从1757到1858年，英国人在前往孟加拉湾探险、经商和殖民的过程中频繁遭遇热带气旋。在吸收借鉴热带居民的本土知识的基础上，英国人积极引导热带气旋知识的生产与流动，最终为孟加拉湾预警体系的诞生铺平了道路。1864年加尔各答气旋灾害的暴发对商会团体与沿海社区造成了巨大的损失，相关利益团体对英印殖民政府的批评引发了殖民政府的合法性焦虑，也推动它将气旋预警体系作为防范气旋活动、缓解气旋灾害的主要手段。为更加有效地防范气旋灾害并统筹全印范围的气象工作，英印殖民政府又于1875年组建了印度气象局。在英国气象学家与印度助理和本地员工的合作下，印度气象局不断推动气旋科学研究，完善预警体系，并在19世纪末将该其推广至孟加拉湾沿岸及印度西海岸的主要港口，一定程度上减轻了沿海居民的生命和财产损失。在此过程中，印度气象局加强了对全印地方气象工作的掌控，也与欧洲国家和中国东南沿海城市——如香港和上海——建立了跨国与跨区域的气象合作与交流。事实证明，气旋预警体系对气旋灾害的防范效果存在缺陷。殖民政府将预警体系作为气旋灾害防范的主要手段，却未能对灾后救济工作提供充分的支持，致使气旋灾害造成的悲惨后果不断引发着民间社会对英印殖民统治的批评。到20世纪，印度气象局继续改善预警体系，并引入新的无线电技术，加强与轮船公司的合作。但在世界大战、经济危机以及民族起义浪潮的冲击下，印度气象局的各项工作受到制约，孟加拉湾气旋预警体系逐步式微，最终在1947年遭到打破。近代气旋知识的生产与流动生动地体现了自然要素如何形塑现代科学的发展。对气旋灾害的防范带动了具有不同利益追求的多元主体的合作。气旋灾害的频发既与英帝国在南亚的殖民扩张密不可分，也冲击着英国在印度的殖民统治，揭示出英印殖民政府脆弱、焦虑的一面。英印殖民政府不愿对孟加拉湾气旋灾害提供充分的救助措施，却希望通过科技手段并依赖印度气象局来应对气旋灾害，以此维护殖民统治的合法性，这体现了英印殖民统治内在的矛盾性。尽管气旋预警体系不足以有效地应对气旋灾害，但它在一定程度上减轻了气旋活动造成的生命和财产损失，并作为一项殖民遗产得到了印度、巴基斯坦以及孟加拉等南亚民族国家的继承和发扬。将英属印度时期的热带气旋活动作为世界史研究的切入点，有助于我们从更大的时空尺度超越人类中心主义，为既有的英帝国史和世界环境史研究提供新的思路和见解。
When British traders, explorers, and colonizers visited the Bay of Bengal during the seventeenth and twentieth centuries, they inevitably came across tropical storms. Drawing on the local knowledge of hurricanes from the native Caribbean people, studying the “law of storms” in the Bay of Bengal, and establishing several significant meteorological observatories, the British people, along with their European and Indian contemporaries, made contributions to the advancement of modern tropical cyclone science during the first quarter of the nineteenth century, paving the way for the birth of the storm-warning system in the Bay of Bengal.After the notorious Calcutta cyclone disaster happened in October 1864, the colonial government confronted criticism from the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and local newspapers for being unable to warn of the imminent storm. To maintain its colonial legitimacy, the colonial government created the storm-warning system for the protection of Calcutta, and partly due to this, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) was created in 1875. Based on the IMD, official British meteorologists kept improving the storm-warning system with the collaboration of native storm observers until all the coast areas of British India were roughly covered by the warning system at the end of the nineteenth century. During this process, the IMD made itself a centralized institution, seizing the power of all India’s meteorological affairs. It also established trans-regional connections with other colonial sites, such as Mauritius, Hongkong, and Shanghai.However, the mere warning system was not sufficient in coping with cyclone disasters. Counted on the warning system, the colonial government avoided providing enough intervening measures to relieve the misery of the cyclone victims, which caused dissatisfaction and riots from the lower classes. The disastrous shipwrecks caused by cyclones in the Bay of Bengal also pointed to the inadequate financial support to the warning system from the colonial government. Furthermore, due to the outbreak of the First Great War and the following financial crisis during 1929-1931, the IMD confronted a series of challenges with its routine work and scientific research. The uprising nationalist movement culminated in 1947 eventually tore apart the original network of the storm-warning system.Tropical cyclone disasters occurred in British India revealed the unruly dimension of the tropical nature in the Bay of Bengal, not only having colossal impacts on residents and migrants but also causing challenges to the colonial governance of British India. To save public expense while maintaining its colonial legitimacy in the meantime, the colonial government failed to offer efficient relief measures but chose to depend on the storm-warning system, which was undoubtedly insufficient to relieve the misery brought by cyclone disasters. Focusing on cyclone disasters and the warning system throughout the era of British India, this paper reveals the tension and interaction between the human and non-human world, in which nature has its own power and agency. This paper also appeals to the necessity of studying meteorological history and environmental history beyond the dichotomy of “colonial and post-colonial” and “Imperial and nation-states” narratives.
