In the 1840s, the British East India Company built a 2,000-mile-long hedge across northern India. It was a living wall of thorny scrub, designed to enforce the salt tax. The Great Hedge of India — a feat of imperial engineering that kept out smugglers and kept in a revenue stream. This episode follows its rise and fall, from the plan of a British customs officer named George Stretton to the laborers who planted and tended millions of trees. We look at how the hedge snaked through villages, how it was patrolled, and why it ultimately failed. The story touches on colonial bureaucracy, the impact on local communities, and the strange echoes of the hedge in today's border walls. It's a tale of control, resilience, and the unintended consequences of empire.
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