Friday, April 8, 2011
Tribal Law and Justice: A Report on the Santal by W.G. Archer
1984, Concept Publishing Company, New Delhi
The Muria and their Ghotul ---Verrier Elwin
1991, OUP, Delhi
The subject of this book is the ghotul, the village dormitory, the bothie, the bachelors' hall. The Muria Gothul is an institution, tracing its origin to LINGO PEN, a famous cult-hero of the Gond, of which all the unmarried boys and girls of the tribe must be members. (page ix)Murias belongs to the Bastar state of Madhya Pradesh.
The subject of this book is the ghotul, the village dormitory, the bothie, the bachelors' hall. The Muria Gothul is an institution, tracing its origin to LINGO PEN, a famous cult-hero of the Gond, of which all the unmarried boys and girls of the tribe must be members. (page ix)Murias belongs to the Bastar state of Madhya Pradesh.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Tribal Identity and the Modern World-- Suresh Sharma
1994, Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi
5. The World of Shifting Cultivation
Abujhamad: Penda as Living Tradition
The author cites a case in Abujhamad which contradicts popular notion that shifting cultivation is inefficient and wasteful practice.
"Last year (1984), the rains over Abujhamad were poor. The administration notified Abujhamad to be a drought-affected area. Still, the Madias (local people) managed a reasonable kosra (kosra seed is the staple crop of the penda) harvest from their pendas. There was no mass hunger. No one died because of malnutrition. Abujhamad is one of the few areas in the country entirely unblemished by destitutes condemned to beg and linger between life and death." (p. 143)
Attitudes towards Shifting Cultivation:
Shifting cultivation has been condemned as inefficient, inherently wasteful and a threat to the rapidly diminishing area under forest cover. This condemnation represents an almost unanimous consensus. Colonial Land revenue settlements and forest laws were consciously intended to curb and in swift stages eradicate shifting cultivation. Forsyth thought shifting cultivation could not be seriously considered as a form of cultivation at all. The forest regulations (1867) sought to completely prohibit the practice of shifting cultivation in the Central Provinces. Its unhindered prevalence prior to colonial rule was seen as clear proof of the ignorance and indifference of 'native rulers' to forests as a productive resource. (p. 143)
Baden Powell--"clarified that the freedom to 'slash and burn' at will could no longer be allowed. He conceded that the task was indeed a difficult one, and certain to arouse the resentment of adversely affected 'local interest'". (p. 143)
The only time when the National Commission on Agriculture (1976) took note of shifting cultivation was during its appraisal of the state and management of forests. Quite clearly the commission did not think that shifting cultivation could not merit consideration as a particular form of cultivation and land use. In fact it was only noticed as a wasteful practice that depleted timber and other marketable forest resources.(p. 143)
B.D. Sharma (a District Administrator in Bastar) is emphatic that for the inhabitants of Abujhamad, shifting cultivation has been a 'traditional pursuit' and as such, it would be unfair and unrealistic to insist that they abandon it in a short period. The best course would be to 'slowly induce the community to meet is field requirements from settled cultivation and other needs from horticulture and cattle rearing.' (p. 144)
Shifting cultivation is indeed inefficient and wasteful in the sense that crop yields per acre are considerably lower when compared to settled cultivation. For basi sustenance it requires a larger area per person. But a threat to the forest it has never been. That momentous fact is irrefutably affirmed in a simple historical detail perversely disregarded: forests have survived best in regions of shifting cultivation. (p. 144)
J. P. Mills observed that in the north-east the prevalence of slash and burn cultivation had not cause soil erosion or any visible damage to the forest cover. (p. 145)
J.P. Mills, 'A brief note on agriculture in the Dirang Dzong Area', Man in India, March 1946, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 8-11
Anthropological studies in recent years have come to be accented quite firmly in terms of 'sympathetic consideration' and 'harmonising', as far as possible, of the interests and feelings of tribal communities with the requirements of the modern age. (p. 145)
The author concludes by saying ---
Shifting cultivation, in affirming the fleeting nature of the human presence on earth, does not seek to degrade or reduce the stature of Man. In fact, it is intensely alive to a deep concern with the survival and fate of the human species. It seeks for human life an almost timeless span of survival. But it does so by elaborating human activity as a homologue to nature. To clarify the significance of its achievement as also the possibilities which inhere in it, one fact would suffice. Communities that lived on shifting cultivation have never known mass hunger and famine. (pp. 165-166)
5. The World of Shifting Cultivation
Abujhamad: Penda as Living Tradition
The author cites a case in Abujhamad which contradicts popular notion that shifting cultivation is inefficient and wasteful practice.
"Last year (1984), the rains over Abujhamad were poor. The administration notified Abujhamad to be a drought-affected area. Still, the Madias (local people) managed a reasonable kosra (kosra seed is the staple crop of the penda) harvest from their pendas. There was no mass hunger. No one died because of malnutrition. Abujhamad is one of the few areas in the country entirely unblemished by destitutes condemned to beg and linger between life and death." (p. 143)
Attitudes towards Shifting Cultivation:
Shifting cultivation has been condemned as inefficient, inherently wasteful and a threat to the rapidly diminishing area under forest cover. This condemnation represents an almost unanimous consensus. Colonial Land revenue settlements and forest laws were consciously intended to curb and in swift stages eradicate shifting cultivation. Forsyth thought shifting cultivation could not be seriously considered as a form of cultivation at all. The forest regulations (1867) sought to completely prohibit the practice of shifting cultivation in the Central Provinces. Its unhindered prevalence prior to colonial rule was seen as clear proof of the ignorance and indifference of 'native rulers' to forests as a productive resource. (p. 143)
Baden Powell--"clarified that the freedom to 'slash and burn' at will could no longer be allowed. He conceded that the task was indeed a difficult one, and certain to arouse the resentment of adversely affected 'local interest'". (p. 143)
The only time when the National Commission on Agriculture (1976) took note of shifting cultivation was during its appraisal of the state and management of forests. Quite clearly the commission did not think that shifting cultivation could not merit consideration as a particular form of cultivation and land use. In fact it was only noticed as a wasteful practice that depleted timber and other marketable forest resources.(p. 143)
B.D. Sharma (a District Administrator in Bastar) is emphatic that for the inhabitants of Abujhamad, shifting cultivation has been a 'traditional pursuit' and as such, it would be unfair and unrealistic to insist that they abandon it in a short period. The best course would be to 'slowly induce the community to meet is field requirements from settled cultivation and other needs from horticulture and cattle rearing.' (p. 144)
Shifting cultivation is indeed inefficient and wasteful in the sense that crop yields per acre are considerably lower when compared to settled cultivation. For basi sustenance it requires a larger area per person. But a threat to the forest it has never been. That momentous fact is irrefutably affirmed in a simple historical detail perversely disregarded: forests have survived best in regions of shifting cultivation. (p. 144)
J. P. Mills observed that in the north-east the prevalence of slash and burn cultivation had not cause soil erosion or any visible damage to the forest cover. (p. 145)
J.P. Mills, 'A brief note on agriculture in the Dirang Dzong Area', Man in India, March 1946, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 8-11
Anthropological studies in recent years have come to be accented quite firmly in terms of 'sympathetic consideration' and 'harmonising', as far as possible, of the interests and feelings of tribal communities with the requirements of the modern age. (p. 145)
The author concludes by saying ---
Shifting cultivation, in affirming the fleeting nature of the human presence on earth, does not seek to degrade or reduce the stature of Man. In fact, it is intensely alive to a deep concern with the survival and fate of the human species. It seeks for human life an almost timeless span of survival. But it does so by elaborating human activity as a homologue to nature. To clarify the significance of its achievement as also the possibilities which inhere in it, one fact would suffice. Communities that lived on shifting cultivation have never known mass hunger and famine. (pp. 165-166)
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