European colonial forest laws drastically altered the life of Colonies. By transforming forests from community resources into state-controlled commodities, these rules disrupted livelihoods, marginalized Indigenous communities, and laid the foundation for ongoing environmental challenges.

Impact on Cultivation

Shifting Cultivation: One of major impacts of European colonialism was on practice of shifting cultivation or swidden agriculture. 

• • This is a traditional agricultural practice in many parts of Asia, Africa, and South America and has many local names.
  • Local Names: Lading in Southeast Asia, milpa in Central America, chitemene or tavy in Africa, and chena in Sri Lanka, dhya, penda, bewar, nevad, jhum, podu, khandad and kumri in India. 
• Shifting Cultivation Cycle: In this cultivation, parts of forest are cut and burnt in rotation. 
  • Seeds are sown in ashes after first monsoon rains, and 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. 
  • In central India and Africa, crops grown on these plots could be millets, in Brazil manioc, and other parts of Latin America maize and beans. 
• European Perception: European foresters regarded this practice as harmful to forests because they felt that land that was used for cultivation every few years could not grow trees for railway timber. 
  • Also burning of forests, added danger of flames spreading and burning valuable timber.  
  • Shifting cultivation also made it harder for government to calculate taxes, therefore it decided to ban shifting cultivation. 
• Forced Displacement: As a result, many communities were forcibly displaced from their homes in forests. 
  • Some had to change occupations, while some resisted through large and small rebellions. 
  • Baigas are a forest community in Central India. In 1892, after their shifting cultivation was stopped, they petitioned the government.

Impact on Hunting

Criminalizing Subsistence Hunting: Customary practice of hunting deer, partridges, and a variety of small animals by people who lived in or near forests for survival was prohibited by forest laws. 

• • Those who were caught hunting were now punished for poaching. 
• Hunting as Sport: While 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 court and nobility for centuries. 
  • Many Mughal paintings show princes and emperors enjoying a hunt. 
  • But under colonial rule, the scale of hunting increased to such an extent that various species became almost extinct.
• Introduction of Bounty System: The British saw large animals as signs of a wild, primitive, and savage society. They believed that by killing dangerous animals the British would civilise India. 
  • They gave rewards for killing large animals on grounds that they posed a threat to cultivators. 
  • Over 80,000 tigers, 150,000 leopards, and 200,000 wolves were killed for reward in the period 1875-1925. 
  • Gradually, tiger came to be seen as a sporting trophy. 
• Hunting for Records: The Maharaja of Sarguja alone shot 1,157 tigers and 2,000 leopards up to 1957. A British administrator, George Yule, killed 400 tigers. 
  • Initially, certain areas of forests were reserved for hunting. 
• Late Rise of Conservation Ideology: Only much later did environmentalists and conservators begin to argue that all these species of animals needed to be protected. 

New Trades, New Employment and New Services

Shift from Subsistence to Trade: After the forest department took control of the forests, many communities left their traditional occupations and started trading in forest products. 

• Rise of Forest-Based Economies: This happened not only in India but across the world. 
  • Ex: With growing demand for rubber in the mid-19th century,  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 supply to traders.
  • Gradually, they descended to live in trading posts and became completely dependent on traders. 
• Indigenous Trade Networks: In India, from medieval period onwards, we have records of Adivasi communities trading elephants and other forest goods like hides, horns, silk cocoons, ivory, bamboo, spices, fibers, grasses, gums, and resins through nomadic communities like the Banjaras. 
• Colonial Monopoly on Forest Trade: With the advent of Britishers, the government regulated trade completely, and gave many large European trading firms the sole right to trade in the forest products of particular areas. 
  • Grazing and hunting by local people were restricted. In the process, many pastoralist and nomadic communities like the Korava, Karacha, and Yerukula of Madras Presidency lost their livelihoods. 
  • Some of them began to be called ‘criminal tribes’, and were forced to work instead in factories, mines, and plantations, under government supervision. 
• Exploitation in New Economic Roles: New work opportunities did not always mean improved well-being for the people. 
  • Ex: In Assam, both men and women from forest communities like Santhals and Oraons from Jharkhand, and Gonds from Chhattisgarh were recruited to work on tea plantations and their wages were low and conditions of work were very bad. 
  • They could not return easily to their home villages from where they had been recruited. 

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 were Siddhu and Kanu in Santhal Parganas, Birsa Munda of Chhotanagpur, or Alluri Sitarama Raju of Andhra Pradesh. 

The People of Bastar 

• Geography of Bastar: Bastar is located in the southernmost part of Chhattisgarh plain and borders Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, and Maharashtra. 
  • Central part of Bastar is on a plateau and to its south is the Godavari plain. The river Indrawati winds across Bastar from east to west (Refer to  Figure 7.3). 
• Diverse Communities: Communities such as Maria and Muria Gonds, Dhurwas, Bhatras, and Halbas live in Bastar. 
  • They speak different languages but share common customs and beliefs. 
• Indigenous Beliefs: The people of Bastar believe that each village was given its land by the Earth, and in return, they look after the Earth by making some offerings at each agricultural festival. 
  • In addition, they also show respect for spirits of rivers, forests, and mountains. 
  • Since each village knows where its boundaries lie, the local people look after all the natural resources within that boundary. 
• Inter-Village Forest Relations: 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. 
• Local/Traditional Forest Protection: 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 headmen of villages in a pargana (cluster of villages) meet and discuss issues of concern, including forests. 

The Fears of the People

Growing Resentment: When the colonial government proposed to reserve 2/3rd of forest in 1905 and stop shifting cultivation, hunting, and collection of forest produce, people of Bastar were very worried. 

• • Some villages were allowed to stay in reserved forests on condition that they worked free for the forest department in cutting and transporting trees, and protecting forest from fires, came to be known as ‘forest villages’. 
  • People of other villages were displaced without any notice or compensation. 
• Triggering Factors for Rebellion: For a long, villagers had been suffering from increased land rents and frequent demands for free labour and goods by colonial officials. 
  • Then the famines came in 1899-1900 and again in 1907-1908.
  • Reservations proved to be the last straw. 
• Mass Mobilisation: People began to gather and discuss these issues in their village councils, in bazaars, and at festivals or wherever headmen and priests of several villages were assembled. 
  • Initiative was taken by Dhurwas of Kanger forest, where reservation first took place. Although there was no single leader, many people spoke of Gunda Dhur, from village Nethanar. 
• Outbreak of Rebellion: In 1910, mango boughs, a lump of earth, chilies, and arrows, began circulating between villages, inviting villagers to rebel against the British. 
  • Every village contributed to the rebellion expenses.
  • Bazaars were looted, houses of officials and traders, schools and police stations were burnt and robbed, and grain was redistributed. 
• Targets: Most of those who were attacked were in some way associated with the colonial state and its oppressive laws. 
• British Repression: British sent troops to suppress rebellion. 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. Villages were deserted.
  • It took three months for the British to regain control. However, they never managed to capture Gunda Dhur. 
  • In a major victory for rebels, work on reservation was temporarily suspended, and area to be reserved was reduced to roughly half of that planned before 1910. 

Conclusion

While aiming for ‘scientific forestry‘, colonialism sowed seeds of environmental and social conflicts that persist today. After Independence, the same practice of keeping people out of 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.

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