Why did the british establish hill station in india 4 marks
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Located on peaks that loom like sentinels over heat-shimmering plains, hill stations remain among the most curious monuments to the British colonial presence in India.[1] Their origins can be traced to the effort in the early nineteenth century to establish sanitaria within the subcontinent where European invalids could recover from the heat and disease of the tropics. But hill stations soon assumed an importance that far exceeded their initial therapeutic attraction. To these cloud-enshrouded sanctuaries the British expatriate elite came for seasonal relief not merely from the physical toll of a harsh climate but from the social and psychological toll of an alien culture. Here they established closed communities of their own kind in a setting of their own design. As self-styled guardians of the raj, however, they also sought to supervise their subjects from these commanding heights. Here they established political headquarters and military cantonments, centers of power from whence they issued and executed orders with an Olympian air of omnipotence. Hill stations, in effect, served both as sites of refuge and as sites for surveillance. These were places where the British endeavored at one and the same time to engage with and to disengage from the dominion they ruled. This paradox and its implications for the imperial
Because they came from UK, where they did not face scorching heat of Indian summer. That is why they built army cantonments in hills and settled around there. You will find army cantonments in locations like Shimla, Wellington, Takdah near Darjeeling, Landour near Mussoorie, Ranikhet, Nainital built during British rule. Weather was not extremely hot during summer as was the case in great plains of Norther India. Hence all hill stations were built by British compared to Indians who were used to such weather.