Abstract
This article discusses how changing access to nature impacted an adivasi people, the Hos of Singhbhum. Without romanticizing the pre-British past, it may be argued that for the Hos of the time there had been dependence both on the forest and on cultivation, which had ensured them a minimum livelihood. This paper explores how their access to nature gradually diminished under colonial rule through the twin governmental policies of expansion of the agrarian frontier and restriction of the forests to the indigenous population. This led to the sedentarisation of the adivasis, further contributing towards agrarian expansion in India. However, this article argues that the extension of cultivation did not, however, benefit the Hos. Instead, the nature of the increase in acreage in Singhbhum, led to new agricultural practices, which, together with the restrictive forest laws and lack of new irrigation facilities, led to an agrarian crisis in the region, forcing the Hos to leave their lands and seek their fortunes elsewhere.
Highlights
In recent years, the concerns of agrarian history and those of environmental history have tended to develop almost in opposition to each other (Bhattacharya 1998)
Indian environmental history focused on the impact of colonial natural resource management, the forests, and British rule was identified as marking a watershed in the ecological history of India (Guha 1989)
Other notable works have reaffirmed this focus on the history of the relationship between forests, the state and the forest dwellers, adivasis (Grove et al 1998), so much so that the latter has come to be considered as the rightful subjects of environmental history, while settled peasant tracts continue to be the domain of agrarian history
Summary
The concerns of agrarian history and those of environmental history have tended to develop almost in opposition to each other (Bhattacharya 1998). Even in the early nineteenth century, given the level of agricultural technology available to the adivasis, the plentiful land available and a low population, shifting cultivation was a sustainable economic activity, supplemented as it was by dependence on forest produce.
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