". Over it forged the Europeans, especially the British, exploring, surveying and documenting the mountains, not for the benefit of science but for political and commercial exploitation. What is missing is any mention of the indigenous people who have long travelled the mountains. In narrating the European exploration of the Himalaya, which occurred almost entirely during the past two centuries, Venables successfully reinforces the notions not only that Himalayan travel is recent but also all travel over this perceived barrier was European or European-inspired. Venables perpetuates the idea that knowledge about the Himalaya is Western-derived: that the problems of accessibility, Lhough difficult, were solved by British imperialists from the Indian subcontinent and that the first descriptions of routes and places were recorded in the English language.
The barrier notion need not be taken very seriously for there is enough literature to successfully challenge it. Furthermore, that literature is far from European – inspired and much of it was written centuries ago. Accessibility of the South Asian mountain rimland has always been of major concern. Although now ignored by contemporary ´neo-colonialists´ — adventure travellers and the like—the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in the last century used old accounts of tians-Himalayan travel to further the aims of the British in their frontier tracts. It was the constant movement up and down and in and out of the Greater Himalaya that gave rise to its portrayal as a Highland-Lowland Interaction system. Perceptions such as Venables mountain ´barrier´, or claims of undiscovered ´refuge´ populations, are concoctions of the contemporary mind. They are not rooted in history. There is a long record of travel through the mountains by trans-Himalayan traders, pilgrims and seasonal migrants. Enhanced accessibility is the most important transformation of Himalayan habitat and society.