naiteek's comic strip
Storyboard Text
- Those who were settled were seen as peaceable and law abiding; those who were nomadic were considered as a criminal. In 1871, the colonial government in India passed the Criminal Tribes Act. By this Act many people and communities of craftsmen, traders and pastoralists were classified as criminal tribes. They were stated to be a criminal by nature and birth. Once this Act came into force, they were expected to live only in notified village settlements and were not allowed to move out without a permit.
- British officials were suspicious of people like us. They distrusted mobile craftsmen and traders who hawked their goods in villages, and pastoralists who changed their location of residence every season, moving in search of good pastures for their herds. The colonial government wanted to rule over a settled population. They wanted the rural people to live in villages in fixed places and fixed rights. Such a population was easy to identify and control according to the government.
- These contractors tried to extract as high a tax as they could to recover the money they had paid to the state and earn as much profit as they could within the year. By the 1880s the government began collecting taxes directly from the pastoralists. Each of them was given a pass. To enter a grazing tract, a cattle herder had to show the pass and pay the tax. The number of cattle heads he had and the amount of tax he paid was entered on the pass.
- To expand its revenue income, the colonial government looked for every possible source of taxation. So tax was imposed on land, on canal water, on salt, on trade goods, and even on animals. We had to pay tax on every animal they grazed on the pastures. In most pastoral tracts of India, grazing tax was introduced in the mid-nineteenth century. The tax per head of cattle went up rapidly and the system of collection was made increasingly efficient.
- This led to continuous intensive grazing of these pastures. Usually nomadic pastoralists grazed their animals in one area and moved to another area. These pastoral movements allowed time for the natural restoration of vegetation growth. When restrictions were imposed on pastoral movements, grazing lands came to be continuously used and the quality of pastures declined. This in turn created a further shortage of forage for animals and the deterioration of animal stock. Underfed cattle died in large numbers during scarcities and famines.
- These measures led to a serious shortage of pastures. When grazing lands were taken over and turned into cultivated fields, the available area of pastureland declined. Similarly, the reservation of forests meant that shepherds and cattle herders could no longer freely pasture their cattle in the forests.
- As pasturelands disappeared under the plough, the existing animalstock had to feed on whatever grazing land remained.
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