NCERT Solutions Class 9 Social Science Chapter 5 Pastoralists in the Modern World

1. Explain why nomadic tribes need to move from one place to another. What are the advantages to the environment of this continuous movement?

Answer:

(i)The pattern of continuous movement between summer and winter pastures was typical of many pastoral communities of the Himalayas, including the Bhotiyas, Sherpas and Kinnauris.

(ii)The pastoral communities had to adjust to seasonal changes and make effective use of available pastures in different places.

(iii)When the pasture was exhausted in one place, they moved their herds and flock to new areas.

(iv)This continuous movement also allowed the pastures to recover; it prevented their overuse.

2. Discuss why the colonial government in India brought in the following laws.   In  each  case, explain  how  the  law  changed  the  lives  of pastoralists:

•   Waste Land rules

•   Forest Acts

•   Criminal Tribes Act

•   Grazing Tax

Answer:

Waste Land rules: By the Waste Land rules, uncultivated lands were taken over and given to select individuals. They were granted various concessions and encouraged to settle these lands. Some of them were made headmen of villages in the settled-areas. In most areas, the lands taken over were actually grazing tracts used regularly by pastoralists. So expansion of cultivation inevitably meant the decline of pastures and a problem for pastoralists.

Forest Acts: Through the Forest Acts, some forests with timber like deodar or sal were declared ‘Reserved’. No pastoralist was allowed access to these forests. Other forests were classified as ‘Protected’. In these, some customary grazing rights of pastoralists were granted but with severe restriction. The British officials believed that grazing destroyed the growth of forests; the herds trampled over the saplings and munched away the shoots. These Forest acts now prevented the pastoralists from entering many forests that had earlier provided valuable forage for their cattle.

Grazing Tax: To expand its revenue income, the colonial government imposed tax 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 the nineteenth century, the tax per head of cattle went up rapidly and the system of collection became efficient. In the decades between the 1850s and 1880s, the right to collect the tax was auctioned out to contractors. These contractors extracted as high a tax as they could to recover the money they had paid to the state and made huge profit. By the 1880s, the government began collecting taxes directly from the pastoralists. To enter a grazing tract, a cattle herder had to show the pass and pay the tax. The pass carried details on the number of cattle heads and the amount of tax paid.

3. Give reasons to explain why the Maasai community lost their grazing lands.

Answer:

(i)Before colonial times, Maasailand stretched over a vast area from north Kenya to the steppes of northern Tanzania.

(ii)In the late nineteenth century, European imperial powers scrambled for territorial possessions in Africa, slicing up the region into different colonies.

(iii)In 1885, Maasailand was cut into half with an international boundary between British Kenya and German Tanganyika.

(iv)Subsequently, the best grazing lands were gradually taken over for white settlement and the Maasai were pushed into a small area in south Kenya and north Tanzania.

(v)The Maasai lost about 60 per cent of their pre-colonial lands. They were confined to an arid zone with uncertain rainfall and poor pastures.

4. There are many similarities in the way in which the modern world forced changes in  the lives  of pastoral  communities   in  India  and  East Africa. Write about any two examples of changes which were similar for Indian pastoralists and the Maasai herders.