Britishers enforced qualitative change in the interaction between those opting for simple technologies and those who chose or had to subject themselves to the choice of technologies adequate for production of goods and services of vast distribution. Forests became sources of revenue, and government estate. Forest dwelling tribal communities had no rights at all, but were permitted to remain as tenants at will because they constituted the cheap labour pool required for forestry operations. Even their livelihood requirements were auctioned away as "minor forest produce" to the highest bidder. This colonial "wisdom" was continued after Independence: the forest became the source of raw materials to be supplied at subsidized rates to industrial investors. The culmination of alienation of forest dwelling humans came with Forest Conservation Act 1980, despite protestations of "symbiosis of forest and tribal". In what follows, discussion will be limited to members of Scheduled Tribes who are forest-dwellers in South Indian States.
ST Choices of Technology
South Indian ST communities range from those adopting the simplest technologies of survival in evergreen forests, to pastoralism among Toda of Nilgiris, and settled horticulture among many others. (Please see annexure). The order of instances, is apparently "evolutionist", but does not pose one as more "primitive" or more "developed" than any other. They represent different equations by which human communities sought to equate natural endowments of the site they have chosen to live in, and the means with which they use these endowments to satisfy the requirements that they perceive to be essential for their being and welfare.
Shifting Cultivation:
South Indian Tribal communities, like communities worldwide, had adopted "Shifting Cultivation" as a universal solution to spatial problems. It has been called punam (Kerala), podu (Andhra Pradesh & Orissa), panda (Abuj Maria, Madhya Pradesh), kothu kadu (Irula, Tamil Nadu), khallu (Malto, W. Bengal), poruh (Kuvi, Orissa), and kumri (Karnataka), etc. It had been practiced in Asia, Australia, and Americas. Drainage ditches about 9000 years old had been reported from New Guinea. Pollen records indicate forest clearance possibly 3000 years ago in Central Africa. In Indonesia, and among Kadar of Kerala, it extended to wet crops like paddy, but is generally applied to millets, roots and tubers, vegetables, grams and pulses. Crops may include trees producing fruits, and the system is sometimes called "forest horticulture". The method was not limited to tribal communities. Kottarathil Sankunni narrated that about three centuries ago, Nair of Kerala used to go into forests with tame elephants, and fell, remove and burn all the vegetation in an area, to raise rice crops seasonally in turn in a circuit. The process seems, globally, to have been an interim stage in the transition to ‘settled agriculture'.
Methods:
Dig & Scratch:
An example of what must have been the "original" method is the practice of Kurumba and Muduga of Attappady, which may be termed "Dig & Scratch" method. Tools required were only a digging stick, later replaced by iron-tipped stick. Just enough area required for the desired plants was scraped clean, and the planting material (generally seeds) implanted. The remaining natural vegetation was left in tact, and tree growth, undisturbed. The desired plants grew along with the rest of the vegetation. Cultivars that had maximum survivability in the habitat evolved. There was no "weed problem" because the communities found uses for every plant species, as fodder, medicinal plants, or food and firewood. The density of the planted material was no greater than that of the surrounding vegetation, and therefore did not attract animal raiding. Other tribes who had adopted more or less similar techniques include Kadu Kuruba, Kattu naikkar, Malasser, etc. Government literature generally classifies them as "primitive tribes", and in ‘pre-agricultural stage of development".
Slash & Burn:
The more widespread method is slash and burn. Natural vegetation is slashed and burnt along with undergrowth; soil is allowed to cool, tilled with hoes and picks, and seeds sown at commencement of first showers. The knowledge base included appreciation of course of fire in given conditions of wind, and methods of controlling the burn. The "cooling' of the soil was a matter of fine judgement. Choice of planting materials was delicate and optimised through experience. It was necessary to have a prescient knowledge of when a site should be given up and another chosen. Knowledge of wild life behaviour including their migratory patterns was necessary, to minimise crop raiding.
It was technological innovation of the greatest significance. In man-short, land-abundant conditions, it maximised labour productivity. Nutrients stored in tissues of plants burnt down were available for cultivated crops. There was rotation of cropping because of change of site. Nature repaired damage caused by the invasive technique, and tribal wisdom discovered optimum time cycles required for maximum productivity. Humans had a price to pay. It favoured multiplication of Anopheles mosquitoes, and associated spread of malaria. Human genetic response was selective prevalence of sickle cell in susceptible populations. Paniya (Wayanad and Nilgiris) is an example.
The system led to associated distinct cultural attributes. The knowledge base had to be reposed in specialised functionaries, who raised it to a religion. Uncertainties of site and weather led to mystiques. Every stage was accomplished with magico-religious exercises, intended to forestall or neutralise unknown factors, as well as to avert or minimise harm. Each factor was associated with specific deities and rites formalized through awesome rituals. Considerable importance attached to site selection. Thumb rules were the result of close observation of slope, water flows, natural vegetation, and wild life behaviour. Ethnographic literature describes various rites and divination procedures. Tree- spirits were believed to cause rain -only the minimum number of trees was cut down. The cleared land was allotted to families of the community on well-understood principles, generally based on a combined assessment of ability and need.
Shifting cultivation vested no permanent ownership on individual or family. When Britishers settled property rights, they found tribal people entitled to only right of occupation of forestlands. Ownership was thrust on landlord and chieftain families in Malabar, and vested with Government in most other places. Britishers awarded compensation to every right exercised by any in the areas that they constituted into Reserve Forests. But tribal communities living in them since dawn of memory were entitled only to continued habitation and practice of shifting cultivation, under ever-tighter regulations. Significantly, for communities practicing it, shifting cultivation was never the sole means of livelihood. It was associated with other occupations like collection of minor forest produce, hunting, trapping, and eventually, unskilled labour under Forest Department or its contractors. Like any other technique or technology, it has "good" as well as "bad" features, and "good" as well as "bad" versions of practice.
Stability conditions: The technique is stable ("sustainable") and productive if:
Land-Man ratio is favourable, and there is a wide choice of areas;
shifting circuit is large enough to permit a sufficiently long interval between abandonment of a site, and return to it;
pollutants, viz., chemicals, exotic plants, plant disease vectors, etc., are not brought in;
proportion of land remaining as forest to cultivated area is so great that wild life has sufficient forage without recourse to crop raiding;
cultivation entails no permanent structures like dams, roads; edaphic features are left largely undisturbed.
Most tribes realised these conditions. They stacked felled materials to protect slopes and decrease soil erosion. They never cut down fruit bearing or shade giving trees, which belonged to the community. A study (Muraleedharan & Shankar 1991), found that though productivity of individual crops may be low, total productivity of the crop mixture equalled average yields elsewhere. It was stable if at least a three-year cycle was adopted; it was highly energy efficient. When abandoned soon enough, coppice growth was plentiful to recover original floristic composition. If not, regeneration favoured secondary fire-tolerant species like Dalbergia latifolia, Grewia tiliafolia, Embica officinalis, etc. In most cases, absence of significant differences in herbaceous and grass growth showed that areas would not be converted irreversibly into unproductive wastelands. In other words, shifting cultivation as traditionally practiced did not result in permanent degradation of forests. In fact, in many parts of the world, shifting cultivation led to better regeneration of forests in terms of soil recovery. Only the settling of cultivation did so irreversibly and inexorably.
