A Review on “WHITHER SOUTH ASIAN PASTORALISM ? AN INTRODUCTION” By Arun Agrawal and Vasant K. Saberwal

“ PASTORALISTS AT RISK ! Confronted  factors  behind  their  downed  survival ”

“With the rising of the modernity and growing misconceptions, the traditions are losing their eternity”
 

INTRODUCTION

Doe's pastoralists are losing their traditions due to the effectuation of modernity. How the confronted dynamic changes in the modern world are provoking the risk of their survival? – all these doubts have been answered by both the writers through this article in one direction along with different dimensions.

            In this article, Arun Agrawal and Vasant K. Saberwal together attempt to bring out some of the more recent viewpoints on different forms of pastoralism in South Asia where the delineated validities of the arguments are supported by many articles regarding this topic. In general ‘Pastoralism’ is a form of animal husbandry, historically by nomadic people who moved with their herds which they rely on for food or subsistence are called a pastoral society or community. The species involved in pastoral communities basically include various herding livestock, including cattle, camels, goats, yaks, llamas, reindeer, horses, and sheep.

             Pastoralists are assumed to be as outdated or outmoded remnants of a specialized adaptation to marginal and risky environments but it is like a tragedy that is the necessary part of their forwarding social movement. History has evident the interrelationships between pastoralists, their forward movement, and tragic necessity views which elides the politics inherent in the replacement of one way of life by another.  In this document the discussion was made on an enormous variety of adaptations and strategies that pastoralists in South Asia have crafted to address variations in the environmental, social, and political risks they confront. In the light of this article, these aspects can be discussed below,

Environmental issues confronted by pastoral communities:

Many environmentalists assume that the herds and flocks belonging to pastoralists are steadily rising along with the land use practices of many pastoral or agropastoral communities, which leads to the straightforward prediction of large-scale environmental degradation. Assumptions regarding the long-term productivity over a vast range of agricultural, forest, and grazing lands lead to the assumption about the necessary threats to the environmental resources, and these are based upon the phrase that ‘pastoral societies lack mechanisms to regulate their use of the environment or to keep the numbers of their animals in check. For the dry regions of western India, they claimed that unrestricted grazing by animals belonging to pastoralists would translate into an eastward expansion of the Thar desert. On the other hand, in the Himalayas, overgrazing was associated with a reduction in vegetation cover, and in consequence, expectations of a drying of mountain streams, massive soil erosion, and, eventually, intensified flooding in the Indo-Gangetic plains. So it can be seen that how environmental collapse leads to the pastoral communities in difficulties. In many instances, state conservation policies have had damaging effects on the viability of pastoralists' economies and existing social organizations (McCabe et al. 1 992).

More importantly, as stated by Scoones (1999),  ‘the science that has explicitly examined the links between human land use practices on the one hand and desertification, flooding and soil erosion on the other provides a substantial basis for contesting the easy connection between grazing by animals of pastoralists and these various indicators of environmental degradation.

The constant state of flux and highly responsive to variations in rainfall is the main reason for the drier parts of western India. On the other hand, research suggests that in the Himalayan region although anthropogenic pressures probably play a minor role in soil and water conservation, downstream flooding and soil erosion in these geologically unstable mountains are primarily influenced by natural processes: rainfall on the one hand and tectonic movement on the other (Hamilton 1987; Ives and Messerli 1989). So this the environmental factors behind the increased risk factors for the pastoral communities.   

Political constraints faced by the pastoralists:

                   Many government and non-government agencies cast pastoralists as a threat to the environment. State policies regarding irrigation, forests, agriculture, fodder, famine relief, and migration are only some of the instruments that contribute to the political and economic context in which pastoralists exist, and that shape the channels along which their livelihood. Pastoralists are not interested to engage in state-making acts nor accept the requisite skills, thus being in an agricultural mode of livelihood and temporary social organizations they do not rely on market exchanges or property rights. This assumption regarding their outdated form of social organization and that lead to environmental degradation have resulted in state policies that do not support the pastoralist interests. It has been stated in this article that, ‘their continuous mobility is seen to make them less able to develop community within their social relations and their missing connections to any particular place are also believed to lead them to exploit available resources without restraint ’. Some of the issues regarding the government policies imply,

·         The developmental and conservational policies followed by postcolonial states have denied the herders access to many of their traditional grazing grounds. 

·         Preferential support for cultivation has shrunk pasture areas available to animal owners and Differential and unfair taxation and pricing policies have aimed to reduce their herd sizes.

·         State social services were designed with sedentary populations in mind rather than caring for the mobile households and facilitated high levels of illiteracy, malnutrition, and medical neglect.

·         State officials and policies are often likely to discriminate precisely against pastoralists and pastoralism and try to marginalize them from the mainstream social and political process which leads to the suffering marginalization of the pastoral communities from the scholarly imaginations.

·         Efforts through the state policies regarding extension of irrigation aim at improving crop yields but this accomplishes a shrinking of common lands, enclosure of private lands that might be available for grazing during the fallow period, and water logging and salinity which ultimately reduce the grazing area available to pastoralists' animals.

·         Political negotiations tend to take place within the context of a rights discourse contested by the herder, farmer, and forester, as mentioned by Saberwal (1999) among the Gaddi of Himachal Pradesh, for example, over 70 percent of active herders lacked rights to winter or summer grazing grounds.

·         Many policies are being issued by the state to restrict the access of the pastoral communities to the environmental resources for their subsistence. But these are not only the electoral pressures but also the agenda-based divisions within the bureaucracy, those that keep governments to enforce this type of restrictive policy. Like,

The phenomena of ‘territoriality’ observed among the Raika Shepherds in Western Rajasthan shows the exercise of power by the state that ultimately aimed to control the pastoral subsistence of that community.

 

Economic challenges inducing the downed survival of the pastoralists: 

Pastoralists have complicated market exchanges centered through the barter system as well as in some cases cash exchanges. It has been stated that as state policies have shifted the terms of pastoralists' livelihoods adversely, their ability to enter into favorable exchanges in markets has also declined. For example,

As reported by Agrawal and Kavoori (1999), many Rajasthani pastoralists who migrate with their animals in the drier seasons are forced to concede lower prices for the manure of their animals to farmers and to pay higher prices for grazing and browse.

Even in Himachal Pradesh, herders now provide manure in exchange for access to forage, whereas in earlier times of less readily available fertilizers, cultivators completed and paid for the privilege of having herds manure their fields in addition to allowing herders to graze in their forests.

·         Herders also lack proprietary rights to specific grazing grounds, they use labor, capital, or kin networks to exchange resources. At the heart of these exchanges lies the inescapable need for a herder to move through a densely settled and intensely cultivated landscape. To do so, he must either pay for his passage in cash or through the provision of labor or invoke kinship ties that facilitate his accommodation by a herder or farmer who does possess the requisite rights (for comparable accounts from Africa see Berry 1993; Shipton and Goheen 1992).

·         Even the cultivator dependency on herders for manure has decreased over time as fertilizers have become freely available in the market and, in consequence, the terms of such exchanges have also changed, almost invariably to the detriment of the herd.

 

Due to their mobility, pastoralists are neither well placed to develop long-term contacts with government officials, nor able to gain reliable and timely information about changing market prices. Both these factors suggest points at which governments could intervene to improve the terms of exchanges for the past. The political power is forcing us to change territoriality for the sake of state-making. 

 Transformations  among pastoral communities:

                  Pastoralists have effectively deployed kin and other networks to exploit changing socio-economic contexts. Without stepping out to modernity they remained with their traditional lifeways in forests and protected areas. Many scholars have stated regarding their changes like,

·         According to Kavoori in 1999, ‘Pastoralists have sidestepped state policies aimed to encourage agriculture and undermine pastoralism by developing new social and economic relationships with cultivators’

·         Agrawal (1999) has stated that ‘They have changed their migration routes and taken advantage of scarce resources that would go unused but for their presence.

·         Scott (1985, 1990) has written so persuasively, that ‘their migratory and mobile lifestyles often leave them ill-equipped to engage state officials easily; in consequence, they are often forced to use the forms of resistance.

·         Hermann Kreutzmann has presented an in-depth diachronic analysis of the transformation of pastoral practices in the Hunza Valley of northern Pakistan where the discussion was made on particular the impact this transformation has had on issues such as state revenue, political activity, and local livelihoods.

·          Monisha Ahmed's article also reported the diachronic change in the pashmina trade amongst the Changpa, nomadic pastoralists of eastern Ladakh.

·         The anthropological research done by Colleen McVeigh introduced how the Langtang pastoralism has incorporated with the contemporary farming system into the modern market economy as well as helped to earn a viable living among the Langtang people of north-central Nepal.

·         Through the writings of Pernille Gooch on Van Gujjars in the Siwalik Ranges, the uncertainties and hazardous nature of the lifestyle of the pastoral communities and how their future is in a downed way can be understood.

·         The nomadic Jatt community of Gujrat is claiming that the pastoral groups are in a process of transition towards modernity through market and livelihood opportunity accesses (Farhana Ibrahim,2004).

·         The Raika-camel relationship in western India can be understood through their cognitive and spiritual behavior towards the Camels, their economic and ecological contexts are also in the way of transformation. 

In the traditional way and in the past time's pastoral communities used to move from one place to another with their family, for that reason, they does not have any permanent political or social organization nor even had any permanent settlements or property rights. But nowadays in most pastoral communities, not the entire community moves, they are starting to settle down. Apparently forced by the government policies or for the transitional access towards modernity. For that reason, the traditional way of living their life is going mashed. A major constraint for the state regarding these communities is the citizenship of the transhuman pastoral communities. To have transparency in that area all the nomadic pastoral communities now are being forced to settle down which is also a confronted factor in the downed survival of the communities.

Conclusion:

            The article has successfully detailed how many pastoralists work with states, markets, and communities as they pursue their livelihoods and organize socio-politically as well as how they are in a way of transition. Actions by the states belie the common image of pastoralists as irrational, whimsical, and politically passive migrants. In each of the domains explored in this article and the articles cited here covering the constraints for the south Asian pastoral communities, from the environment to the market, the state or property relations, changes in pastoralists' lives and livelihoods which are the consequence of significant policy choices that governments make, or decide not to make, although most of the policies are designed by the imperfect understanding of the life of the pastoral communities. Along with the above-mentioned stresses, the lack of basic services unreliable water supplies, poor relationships among members, poor local economies through exchanges, insufficient responses to drought in the dry regions, non-cooperation mentality among societies induced by government or non-government policy makings, widespread poverty and overall poor condition in basic needs also lead them to difficulties to survive in present days and the repetitive failures of the policies made by the states forced us to believe on the crankier relationship between the communities and the governments along with the relation between the outcomes and intentions behind those policies stated by the government.

 

Article info.-  Agrawal, A., & Saberwal, V. (2004). Whither South Asian Pastoralism? An Introduction. (Nomadic peoples.)