RBSE Class 9 Social Science Notes History Chapter 4 Forest Society and Colonialism

These comprehensive RBSE Class 9 Social Science Notes History Chapter 4 Forest Society and Colonialism will give a brief overview of all the concepts.

RBSE Class 9 Social Science Notes History Chapter 4 Forest Society and Colonialism

→ Between 1700 and 1995, the period of industrialisation, 13.9 million sq.km, of forest or 9.3 per cent of the world’s total area was cleared for industrial uses, cultivation, pastures and fuelwood.

→ Why Deforestation?
The disappearance of forests is referred to as deforestation. Some of the causes of forest destruction in colonial India are:

1. Land to be Improved:

• After 1600 AD, as India’s population increased, demand for food items went up, the boundaries of cultivation were expanded by clearing the forests.
• In the British period, between 1880 and 1920 in India, the area of cultivated area rose by 6.7 million hectares due to the strong promotion of produciton of commercial crops and considering the forests as improductive.

2. Sleepers on the Tracks:

• In the 1820s, large scale trees were cut and exported from India to build ships for the Royal Navy.
• In the 1850s, there was a great need of wood as fuel for the operation of sleepers and enginers and the railways lines were essential for colonial trade and for the movement of imperial troops. From the 1860s, the railway network expanded rapidly. The government gave out contracts to individuals to supply the required quantities. These contractors began cutting trees indiscriminately. Forests around the railway tracks fast started appearing.

3. Plantations:
Large arjeas of natural forests were also cleared to make way for tea, coffee and rubber plantations to meet Europe’s growing need for these commodities.

→ The Rise of Commercial Forestry-

• To prevent the use of forests by local people and the reckless feeling of trees by the traders, the British called a German expert, Dietrich Brandis and made him the first Inspector General of Forests in India. Brandis set up the Indian Forest Service in 1864 and helped formulate the Indian Forest Act of 1865.
• In scientific forestry, natural forests which had lots of different types of trees were  
• cut down. In their place, one type of tree was planted in straight rows. This is called a plantation.
• After the Forest Act was enacted in 1865, it was amended twice, once in 1878 and then in 1927. The 1878 Act divided forests into three categories :
  • Reserved
  • Protected
  • Village forests.

1. How were the Lives of People Affected?

• The forest department for building ships or railways promoted species like teak and sal and others were cut.
• After the Forest Act, for the local people cutting wood for their houses, grazing their cattle, collecting fruits and roots etc. became illegal. The police constables and forests guards started harassing them.

2. How did Forest Rules Affect Cultivation?

• One of the major impacts of European colonialism was on the practice of shifting cultivation or swidden agriculture because the government decided to ban shifting cultivation.
• He explains three reasons behind this:
  • Trees for railway timber cannot be planted on such cultivated land.
  • When a forest was burnt, there was the added danger of the flames spreading and burning valuable timber.
  • Shifting cultivation also, made it harder for the government to calculate taxes.
• As a result, many communities were forcibly displaced from their homes in the forests.

3. Who could Hunt?

• Before the forest laws, many people who lived in or near forests had survived by hunting deer, partridges and a variety of small animals.
• The forest laws deprived people of their customary rights.
• For the British officers hunting of big game became a sport. Under colonial rule the scale of hunting increased. A British administrator, George Yule, alone killed 400 tigers.

4. New Trades, New Employments and New Services

• After the forest department took control of the forests, many communities left their traditional occupations and started trading in forest products.
• In India, the British government gave many large European trading firms the sole right to trade in the forest products of particular areas.
• Many pastoralist and nomadic communities were forced to work in factories, mines and plantations, under government supervision: Their wages were low and conditions of work were very bad.

→ Rebellion in the Forest
In many parts of India, and across the world, forest communities rebelled agaisnt the changes.that were being imposed on them.

1. The People of Bastar:

• Bastar is located in the southernmost part of Chhattisgarh and borders Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Maharashtra.
• A number of different communities live in Bastar such as Maria and Muria Gonds, Dhurwas, Bhatras and Halbas.
• The people of Bastar believe that each village was given its land by the Earth.
• If people from a village want to take.same wood from the forests of another village, they pay a small fee called devsari, dand.
• Every year there is one big hunt where the headmen of villages in a pargana (cluster of villages) meet and discuss issues of concern, including forests.

2. The Fears of the People:

• When the colonial government proposed to reserve two-thirds of the forest in 1905, and stop shifting cultivation, hunting and collection of forest produce, the people of Bastar were very worried.
• In some villages, people were allowed to stay in the reserved forests on the condition that they worked free for the forest department in cutting and transporting trees.
• In the leadership of Gunda Dhur, from village Nethanar the tribals revolted against the British. Bazaars were looted, the houses of officials and traders, schools and police stations were burnt and robbed, and grain redistributed.
• The government went on a suppression cycle, the villagers fled into the jungles and the government never managed to capture Gunda Dhur.
• As a result, work on reservation was temporarily suspended, and the area to be reserved was reduced to roughly half.

→ Forest Transformations in Java:
Java in Indonesia is where the Dutch started forest management. Like the British, they wanted timber from Java to build ships. There were many communities living in the mountains."

1. The Woodcutters of Java:

• The Kalangs of Java were a community of skilled forest cutters and shifting cultivators.
• When the Dutch began to gain control over the forests in the eighteenth century, they tried to. make the Kalangs work under them.
• In 1770, the Kalangs resisted by attacking a Dutch fort at Joana.

2. Dutch Scientific Forestry:

• The Dutch in the nineteenth century enacted forest laws in Java, restricting villagers’ access to forests.
• The need to manage forests for shipbuilding and railways led to the introduction of a forest service and sleepers were exported from Java in large amount.
• For cutting and transporting timber the blandongdiensten system was implemented.

3. Samin’s Challenge:

• In the year 1890, Surontiko Samin of Randublatung village, began questioning state ownership of the forest. Soon a widespread movement developed.
• Some of the Saminists protested by lying down on their land while others refused to payftaxes or fines or perform labour.

4. War and Deforestation:

• The First World War and the Second World War has a major impact On forests.
• In India, to meet British war needs, the forest department cut trees freely.
• In Java, the Japanese exploited the forests recklessly for their own war industries, forcing forest villagers to cut down forests.

5. New Developments in Forestry:

• In 1980s, conservation of forests rather than collecting timber has become a more important goal.
• In order to meet this goal, the people who live near the forests must be involved.
• Local forest communities and environmentalists today are thinking of different forms of forest management.