Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables, Graphs and Maps
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Glossary
- CHAPTER 1 Introduction
- Part I Nature and Culture in the Early Nineteenth Century
- Part II Scientific Forestry, Forest Management and Environmental Change
- CHAPTER 5 Scientific Forestry and Social Control: Regulating Access to Forests
- CHAPTER 6 The New Forest Regime and Restructuring of the Livestock Economy
- CHAPTER 7 Commercialisation of Forests, Timber Extraction, and Deforestation
- CHAPTER 8 The Myth of Sustainability and the Fate of Forests
- CHAPTER 9 Separating Farms from Forests: Collapsing of the Hill Economy
- CHAPTER 10 Conclusion: Unravelling the Crisis
- Epilogue: From Despair to Hope
- Bibliography
- Index
CHAPTER 9 - Separating Farms from Forests: Collapsing of the Hill Economy
from Part II - Scientific Forestry, Forest Management and Environmental Change
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 October 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables, Graphs and Maps
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Glossary
- CHAPTER 1 Introduction
- Part I Nature and Culture in the Early Nineteenth Century
- Part II Scientific Forestry, Forest Management and Environmental Change
- CHAPTER 5 Scientific Forestry and Social Control: Regulating Access to Forests
- CHAPTER 6 The New Forest Regime and Restructuring of the Livestock Economy
- CHAPTER 7 Commercialisation of Forests, Timber Extraction, and Deforestation
- CHAPTER 8 The Myth of Sustainability and the Fate of Forests
- CHAPTER 9 Separating Farms from Forests: Collapsing of the Hill Economy
- CHAPTER 10 Conclusion: Unravelling the Crisis
- Epilogue: From Despair to Hope
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
…the average Hillman cannot afford to sell any of his grain: on the contrary, he frequently has to import it. Until fairly recently, he used to subsist on his kharif and sell his rabi, paying the revenue with the proceeds.
Walton, British Garhwal, 1910, pp. 71–2.Rami Baurani, a very popular play portraying collapse of the economy in Garhwal, has been staged almost in every town and village in the last 4–5 decades or even more. The protagonist of the play (identified in some accounts as Shyam Singh) joins the army. During a war, he is sent to a distant land for fighting, from where he goes missing. The news travels to his native village (referred to as Pali in some of the accounts) in the Garhwal district. Many take Shyam Singh as dead, but his wife, Rami, insists that he is alive. Due to the shock of losing the only son, the lone earning member of the family, Shyam Singh's father dies after some years. His wife continues to live with her mother-in-law, and looks after agriculture and all other works. She still regards herself as married or ‘suhagan’ (so celebrated in the Hindu religious tradition), rejecting all stories of the death of her husband. She works very hard and remains hopeful of her husband's return.
One day, when Rami, as usual, is working hard in the fields, a jogi (mendicant) appears suddenly and begins to tease her, asking her personal questions about her family and husband, and so on.
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- Information
- Himalayan DegradationColonial Forestry and Environmental Change in India, pp. 243 - 277Publisher: Foundation BooksPrint publication year: 2008