Chapter 5 Pastoralists in the morden world

The Gujjar Bakarwals of Jammu and Kashmir are great herders of sheep and goats. In the nineteenth century, many of them used to migrate in search of pastures for their animals. Gradually, over the decades, they established themselves in the area and moved annually between their summer and winter grounds. Several households came together for this journey, forming what is known as Kafila. When the mountains were covered with snow, the herds were grazed in the low hills and during summers, the Bakarwals move upwards as when the snow melted, mountains were lush green.

In Himachal Pradesh, the Gaddi shepherds had a similar cycle of seasonal movement. They too spent their winter in the low hills of Shiwalik range, grazing their flock in scrub forests. In several other areas, this cyclic movement of nomadic tribes was a culture and people form groups to travel during summer and winter seasons.

The pattern of this cyclic movement was typical of many communities of Himalayas, including the Bhotiyas, Sherpas and Kinnauris. All of them had to adjust to seasonal changes and make effective use of available pastures in different places. When the pasture was exhausted or unusable in one place they move their herds and flock to new areas. This continuous movement allowed the pastures to recover and prevented their overuse.

(i) Waste Land Rules: From mid- nineteenth century, Waste Land Rules were enacted in various parts of the country. By these Rules uncultivated lands were taken over and given to selected individuals. The colonial state wanted to transform all grazing lands into cultivated farms. Land revenue was one of the main sources of the colonial government. By expanding cultivation it could increase its revenue collection. It could at the same time produce more jute, cotton, wheat and other agricultural produce that were required in England. Colonial officials considered uncultivated land as unproductive, as it produced neither revenue nor agricultural produce.

(ii) Forest Act: Forest Acts were also enacted in different provinces during the mid-nineteenth century. Through these Acts, some forests which produced commercially valuable timber like ‘deodar’ or ‘sal’ were declared reserved. No pastoralist was allowed access to these forests. This act changed the lives of the pastoralists. The colonial officials believed that grazing destroyed the saplings and young shoots of trees that germinated on the forest floor.

(iii)Criminal Tribes Act: The British officials were suspicious of nomadic people. They distrusted mobile craftsmen and traders who hawked their goods in villages, and pastoralists who change their places of residence every season, moving in search of good pastures for their herds. The colonial government wanted to rule over a settled population. They wanted the rural people to live in villages, in fixed places with fixed rights on particular fields. Such a population was easy to identify and control. Those who were settled were, seen as peaceable and law abiding; those nomadic were considered to be criminal. In 1871, the colonial government in India passed the Criminal Tribes Act.

(iv) Grazing Tax: To expand its revenue income the colonial government looked for every possible source of taxation. So, tax was imposed on land, on canal water, on salt, on trade goods and even on animals. Pastoralists had to pay tax on every animal they grazed on the pastures. In most pastoral tracts of India, grazing tax was introduced in the mid-nineteenth century. The tax per head of cattle went up rapidly and the system of collection was made increasingly efficient. In the decades between the 1850s and 1880s, the right to collect the tax was auctioned out to contractors. These contractors tried to extract as high a tax as they could to recover the money they had paid to the state and earn as much profit as they could within the year. By the 1880s the government began collecting taxes directly from the pastoralists. Each of them was given a pass. To enter a grazing tract, a cattle herder had to show the pass and pay the tax. The number of cattle heads he had and the amount of the tax he paid was entered on the pass.

Like Pastoralists in India, the lives of African pastoralists have changed dramatically over the colonial and post-colonial periods. The Maasai cattle herders live primarily in east Africa. Before colonial times, the Maasailand stretched over a vast area from north Kenya to the steppes of northern Tanzania. In the late nineteenth century, European imperial powers scrambled for territorial possessions in Africa, slicing up the region into different colonies. In 1885, the Maasai Land was cut into half with an international boundary between British Kenya and German Tanganyike. Subsequently, the best grazing lands were gradually taken over for a white settlement and the Maasais were pushed into a small area in South Kenya and North Tanzania. The Maasai lost about 60% of their pre-colonial lands. They were confined to an arid zone with uncertain rainfall and poor pastures. The British colonial government in East Africa also encouraged local peasants to expand their cultivation. As cultivation expanded, pasturelands were turned into cultivated fields. In this process, the Maasai community lost their grazing lands.

The pastoralist communities in different parts of the world are affected in a variety of different ways by changes in the modern world. New laws and new borders affect the patterns of their movement. Both Indian and African pastoralists find it difficult to move in search of pastures due to increasing restrictions in their mobility. The pasture land was turned into cultivated lands as they were a great source of revenue for the government. The entries of the pastoralists were prohibited in the forests and grazing tax was imposed on them so that maximum revenue can be generated.