Forests and tribes

Detail

How much of India was forest?

• Settled farming was only one part of the land. Beyond the fields lay jangal (thick forest) and kharbandi (scrub, thorny bush land).
• Such land was spread over eastern, central and northern India, the Terai (wet belt at the foot of the Himalayas), Jharkhand, the Western Ghats and the Deccan.
• Historians give an average forest cover of about 40 per cent. This is an informed conjecture (a careful guess from limited data), not a counted figure.

Who were the "jangli"?

• The word jangli did not mean "uncivilised". It named a way of earning a living: gathering forest produce, hunting and shifting agriculture (clear a patch, burn it, farm it a few years, move on).
• Work changed with the season. The Bhils are the standard example:
• Spring — collect forest produce.
• Summer — fishing.
• Monsoon — cultivation.

• Autumn and winter — hunting.

• Mobility (moving about) was the main mark of tribal life. They did not stay tied to one field all year.

• The Bhil live across western and central India — today in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and neighbouring states. They are known as expert archers; the name "Bhil" is linked to the Dravidian word billu, meaning bow. [2]

How the Mughal state looked at the forest

• For the state, forest was a mawas — a refuge where "troublemakers" could hide from tax collectors and soldiers.
• Babur wrote that jungles allowed pargana (a group of villages, a revenue unit) folk to grow "stubbornly rebellious and pay no taxes".
• The state still took peshkash (tribute) from forest chiefs. This often came as elephants.
• The royal hunt was shown at court as proof that the emperor cared for all his subjects, forest people included. Treat this as a court trope (a repeated image used for propaganda), not plain fact.

What changed forest life

• Commercial agriculture spread — crops grown for sale, not only for eating. Forest gave way to fields.
• Market demand for forest goods rose: honey, beeswax and gum lac.
• Gum lac became a major overseas export by the 17th century.
• Lac is the sticky resin of the tiny lac insect (Laccifer lacca), left on twigs of soapberry, acacia and especially the sacred fig (Ficus religiosa). It gives shellac and a red lac dye. [3]
• European traders carried lac dye and then shellac to Europe, and in the 17th century lac became commercially important there — this matches the NCERT point about a major export. [3]

• Lac was already used in India as a plastic-like and decorative material from about 1200 BC. So the 17th-century boom was new demand for an old product. [3]

• Elephants were captured in the forest and sold — a high-value trade.

• Trade routes crossed forest zones. The Lohanis of Punjab ran the overland India–Afghanistan trade.
• Literature records the change: the 16th-century Bengali Chandimangala by Mukundaram Chakrabarti tells of Kalaketu clearing forest to found a kingdom — agrarian colonisation (turning forest into farmland and a state) written as a story.

Tribes becoming states

• Forest chiefs did not stay chiefs. Many became zamindars, and some became kings.
• They raised armies from their own lineage (kinsmen and clansmen). In Sind, tribes fielded 6,000 cavalry and 7,000 infantry.
• The Ahom kings of Assam used the paik system:
• Every able-bodied man owed the state labour or military service in return for land.
• This gave a very large force without keeping a standing army.
• Paiks were also put to work on embankments for flood control, water tanks and other public works, and farmed their own land when not serving. [4]
• Capture of wild elephants was an Ahom royal monopoly — only the king could do it.

• Ahom power lasted from the 13th century until British rule in 1838, and peaked under Rudra Singh (reigned 1696–1714). [5]

• The Koch kings kept subduing neighbouring tribes through the 16th and 17th centuries.

• The Ain-i-Akbari's account of north-eastern tribal kingdoms suggests this tribe-to-state change was fully developed by the 16th century.

Culture and religion

• Some historians suggest that sufi pirs (Muslim holy men) helped the slow acceptance of Islam in newly cleared farming zones, especially in the east.
• This is a suggestion, not a settled fact. Write it that way in an answer.

Prelims Hooks

• Jangal = dense forest; kharbandi = scrubland.
• Estimated forest cover in Mughal India: about 40 per cent (informed conjecture).
• Bhil seasonal cycle: spring forest produce → summer fishing → monsoon cultivation → autumn-winter hunting.
• Mawas = forest refuge; Babur said jungle let pargana people turn rebellious and avoid taxes.
• Peshkash from forest chiefs often paid in elephants.
• Gum lac — major overseas export by the 17th century; from the insect Laccifer lacca, host tree includes Ficus religiosa; yields shellac and red dye. [3]
• Chandimangala (16th century, Bengali) by Mukundaram Chakrabarti — hero Kalaketu clears forest and founds a kingdom.
• Sind tribes: 6,000 cavalry + 7,000 infantry.
• Ahom paiks owed military/labour service for land; wild-elephant capture was a royal monopoly.
• Ahom rule in Assam: 13th century to 1838; peak under Rudra Singh, 1696–1714. [5]
• Koch kings subjugated neighbouring tribes in the 16th–17th centuries.
• Bhil name traced to Dravidian billu = bow. [2]

Mains Points

• Forest was not outside the economy. Honey, beeswax, gum lac and elephants tied forest people to long-distance and overseas markets. Trade, not only conquest, pulled them into the Mughal order.
• The state's language was political, not descriptive. Calling forest a mawas and the people "jangli" justified taxing and policing them. The royal hunt did the same job in a softer image.
• Tribe to state was a real process, not a jump. Chiefs → zamindars → kings; lineage levies → paik service. The Ahom and Koch cases show state formation using tribal manpower rather than replacing it.
• Agrarian expansion had a cultural side. Forest clearing, new peasant settlements and (by some historians' suggestion) sufi pirs moved together — useful for answers linking economy, environment and religion in GS-I.