Maps as weapons of disinformation, subterfuge, business intelligence and spy trade was how Prshant Lahoti fleshed out his talk on ‘Mapping India over the Centuries’ at the Kalakriti Art Gallery on Thursday morning. Using dozens of maps from 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th centuries from his private collection, Prshant showed how European maritime powers like Portuguese, Dutch, English and the French vied to gain a foothold in India while keeping their rivals at bay.“Maps were works of art as well as information. The map of William Baffin in 1619 shows the source of Ganges as Haridwar with a very imaginative sketch of a cow from whose mouth the water of the river originates. Others copied the image. The information about Delhi included a bit that diamonds were found there as India was the only source of diamonds till the middle of the 18th century,” said Prshant.
Some of the map makers used ghost cities to catch copycats in their act!James Renell who is considered the father of Indian cartography was beaten up while on the job in Varanasi and had to return to London where he published the first detailed map of Bengal and its surrounding areas. It was when Prshant spoke about Hyderabad that the audience ears perked up as he showed a small blob on the 1851 map of John Tallis showing the Residency building in Hyderabad. Then he showed a late 17th century map which had Bagnagar as the name for Hyderabad. Incidentally, a later map showed the region as Telanga and also has a representation of Sanatnagar, which is one of the suburbs of Hyderabad.
