C O V E R  S T O R Y

GYPSY LORES

Pushed to the fringes

So, till then, the nomads were eagerly awaited visitors. Not only did they play a key role in the village economy, they also entertained, healed and took care of all the odd jobs.

Are you a little confused now? You are wandering what turned these interesting, enterprising communities into the disruptive, impoverished elements that you see now…

Well, it did not happen overnight. In fact, the transition began after the advent of the British Raj.

From informants to criminals
At the outset, the British rules found the nomads extremely useful. You see, the gypsies had established an extensive communication network while they crisscrossed the country with salt and honey and herded cattle. They could find their way through dense jungles and knew hidden passes in the mountains and could navigate in the vast deserts.The British used these traders as crucial informants. They relied on them to set up their own trading routes and to guide their armies through unknown terrains.

But soon the British government began to look at their former allies as potential enemies. Why? Because the tribal chiefs were chafing under British dominance. Many joined hands with the rebels during the 1857 Sepoy mutiny. The colonial authorities now grew nervous about the gypsies who moved around, carrying information they could not control directly. So in 1871, many nomadic communities were officially notified as criminals under the Criminal Tribes Act. The rapid expansion of railways and telegraph added to the woes of the nomads. The scale of the operations of the nomadic traders was drastically cut down.

But the more crippling set back was the taking over of the common lands by the government. The British rulers made intense demands on the natural resources of the country-for obtaining raw materials for the factories back home. So these lands were brought under cultivation and made off limits for the wandering shepherds.

The new forest laws compounded their misery. Grazing was considered destructive for the forests, so the nomads lost their traditional right to take their animals there.

Land reforms: the body blow
But the most back breaking blow has came not during the colonial rule, but after Independent India. The land reforms of the early 1950s set the trend of land management in our country. And that is-focus on extracting maximum revenue, by systematically neglecting grazing fields.

Public lands were converted into private for crop farming. In most villages, commons were maintained by jagirdars. When the land was being reallocated these influential people grabbed these for themselves. So many forest and permanent pastures where grass, trees or bush grew became private.

In Gujarat, the scenario was a little different. In the 1950s and 1960s, under a wave of state government-supported land reforms known as the Bhoodan Movement common lands were given away to low caste landless residents. In Saurashtra, the south central region of Gujarat, huge tracts of commons were converted to croplands, and permanent pastures were reduced to less than 20 per cent of what it was in 1947. Today, the only remaining common property grazing lands surrounding most villages of Saurashtra are hedges that surround fields, the sides of public roads and paths, and severely eroded shrub land.

The nomads chose grazing lands that had plenty of water sources nearby - a pond, stream or rivulet. Because pastures cannot sustain herds if there are no watering points. These have been steadily disappearing. In Rajasthan for example, they have been reducing since 1960s. Locally known as nadis or tobas they were scattered in various parts of the grazing area. But now farmers managed to prove them to be a part of their holdings and brought them under the plough.

Also, largescale irrigation programmes have been launched to convert grazing lands into agricultural fields. The Rajasthan canal, for instance, has brought vast tracts of lands under cultivation, pushing the nomads tribes-who used this land to graze-out of the picture!

No space to graze
India has 2.4 per cent of the world's land area and 20 per cent of the world's livestock population - that is a whopping 450 million animals. For all these animals the government has only demarcated 13 million hectares in the country as permanent grazing lands, and there is simply not enough grass for all the animals. The resources of the demarcated grazing lands are used up at a frantic rate and these lands don't get time to recover. In time overgrazing leads to land degradation. The problem of overgrazing has a cycle that is difficult to break. See how this cycle functions.

Modern agricultural methods also prove to be a bane for graziers sometimes. Earlier private fields were used for public grazing after harvest. The cattle had plenty to eat off the crop leftovers and undergrowths. But now with tractors clearing the lands, very little is left to graze!

Swapping species
The shrinking commons left the nomads with little choice - they could either travel more and more to reach richer pastures. Or they could change the kind of animals they bred and swap them for hardier species. Like sheep and goats, which can survive on basic minimum.

Rajasthan's case is the most apt example. Earlier at least five to seventeen households in a Rajasthani village owned herds (or tolas) of camels. But by 1964 most villages in this state had less than three camel per household. This was because camel fed on shrubs and bushes and these were no longer abundantly available. Its the same for the cattle population. In 1955 villages had 23 - 60 chhangs (cattle herds). By 1964 the number of herds had dropped and there were only six cattle herds per village. The number has steadily declined since.

Unwanted wanderers
In the old days all the nomads had to face were the rigours of the road. They were friends of the villagers, and the rulers of the land valued them for their contribution to the total revenue of the land. They were linked to the land and its people. Now those ties have snapped and they are unwelcome visitors.

Villagers no longer need the specialised services of the non-pastoral nomads - farming implements are available in shops and the television has replaced the snake charmer. Now the nomadic traders and entertainers are considered a menace. The state of the pastorals is similar.

Earlier farmers used to request them to rest their flock in their field. Now they with the increasing use of chemical fertilisers the pastorals are not needed for the manure.