NCERT Exercise Questions
1. Discuss
how the changes in forest management in the colonial period affected the
following groups of people:
▸
Shifting cultivators
Ans. Shifting
Cultivators: European foresters regarded shifting cultivation practice
as harmful for the forests. They felt that the land which was used for
cultivation every few years could not grow trees for railway timber. When a
forest was burnt, there was the added danger of the flames spreading and
burning valuable timber. Shifting cultivation also made it harder for the
government to calculate taxes. Therefore, the government decided to ban
shifting cultivation. As a result, many shifting cultivators were forcibly
displaced from their homes in the forests.
▸ Nomadic and pastoralist communities
Ans. Nomadic
and Pastoralist Communities: When the forest
department took control of the forests, many people lost out in many ways. With
the coming of the British, however, trade was completely regulated by the
government. In the process, many pastoralists and nomadic communities like
Korava, Karacha and Yerukula of the Madras Presidency lost their livelihoods.
Some began to be called as ‘criminal tribes’ and were forced to work
instead in factories, mines and plantations under government supervision.
▸ Firms
trading in timber/forest produce
Ans. Firms
trading in timber/forest produce: The British government
gave many large European trading firms the sole right to trade in forest
products in particular areas. Grazing and hunting by the local people were
restricted.
▸
Plantation owners
Ans. Plantation
owners: Large areas of natural forests were 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.
▸
Kings/British officials engaged in shikar (hunting)
Ans. Kings/British
officials engaged in Shikar: The new forest laws changes
the lives of forest dwellers in many ways. Before the forest laws, many people
who lived in or near forest areas had survived by hunting. 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.
2. What are
the similarities between colonial management of the forests in Bastar and in
Java?
Ans. Java is a
famous rice producing island in Indonesia. Earlier, it was covered mostly with
forests. The Dutch enacted forest laws in Java restricting villagers’ access to
forests. Villagers were punished for grazing cattle in young stands,
transporting wood without a permit, or travelling on forest roads with horse
carts or cattle.
The
colonial power in Java was the Dutch, and there were many similarities in
the laws for forest control in Java and Bastar. Strict laws were made in both
the places to prohibit hunting and grazing.
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:
▸
Railways
Ans. Railways: 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. 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 being cut annually for sleepers. The government gave out contracts to
individuals to supply the required quantities. These contractors began cutting
trees indiscriminately. Forests around the railway tracks fast started
disappearing.
▸ Shipbuilding
Ans. Ship-building: By
the early nineteenth century, oak forests in England were disappearing. This
created a problem of timber supply to the Royal Navy. Hence, 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.
▸
Agricultural expansion
Ans. Agricultural
Expansion: In colonial period, cultivation expanded rapidly for a
variety of reasons. First, the British directly encouraged the production of commercial
crops. Second, in the early nineteenth century, the colonial state thought
that forests were unproductive. They were considered to be wilderness that had
to be brought under cultivation, so that the land could yield agricultural
products and revenue, and enhance the income of the state. So between 1880 and
1920, cultivated area rose by 6.7 million hectares.
▸ Commercial
farming
Ans. Commercial
Farming: The British directly encouraged the production of
commercial crops like jute, sugar, wheat and cotton. The demand for these crops
increased in the nineteenth century Europe where food grains were needed to
feed the growing urban population and raw materials were required for
industrial productions.
▸
Tea/Coffee plantations
Ans. Tea/Coffee
Plantations: Large areas of natural forests were 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.
▸
Adivasis and other peasant users
Ans. Adivasis
and other peasant-users: 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 trees to make
their own houses.
4. Why are forests
affected by wars?
Ans.
(i)
The Allies would not have been successful
in the First World War and the Second World War if they had not been able to
exploit the resources and people of their colonies. Both the World Wars had a
devastating effect on the forests of India, Indonesia and elsewhere.
(ii)
In India, working plans were abandoned
during the War and the forest department cut freely to meet British war needs.
(iii)
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 own war industries forcing forest villagers to cut down forests.
(iv)
Many villagers used this opportunity to
expand cultivation in the forest. After the war, it was difficult for the
Indonesia forest service to get this land back.
(v) As in India, people’s need for agricultural land has brought them into conflict with the forests department’s desire to control the land and exclude people from it.