SECTION II

LIVELIHOODS, ECONOMIES AND SOCIETIES

In Section II we will shift our focus to the study of livelihoods and economies. We
LIVELIHOODS, ECONOMIES AND SOCIETIES

will look at how the lives of forest dwellers and pastoralists changed in the modern
world and how they played a part in shaping these changes.

All too often in looking at the emergence of the modern world, we only focus on
factories and cities, on the industrial and agricultural sectors which supply the market.
But we forget that there are other economies outside these sectors, other people too
who matter to the nation. To modern eyes, the lives of pastoralists and forest dwellers,
the shifting cultivators and food gatherers often seem to be stuck in the past. It is as
if their lives are not important when we study the emergence of the contemporary
world. The chapters in Section II will suggest that we need to know about their
lives, see how they organise their world and operate their economies. These
communities are very much part of the modern world we live in today. They are
not simply survivors from a bygone era.

Chapter IV will take you into the forest and tell you about the variety of ways the
Forest Society and Colonialism
forests were used by communities living within them. It will show how in the
nineteenth century the growth of industries and urban centres, ships and railways,
created a new demand on the forests for timber and other forest products. New
demands led to new rules of forest use, new ways of organising the forest. You will
see how colonial control was established over the forests, how forest areas were
mapped, trees were classified, and plantations were developed. All these developments
affected the lives of those local communities who used forest resources. They were
forced to operate within new systems and reorganise their lives. But they also rebelled
against the rules and persuaded the state to change its policies. The chapter will give
you an idea of the history of such developments in India and Indonesia.
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 Chapter V will track the movements of the pastoralists in the mountains and deserts,
in the plains and plateaus of India and Africa. Pastoral communities in both these
areas form an important segment of the population. Yet we rarely study their lives.
Their histories do not enter the pages of textbooks. Chapter V will show how their
lives were affected by the controls established over the forest, the expansion of agri-
culture, and the decline of grazing fields. It will tell you about the patterns of their
movements, their relationships to other communities, and the way they adjust to
changing situations.

We cannot understand the making of the contemporary world unless we begin to see
the changes in the lives of diverse communities and people. We also cannot understand
the problems of modernisation unless we look at its impact on the environment.
India and the Contemporary World

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Forest Society and

Chapter IV
Colonialism
Take a quick look around your school and home and identify all
the things that come from forests: the paper in the book you are
reading, desks and tables, doors and windows, the dyes that colour
your clothes, spices in your food, the cellophane wrapper of your
toffee, tendu leaf in bidis, gum, honey, coffee, tea and rubber. Do
not miss out the oil in chocolates, which comes from sal seeds, the
tannin used to convert skins and hides into leather, or the herbs
and roots used for medicinal purposes. Forests also provide bamboo,
wood for fuel, grass, charcoal, packaging, fruits, flowers, animals,
birds and many other things. In the Amazon forests or in the
Western Ghats, it is possible to find as many as 500 different plant
species in one forest patch.

A lot of this diversity is fast disappearing. Between 1700 and 1995,

the period of industrialisation, 13.9 million sq km of forest or 9.3
per cent of the world’s total area was cleared for industrial uses,
cultivation, pastures and fuelwood.

Society
ForestForest and Colonialism
Society and Colonialism

Fig.1 – A sal forest in Chhattisgarh.

Look at the different heights of the trees and plants in this
picture, and the variety of species. This is a dense forest,
so very little sunlight falls on the forest floor.

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 1 Why Deforestation?

The disappearance of forests is referred to as deforestation.

Deforestation is not a recent problem. The process began many
centuries ago; but under colonial rule it became more systematic and
extensive. Let us look at some of the causes of deforestation in India.

1.1 Land to be Improved

In 1600, approximately one-sixth of India’s landmass was under
cultivation. Now that figure has gone up to about half. As population
increased over the centuries and the demand for food went up,
peasants extended the boundaries of cultivation, clearing forests and
breaking new land. In the colonial period, cultivation expanded
rapidly for a variety of reasons. First, the British directly encouraged
India and the Contemporary World

Fig.2 – When the valleys were full. Painting by John Dawson.

Native Americans like the Lakota tribe who lived in the Great North American Plains had a diversified economy. They
cultivated maize, foraged for wild plants and hunted bison. Keeping vast areas open for the bison to range in was seen by
the English settlers as wasteful. After the 1860s the bisons were killed in large numbers.

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the production of commercial crops like jute, sugar, wheat and Source A
cotton. The demand for these crops increased in nineteenth-century
Europe where foodgrains were needed to feed the growing urban The idea that uncultivated land had to
population and raw materials were required for industrial be taken over and improved was popular
with colonisers everywhere in the world.
It was an argument that justified
Box 1 conquest.
In 1896 the American writer, Richard
The absence of cultivation in a place does not mean the land was Harding, wrote on the Honduras in
uninhabited. In Australia, when the white settlers landed, they Central America:
claimed that the continent was empty or terra nullius. In fact, they ‘There is no more interesting question of
were guided through the landscape by aboriginal tracks, and led the present day than that of what is to
be done with the world’s land which is
by aboriginal guides. The different aboriginal communities in
lying unimproved; whether it shall go to
Australia had clearly demarcated territories. The Ngarrindjeri the great power that is willing to turn it
people of Australia plotted their land along the symbolic body of to account, or remain with its original
the first ancestor, Ngurunderi. This land included five different owner, who fails to understand its value.
The Central Americans are like a gang of
environments: salt water, riverine tracts, lakes, bush and desert
semi-barbarians in a beautifully furnished
plains, which satisfied different socio-economic needs. house, of which they can understand
neither its possibilities of comfort nor its
use.’
production. Second, in the early nineteenth century, the colonial
Three years later the American-owned
state thought that forests were unproductive. They were considered
United Fruit Company was founded, and
to be wilderness that had to be brought under cultivation so that grew bananas on an industrial scale in
the land could yield agricultural products and revenue, and enhance Central America. The company acquired
such power over the governments of
the income of the state. So between 1880 and 1920, cultivated area
these countries that they came to be
rose by 6.7 million hectares. known as Banana Republics.
Quoted in David Spurr, The Rhetoric of
We always see the expansion of cultivation as a sign of progress.
Empire, (1993).
But we should not forget that for land to be brought under the
plough, forests have to be cleared.

1.2 Sleepers on the Tracks

Forest Society and Colonialism

New words

Sleepers – Wooden planks laid across railway

tracks; they hold the tracks in position

Fig.3 – Converting sal logs into sleepers in the Singhbhum forests, Chhotanagpur, May 1897.
Adivasis were hired by the forest department to cut trees, and make smooth planks which would serve as sleepers for the
railways. At the same time, they were not allowed to cut these trees to build their own houses.

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 By the early nineteenth century, oak forests in England were
disappearing. This created a problem of timber supply for the Royal
Navy. How could English ships be built without a regular supply of
strong and durable timber? How could imperial power be protected
and maintained without ships? By the 1820s, search parties were
sent to explore the forest resources of India. Within a decade, trees
were being felled on a massive scale and vast quantities of timber
were being exported from India.

The spread of railways from the 1850s created a new demand.

Railways were essential for colonial trade and for the movement of
imperial troops. To run locomotives, wood was needed as fuel, and
to lay railway lines sleepers were essential to hold the tracks together.
Each mile of railway track required between 1,760 and 2,000 sleepers.

From the 1860s, the railway network expanded rapidly. By 1890,

about 25,500 km of track had been laid. In 1946, the length of the
tracks had increased to over 765,000 km. As the railway tracks spread
through India, a larger and larger number of trees were felled. As
early as the 1850s, in the Madras Presidency alone, 35,000 trees were
Fig.4 – Bamboo rafts being floated down the
being cut annually for sleepers. The government gave out contracts Kassalong river, Chittagong Hill Tracts.
to individuals to supply the required quantities. These contractors
began cutting trees indiscriminately. Forests around the railway tracks
fast started disappearing.
India and the Contemporary World

Fig.5 – Elephants piling squares of timber at a timber yard in Rangoon.

In the colonial period elephants were frequently used to lift heavy timber both in the
forests and at the timber yards.

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Source B

Activity
‘The new line to be constructed was the Indus Valley Railway
between Multan and Sukkur, a distance of nearly 300 miles. At
Each mile of railway track required between
the rate of 2000 sleepers per mile this would require 600,000
sleepers 10 feet by 10 inches by 5 inches (or 3.5 cubic feet 1,760 and 2,000 sleepers. If one average-
apiece), being upwards of 2,000,000 cubic feet. The sized tree yields 3 to 5 sleepers for a 3 metre
locomotives would use wood fuel. At the rate of one train daily wide broad gauge track, calculate
either way and at one maund per train-mile an annual supply
approximately how many trees would have to
of 219,000 maunds would be demanded. In addition a large
supply of fuel for brick-burning would be required. The sleepers be cut to lay one mile of track.
would have to come mainly from the Sind Forests. The fuel
from the tamarisk and Jhand forests of Sind and the Punjab.
The other new line was the Northern State Railway from Lahore
to Multan. It was estimated that 2,200,000 sleepers would be
required for its construction.’
E.P. Stebbing, The Forests of India, Vol. II (1923).

Forest Society and Colonialism

Fig.6 - Women returning home after collecting

fuelwood.

Fig.7 - Truck carrying logs

When the forest department decided to take up
an area for logging, one of the first things it did
was to build wide roads so that trucks could
enter. Compare this to the forest tracks along
which people walk to collect fuelwood and
other minor forest produce. Many such trucks
of wood go from forest areas to big cities.

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 1.3 Plantations
Large areas of natural forests were also cleared to make way for
tea, coffee and rubber plantations to meet Europe’s growing need
for these commodities. The colonial government took over the
forests, and gave vast areas to European planters at cheap rates.
These areas were enclosed and cleared of forests, and planted with
tea or coffee.

Fig.8 – Pleasure Brand Tea.

India and the Contemporary World

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2 The Rise of Commercial Forestry

In the previous section we have seen that the British needed forests
in order to build ships and railways. The British were worried that
the use of forests by local people and the reckless felling of trees by
traders would destroy forests. So they decided to invite a German
expert, Dietrich Brandis, for advice, and made him the first Inspector
General of Forests in India.

Brandis realised that a proper system had to be introduced to manage

the forests and people had to be trained in the science of conservation.
This system would need legal sanction. Rules about the use of forest
resources had to be framed. Felling of trees and grazing had to be
restricted so that forests could be preserved for timber production.
Anybody who cut trees without following the system had to be

Activity
If you were the Government of India in 1862
and responsible for supplying the railways
with sleepers and fuel on such a large scale,
what were the steps you would have taken?

Forest Society and Colonialism

Fig.9 – One aisle of a managed poplar forest

in Tuscany, Italy.
Poplar forests are good mainly for timber.
They are not used for leaves, fruit or other
products. Look at the straight lines of trees,
all of a uniform height. This is the model that
‘scientific’ forestry has promoted.

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 Fig.10 – A deodar plantation in Kangra, 1933.
From Indian Forest Records, Vol. XV.

punished. So Brandis set up the Indian Forest Service in 1864 and

helped formulate the Indian Forest Act of 1865. The Imperial Forest
Research Institute was set up at Dehradun in 1906. The system they
taught here was called ‘scientific forestry’. Many people now,
including ecologists, feel that this system is not scientific at all.

In scientific forestry, natural forests which had lots of different types

of trees were cut down. In their place, one type of tree was planted
in straight rows. This is called a plantation. Forest officials surveyed
the forests, estimated the area under different types of trees, and
made working plans for forest management. They planned how much
of the plantation area to cut every year. The area cut was then to be Fig.11 – The Imperial Forest School,
Dehra Dun, India.
replanted so that it was ready to be cut again in some years. The first forestry school to be inaugurated in
the British Empire.
After the Forest Act was enacted in 1865, it was amended twice, From: Indian Forester, Vol. XXXI
India and the Contemporary World

once in 1878 and then in 1927. The 1878 Act divided forests into
three categories: reserved, protected and village forests. The best
forests were called ‘reserved forests’. Villagers could not take anything
from these forests, even for their own use. For house building or
fuel, they could take wood from protected or village forests.

2.1 How were the Lives of People Affected? New words

Foresters and villagers had very different ideas of what a good forest Scientific forestry – A system of cutting
should look like. Villagers wanted forests with a mixture of species trees controlled by the forest department,
to satisfy different needs – fuel, fodder, leaves. The forest department in which old trees are cut and new ones
on the other hand wanted trees which were suitable for building planted

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 Fig.12 – Collecting mahua ( Madhuca indica) from the forests.
Villagers wake up before dawn and go to the forest to collect the mahua flowers which have fallen on the forest floor. Mahua
trees are precious. Mahua flowers can be eaten or used to make alcohol. The seeds can be used to make oil.

ships or railways. They needed trees that could provide hard wood,
and were tall and straight. So particular species like teak and sal were
promoted and others were cut.

In forest areas, people use forest products – roots, leaves, fruits, and
tubers – for many things. Fruits and tubers are nutritious to eat,
especially during the monsoons before the harvest has come in. Herbs
are used for medicine, wood for agricultural implements like yokes
Forest Society and Colonialism
and ploughs, bamboo makes excellent fences and is also used to make
baskets and umbrellas. A dried scooped-out gourd can be used as a
portable water bottle. Almost everything is available in the forest –
leaves can be stitched together to make disposable plates and cups,
the siadi (Bauhinia vahlii) creeper can be used to make ropes, and the
thorny bark of the semur (silk-cotton) tree is used to grate vegetables.
Fig.13 – Drying tendu leaves.
Oil for cooking and to light lamps can be pressed from the fruit of The sale of tendu leaves is a major source of
the mahua tree. income for many people living in forests. Each
bundle contains approximately 50 leaves, and if a
The Forest Act meant severe hardship for villagers across the country. person works very hard they can perhaps collect
as many as 100 bundles in a day. Women,
After the Act, all their everyday practices – cutting wood for their children and old men are the main collectors.

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 Fig.14 – Bringing grain from the threshing
grounds to the field.
The men are carrying grain in baskets from the
threshing fields. Men carry the baskets slung
on a pole across their shoulders, while women
carry the baskets on their heads.

houses, grazing their cattle, collecting fruits and roots, hunting and
fishing – became illegal. People were now forced to steal wood
Activity
from the forests, and if they were caught, they were at the mercy of Children living around forest areas can often
the forest guards who would take bribes from them. Women who identify hundreds of species of trees and plants.
collected fuelwood were especially worried. It was also common for How many species of trees can you name?

police constables and forest guards to harass people by demanding

free food from them.

2.2 How did Forest Rules Affect Cultivation?

One of the major impacts of European colonialism was on the practice
of shifting cultivation or swidden agriculture. This is a traditional
agricultural practice in many parts of Asia, Africa and South America. It
has many local names such as lading in Southeast Asia, milpa in Central
America, chitemene or tavy in Africa, and chena in Sri Lanka. In
India, dhya, penda, bewar, nevad, jhum, podu, khandad and kumri
are some of the local terms for swidden agriculture.
India and the Contemporary World

In shifting cultivation, parts of the forest are cut and burnt in rotation.
Seeds are sown in the ashes after the first monsoon rains, and the crop is
harvested by October-November. Such plots are cultivated for a couple
of years and then left fallow for 12 to 18 years for the forest to grow
back. A mixture of crops is grown on these plots. In central India
and Africa it could be millets, in Brazil manioc, and in other parts of
Latin America maize and beans. Fig.15 – Taungya cultivation was a system in
which local farmers were allowed to cultivate
European foresters regarded this practice as harmful for the forests. They temporarily within a plantation. In this photo
taken in Tharrawaddy division in Burma in
felt that land which was used for cultivation every few years could not 1921 the cultivators are sowing paddy. The
grow trees for railway timber. When a forest was burnt, there was men make holes in the soil using long bamboo
poles with iron tips. The women sow paddy
the added danger of the flames spreading and burning valuable timber. in each hole.

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 Fig.16 – Burning the forest penda or podu plot.
In shifting cultivation, a clearing is made in the forest, usually on the slopes of hills.
After the trees have been cut, they are burnt to provide ashes. The seeds are then
scattered in the area, and left to be irrigated by the rain.

Shifting cultivation also made it harder for the government to calculate

taxes. Therefore, the government decided to ban shifting cultivation.
As a result, many communities were forcibly displaced from their
homes in the forests. Some had to change occupations, while some
resisted through large and small rebellions.

2.3 Who could Hunt?

The new forest laws changed the lives of forest dwellers in yet another
way. Before the forest laws, many people who lived in or near forests
had survived by hunting deer, partridges and a variety of small Forest Society and Colonialism
animals. This customary practice was prohibited by the forest laws.
Those who were caught hunting were now punished for poaching.

While the forest laws deprived people of their customary rights to

hunt, hunting of big game became a sport. In India, hunting of tigers
and other animals had been part of the culture of the court and
nobility for centuries. Many Mughal paintings show princes and
Fig.17 – The little fisherman.
emperors enjoying a hunt. But under colonial rule the scale of hunting Children accompany their parents to the forest
increased to such an extent that various species became almost extinct. and learn early how to fish, collect forest
produce and cultivate. The bamboo trap which
The British saw large animals as signs of a wild, primitive and savage the boy is holding in his right hand is kept at
society. They believed that by killing dangerous animals the British the mouth of a stream – the fish flow into it.

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 Fig.18 – Lord Reading hunting in Nepal.
Count the dead tigers in the photo. When British colonial officials and Rajas went hunting they were accompanied by a
whole retinue of servants. Usually, the tracking was done by skilled village hunters, and the Sahib simply fired the shot.

would civilise India. They gave rewards for the killing of tigers, wolves Source C
and other large animals on the grounds that they posed a threat to Baigas are a forest community of
cultivators. 0ver 80,000 tigers, 150,000 leopards and 200,000 wolves Central India. In 1892, after their
shifting cultivation was stopped, they
were killed for reward in the period 1875-1925. Gradually, the tiger
petitioned to the government:
came to be seen as a sporting trophy. The Maharaja of Sarguja alone
‘We daily starve, having had no
shot 1,157 tigers and 2,000 leopards up to 1957. A British foodgrain in our possession. The only
administrator, George Yule, killed 400 tigers. Initially certain areas wealth we possess is our axe. We
India and the Contemporary World

have no clothes to cover our body with,

of forests were reserved for hunting. Only much later did
but we pass cold nights by the
environmentalists and conservators begin to argue that all these species fireside. We are now dying for want of
of animals needed to be protected, and not killed. food. We cannot go elsewhere. What
fault have we done that the
government does not take care of us?
Prisoners are supplied with ample food
2.4 New Trades, New Employments and New Services in jail. A cultivator of the grass is not
deprived of his holding, but the
While people lost out in many ways after the forest department government does not give us our right
took control of the forests, some people benefited from the new who have lived here for generations
opportunities that had opened up in trade. Many communities left past.’

their traditional occupations and started trading in forest products. Verrier Elwin (1939), cited in Madhav
Gadgil and Ramachandra Guha, This
This happened not only in India but across the world. For example, Fissured Land: An Ecological History of
India.

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with the growing demand for rubber in the mid-nineteenth century, Source D
the Mundurucu peoples of the Brazilian Amazon who lived in villages
on high ground and cultivated manioc, began to collect latex from
wild rubber trees for supplying to traders. Gradually, they descended Rubber extraction in the Putumayo

to live in trading posts and became completely dependent on traders. ‘Everywhere in the world, conditions of
work in plantations were horrific.
In India, the trade in forest products was not new. From the medieval
The extraction of rubber in the Putumayo
period onwards, we have records of adivasi communities trading region of the Amazon, by the Peruvian
elephants and other goods like hides, horns, silk cocoons, ivory, Rubber Company (with British and
Peruvian interests) was dependent on
bamboo, spices, fibres, grasses, gums and resins through nomadic
the forced labour of the local Indians,
communities like the Banjaras. called Huitotos. From 1900-1912, the
Putumayo output of 4000 tons of rubber
With the coming of the British, however, trade was completely was associated with a decrease of some
regulated by the government. The British government gave many 30,000 among the Indian population due
to torture, disease and flight. A letter
large European trading firms the sole right to trade in the forest
by an employee of a rubber company
products of particular areas. Grazing and hunting by local people describes how the rubber was collected.
were restricted. In the process, many pastoralist and nomadic The manager summoned hundreds of
Indians to the station:
communities like the Korava, Karacha and Yerukula of the Madras
He grasped his carbine and machete
Presidency lost their livelihoods. Some of them began to be called
and began the slaughter of these
‘criminal tribes’, and were forced to work instead in factories, defenceless Indians, leaving the ground
mines and plantations, under government supervision. covered with 150 corpses, among them,
men, women and children. Bathed in
New opportunities of work did not always mean improved well- blood and appealing for mercy, the
survivors were heaped with the dead
being for the people. In Assam, both men and women from forest
and burned to death, while the manager
communities like Santhals and Oraons from Jharkhand, and shouted, “I want to exterminate all the
Gonds from Chhattisgarh were recruited to work on tea Indians who do not obey my orders
about the rubber that I require them to
plantations. Their wages were low and conditions of work were
bring in.” ’
very bad. They could not return easily to their home villages
Michael Taussig, ‘Culture of Terror-Space
from where they had been recruited. of Death’, in Nicholas Dirks, ed.
Colonialism and Culture, 1992.

Forest Society and Colonialism

Source

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 3 Rebellion in the Forest

In many parts of India, and across the world, forest communities

rebelled against the changes that were being imposed on them. The
leaders of these movements against the British like Siddhu and Kanu
in the Santhal Parganas, Birsa Munda of Chhotanagpur or Alluri
Sitarama Raju of Andhra Pradesh are still remembered today in songs
and stories. We will now discuss in detail one such rebellion which
took place in the kingdom of Bastar in 1910.

3.1 The People of Bastar

Bastar is located in the southernmost part of Chhattisgarh and
borders Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Maharashtra. The central part
of Bastar is on a plateau. To the north of this plateau is the
Chhattisgarh plain and to its south is the Godavari plain. The river
Indrawati winds across Bastar east to west. A number of different
communities live in Bastar such as Maria and Muria Gonds, Dhurwas,
Bhatras and Halbas. They speak different languages but share
common customs and beliefs. The people of Bastar believe that each Sketch map
Not to scale.
village was given its land by the Earth, and in return, they look after

Fig.20 – Bastar in 2000.

In 1947 Bastar kingdom was merged with
Kanker kingdom and become Bastar district in
Madhya Pradesh. In 1998 it was divided
again into three districts, Kanker, Bastar and
Dantewada. In 2001, these became part of
Chhattisgarh. The 1910 rebellion first started
in the Kanger forest area (encircled) and soon
spread to other parts of the state.
India and the Contemporary World

Fig.19 – Army camp in Bastar, 1910.

This photograph of an army camp was taken in Bastar in 1910. The
army moved with tents, cooks and soldiers. Here a sepoy is guarding the
camp against rebels.

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the earth by making some offerings at each agricultural festival. In
addition to the Earth, they show respect to the spirits of the river,
the forest and the mountain. Since each village knows where its
boundaries lie, the local people look after all the natural resources
within that boundary. If people from a village want to take some
wood from the forests of another village, they pay a small fee called
devsari, dand or man in exchange. Some villages also protect their forests
by engaging watchmen and each household contributes some grain
to pay them. Every year there is one big hunt where the headmen of
villages in a pargana (cluster of villages) meet and discuss issues of
concern, including forests.

3.2 The Fears of the People

When the colonial government proposed to reserve two-thirds of
the forest in 1905, and stop shifting cultivation, hunting and collection
of forest produce, the people of Bastar were very worried. Some
villages were allowed to stay on in the reserved forests on the condition
that they worked free for the forest department in cutting and
transporting trees, and protecting the forest from fires. Subsequently,
these came to be known as ‘forest villages’. People of other villages
were displaced without any notice or compensation. For long, Source E
villagers had been suffering from increased land rents and frequent ‘Bhondia collected 400 men, sacrificed a
demands for free labour and goods by colonial officials. Then came number of goats and started off to
the terrible famines, in 1899-1900 and again in 1907-1908. Reservations intercept the Dewan who was expected
to return from the direction of Bijapur.
proved to be the last straw. This mob started on the 10th February,
burnt the Marenga school, the police
People began to gather and discuss these issues in their village councils, post, lines and pound at Keslur and the
in bazaars and at festivals or wherever the headmen and priests of school at Tokapal (Rajur), detached a
several villages were assembled. The initiative was taken by the contingent to burn Karanji school and
captured a head constable and four
Dhurwas of the Kanger forest, where reservation first took place. constables of the State reserve police
Although there was no single leader, many people speak of Gunda who had been sent out to escort the
Dhur, from village Nethanar, as an important figure in the Dewan and bring him in. The mob did Forest Society and Colonialism
not maltreat the guard seriously but
movement. In 1910, mango boughs, a lump of earth, chillies and eased them of their weapons and let
arrows, began circulating between villages. These were actually them go. One party of rebels under
messages inviting villagers to rebel against the British. Every village Bhondia Majhi went off to the Koer river
to block the passage there in case the
contributed something to the rebellion expenses. Bazaars were looted, Dewan left the main road. The rest went
the houses of officials and traders, schools and police stations were on to Dilmilli to stop the main road from
burnt and robbed, and grain redistributed. Most of those who were Bijapur. Buddhu Majhi and Harchand Naik
led the main body.’
attacked were in some way associated with the colonial state and its
Letter from DeBrett, Political Agent,
oppressive laws. William Ward, a missionary who observed the events, Chhattisgarh Feudatory States to
wrote: ‘From all directions came streaming into Jagdalpur, police, Commissioner, Chhattisgarh Division, 23
merchants, forest peons, schoolmasters and immigrants.’ June 1910.

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 Source F

Elders living in Bastar recounted the story of this battle they had heard
from their parents:
Podiyami Ganga of Kankapal was told by his father Podiyami Tokeli that:

‘The British came and started taking land. The Raja didn’t pay attention
to things happening around him, so seeing that land was being taken,
his supporters gathered people. War started. His staunch supporters
died and the rest were whipped. My father, Podiyami Tokeli suffered many
strokes, but he escaped and survived. It was a movement to get rid of
the British. The British used to tie them to horses and pull them. From
every village two or three people went to Jagdalpur: Gargideva and
Michkola of Chidpal, Dole and Adrabundi of Markamiras, Vadapandu of
Baleras, Unga of Palem and many others.’

Similarly, Chendru, an elder from village Nandrasa, said:

‘On the people’s side, were the big elders – Mille Mudaal of Palem, Soyekal
Dhurwa of Nandrasa, and Pandwa Majhi. People from every pargana
camped in Alnar tarai. The paltan (force) surrounded the people in a

Source
flash. Gunda Dhur had flying powers and flew away. But what could those
with bows and arrows do? The battle took place at night. The people hid
in shrubs and crawled away. The army paltan also ran away. All those
who remained alive (of the people), somehow found their way home to
their villages.’

The British sent troops to suppress the rebellion. The adivasi leaders
tried to negotiate, but the British surrounded their camps and fired
upon them. After that they marched through the villages flogging
and punishing those who had taken part in the rebellion. Most
villages were deserted as people fled into the jungles. It took three
months (February - May) for the British to regain control. However,
they never managed to capture Gunda Dhur. In a major victory
for the rebels, work on reservation was temporarily suspended,
India and the Contemporary World

and the area to be reserved was reduced to roughly half of that

planned before 1910.
The story of the forests and people of Bastar does not end there.
After Independence, the same practice of keeping people out of the
forests and reserving them for industrial use continued. In the 1970s,
the World Bank proposed that 4,600 hectares of natural sal forest
should be replaced by tropical pine to provide pulp for the paper
industry. It was only after protests by local environmentalists that
the project was stopped.
Let us now go to another part of Asia, Indonesia, and see what was
happening there over the same period.

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4 Forest Transformations in Java

Java is now famous as a rice-producing island in Indonesia. But

once upon a time it was covered mostly with forests. The colonial
power in Indonesia were the Dutch, and as we will see, there were
many similarities in the laws for forest control in Indonesia and
India. Java in Indonesia is where the Dutch started forest
management. Like the British, they wanted timber from Java to
build ships. In 1600, the population of Java was an estimated 3.4
million. There were many villages in the fertile plains, but there
were also many communities living in the mountains and practising
shifting cultivation.

4.1 The Woodcutters of Java

The Kalangs of Java were a community of skilled forest cutters and
shifting cultivators. They were so valuable that in 1755 when the
Mataram kingdom of Java split, the 6,000 Kalang families were
equally divided between the two kingdoms. Without their expertise,
it would have been difficult to harvest teak and for the kings to
build their palaces. When the Dutch began to gain control over the
forests in the eighteenth century, they tried to make the Kalangs
work under them. In 1770, the Kalangs resisted by attacking a Dutch
fort at Joana, but the uprising was suppressed.

4.2 Dutch Scientific Forestry

In the nineteenth century, when it became
important to control territory and not just
Forest Society and Colonialism
people, the Dutch enacted forest laws in Java,
restricting villagers’ access to forests. Now
wood could only be cut for specified purposes
like making river boats or constructing houses,
and only from specific forests under close
supervision. Villagers were punished for
grazing cattle in young stands, transporting
wood without a permit, or travelling on forest
roads with horse carts or cattle.

As in India, the need to manage forests for

shipbuilding and railways led to the Fig.21 – Train transporting teak out of the forest – late colonial period.

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 introduction of a forest service. In 1882, 280,000 sleepers were Source G
exported from Java alone. However, all this required labour to cut
Dirk van Hogendorp, an official of the
the trees, transport the logs and prepare the sleepers. The Dutch
United East India Company in colonial
first imposed rents on land being cultivated in the forest and then Java said:
exempted some villages from these rents if they worked collectively ‘Batavians! Be amazed! Hear with
to provide free labour and buffaloes for cutting and transporting wonder what I have to communicate. Our
fleets are destroyed, our trade
timber. This was known as the blandongdiensten system. Later, instead
languishes, our navigation is going to
of rent exemption, forest villagers were given small wages, but their ruin – we purchase with immense
right to cultivate forest land was restricted. treasures, timber and other materials
for ship-building from the northern
powers, and on Java we leave warlike
and mercantile squadrons with their
4.3 Samin’s Challenge
roots in the ground. Yes, the forests of
Around 1890, Surontiko Samin of Randublatung village, a teak forest Java have timber enough to build a
respectable navy in a short time, besides
village, began questioning state ownership of the forest. He argued that as many merchant ships as we require
the state had not created the wind, water, earth and wood, so it could not … In spite of all (the cutting) the forests
own it. Soon a widespread movement developed. Amongst those who of Java grow as fast as they are cut,
and would be inexhaustible under good
helped organise it were Samin’s sons-in-law. By 1907, 3,000 families care and management.’
were following his ideas. Some of the Saminists protested by lying down Dirk van Hogendorp, cited in Peluso, Rich
on their land when the Dutch came to survey it, while others refused to Forests, Poor People, 1992.
pay taxes or fines or perform labour.
India and the Contemporary World

Fig.22 – Most of Indonesia’s forests are located in islands like Sumatra, Kalimantan and West Irian. However, Java is
where the Dutch began their ‘scientific forestry’. The island, which is now famous for rice production, was once richly
covered with teak.

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4.4 War and Deforestation
The First World War and the Second World War had a major impact
on forests. In India, working plans were abandoned at this time, and
the forest department cut trees freely to meet British war needs. In
Java, just before the Japanese occupied the region, the Dutch followed
‘a scorched earth’ policy, destroying sawmills, and burning huge
piles of giant teak logs so that they would not fall into Japanese
hands. The Japanese then exploited the forests recklessly for their
Fig.23 – Indian Munitions Board, War Timber
own war industries, forcing forest villagers to cut down forests. Sleepers piled at Soolay pagoda ready for
Many villagers used this opportunity to expand cultivation in the shipment,1917.
The Allies would not have been as successful
forest. After the war, it was difficult for the Indonesian forest service in the First World War and the Second World
to get this land back. As in India, people’s need for agricultural land War if they had not been able to exploit the
resources and people of their colonies. Both
has brought them into conflict with the forest department’s desire
the world wars had a devastating effect on the
to control the land and exclude people from it. forests of India, Indonesia and elsewhere.
The forest department cut freely to satisfy war
needs.
4.5 New Developments in Forestry
Since the 1980s, governments across Asia and Africa have begun to
see that scientific forestry and the policy of keeping forest
communities away from forests has resulted in many conflicts.
Conservation of forests rather than collecting timber has become a
more important goal. The government has recognised that in order
to meet this goal, the people who live near the forests must be
involved. In many cases, across India, from Mizoram to Kerala, dense
forests have survived only because villages protected them in sacred
groves known as sarnas, devarakudu, kan, rai, etc. Some villages have
been patrolling their own forests, with each household taking it in
turns, instead of leaving it to the forest guards. Local forest
communities and environmentalists today are thinking of different
forms of forest management.

Forest Society and Colonialism

Fig.24 – Log yard in Rembang under Dutch

colonial rule.

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 Activities

Activities
1. Have there been changes in forest areas where you live? Find out what these
changes are and why they have happened.
2. Write a dialogue between a colonial forester and an adivasi discussing the
issue of hunting in the forest.

Questions

?
1. Discuss how the changes in forest management in the colonial period affected
the following groups of people:
Ø Shifting cultivators
Ø Nomadic and pastoralist communities
Ø Firms trading in timber/forest produce
Ø Plantation owners
Ø Kings/British officials engaged in shikar (hunting)
2. What are the similarities between colonial management of the forests in Bastar
and in Java?
3. Between 1880 and 1920, forest cover in the Indian subcontinent declined by 9.7
million hectares, from 108.6 million hectares to 98.9 million hectares. Discuss
the role of the following factors in this decline:
Ø Railways
Ø Shipbuilding
Ø Agricultural expansion
Ø Commercial farming
Ø Tea/Coffee plantations
India and the Contemporary World

Ø Adivasis and other peasant users

4. Why are forests affected by wars?

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