The document discusses India's tribal belts and the challenges faced by the Van Gujjar tribe. It notes that tribal belts exist in Northwest, Central, and Eastern India, inhabited by tribes that remained genetically isolated. It outlines the Van Gujjar tribe's traditional nomadic livelihood of buffalo herding and milk trade. However, the Van Gujjars face numerous issues that threaten their livelihoods, including limited legal access to forests restricted by outdated permits, dangerous nomadic routes, exploitation by middlemen, lack of citizenship rights, and lack of education. Overall, the document examines the socio-political challenges that have made it difficult for the Van Gujjar tribe to sustain their traditional livelihoods.

1. INDIAN TRIBAL BELT
- i.e VAN GUJJARS

2. INTRODUCTION
The India’s tribal belts refer to contiguous areas
of settlement of tribal people of India which is
to say groups or tribes that remained genetically
homogenous as opposed to other population
groups that mixed widely within the Indian
subcontinent .
The tribal belt includes Northwest India and
Central and Eastern India.

3. Northwest India
The Tribal Belt of Northwest India includes the
states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra.
The tribal people of this region have origins
which precede the ANI (Ancestral North Indian)
and the ASI (Ancestral South India). In fact, the
origins of these people are thought to stem back
to the Harappa civilization of the Indus Valley
Civilization, the oldest traceable civilization of
the Indian sub-continent which flourished
between 3500BC and 2500BC.

4. Central & Eastern Tribal Belt India
The Central India Tribal Belt stretches from
Gujarat in the west up to Assam in the east
across the states of Madhya Pradesh,
Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. It is among the
poorest regions of the country. Over 90% of the
Belt's tribal population is rural, with primitive
agriculture.

5. INDIAN TRIBES
• India is the home to large number of indigenous
people, who are still untouched by the lifestyle of
the modern world. With more than 84.4 million,
India has the largest population of the tribal
people in the world. These tribal people also
known as the adivasi's are the poorest in the
country, who are still dependent on haunting ,
agriculture and fishing. Some of the major tribal
groups in India include:

6. • Santhals Munda Khasi
• Angami Bhils Bhutia

7. VAN GUJJARS
 Another sphere of Indian tribes includes van
gujjars. The Gujjars are a diverse minority group
who are indigenous to India, Pakistan and
Afghanistan. Customarily, the Van Gujjars are a
distinct population of Gujjars who live and travel
within the northern forests of India’s Himalayas
and nearby plains. The community’s unique
identity is encased within its name, Van
meaning ‘forest’ in Hindi and Gujjar meaning
‘the-way-we-are’.

8. The Van Gujjars’ traditional livelihoods depend
upon the forests, revolving around semi-
nomadic buffalo husbandry and the trade of
milk. Furthermore, the community’s livelihoods
are actualised through transhumance, the
seasonal migration of people and buffalo
between the highland and lowland forests. The
Van Gujjars have carried out their customary
livelihoods within the Himalayan forests for
centuries. However, to sustain their livelihoods
they face numerous socio-political challenges.

9. CHALLENGES VAN GUJJARS
Some of the issues, both past and present, faced by the
Van Gujjars in order to continue their livelihoods.
The Forests
• Primary challenges to the Van Gujjars’ sustainable forest
practices hinge upon their limited legal claims to the
forests and the states' Forest Departments’ perception of
the community.
• The Van Gujjars’ restricted legal claims to the forests
manifest in the form of forest permits. Issued bi-
annually by the Forest Departments, the permits confine
the Van Gujjars to limited areas and stipulate the
number of buffalo allowed within the forest. The
permits have not been updated since 1937 and are held
by individual families.

10. To survive, these families’ herd sizes must be
larger than allowed, whilst remaining within
their minimal area of forest. The increased
number of buffalo and people within permit
areas intensifies pressure on the environment
and decreases the availability of buffalo
fodder. Moreover, exceeding the permits affords
forest officials the power to exploit the
community by demanding heavy dairy and
monetary bribes for their use of and access to
the forest.

11. Nomadism
The Van Gujjars’ practice of transhumance is essential to
the survival of their herds and the rejuvenation of the
forests. The month long walk either up or down the
Himalayas has always been hazardous to both people
and buffalo. However, this practice has become
increasingly dangerous due to the heightened volume of
traffic where the Van Gujjars use the
roads. Additionally, forest officials may barricade the
routes, only permitting entry upon dairy or monetary
payments. Currently, several family members abstain
from transhumance, opting to safeguard their huts,
grasses and fodder trees in the lowlands instead.

12. Buffalo Husbandry
One facet of the Van Gujjars’ livelihoods concerns
the sale of buffalo milk. In the recent past,
middlemen heavily exploited the Van Gujjars,
providing pittance for their products. As the price of
milk was insufficient for survival, the middlemen
were able to offer loans with high interest rates,
pushing the Van Gujjars further into poverty. Whilst
the sale of milk is no longer an issue, the reduction
of available fodder has meant a decrease in the
quality of milk and an increase in the susceptibility
of the herds to infections and diseases.

13. Domicile Rights
As nomadic people, the Van Gujjars generally
occupy a state for the maximum of six-months and
are without an address. In the past, the states the
community inhabits denied them citizenship and
their domicile rights. Due to their position as a non-
voting cohort, the community’s needs were
unimportant to politicians. Furthermore, the lack of
citizenship inhibited the Van Gujjars’ access to
social welfare. However, the state’s provision of
education to the Van Gujjars is largely
outstanding. The Van Gujjars’ illiteracy makes them
vulnerable to exploitation, as it inhibits their access
to information and problematises their verification
of written texts.

14. MAIN PROBLEMS
• They possess small and uneconomical landholdings because of
which their crop yield is less and hence they remain chronically
indebted.
• Only a small percentage of the population participates in occupa-
tional activities in the secondary and tertiary sectors.
• Literacy rate among tribals is very low. While in 1961, it was 18.53
per cent, in 1991 it increased to 29.60 per cent which compared to
general literacy rate of 52.21 per cent in the country is very lo-w, be-
cause while the growth of literacy rate in the past three decades in
the country was 28.21 per cent, among the STs it was only 11.7 per
cent {The Hindustan Times, July 11, 1995). Though tribal literacy
rate in Mizoram is 82.71 per cent and in Nagaland, Sikkim and
Kerala it is between 57 per cent and 61 per cent, lack of literacy
among tribal people has been identified as a major development
problem.

15. • The unemployed and the underemployed want
help in finding secondary sources of earning by
developing animal husbandry, poultry farming,
handloom weaving, and the handicrafts sector. Most
of the tribals live in sparsely populated hills and
communications in the tribal areas remain tough.
The tribals, therefore, need to be protected against
leading isolated life, away from towns and cities,
through a network of new roads.
• The tribals are exploited by Christian missionaries.
In several tribal areas, mass conversion to
Christianity had taken place during the British
period. While the missionaries have been pioneers
in education and opened hospitals in tribal areas,
they have also been responsible for alienating the
tribals from their culture. Christian missionaries are
said to have many a time instigated the tribals to
revolt against the Indian government.

16. • A good portion of the land in tribal areas has been legally transferred to
non-tribals. Tribals demand that this land should be returned to them.
In fact, tribals had earlier enjoyed considerable freedom to use forests
and hunt animals. Forests not only provide them materials to build
their homes but also give them fuel, herbal medicines for curing
diseases, fruits, wild game, etc. Their religion makes them believe that
many of their spirits live in trees and forests. Their folk-tales often
speak of the relations of human beings and the spirits. Because of such
physical and emotional attachment to forests, tribals have reacted
sharply to restrictions imposed by the government on their traditional
rights.
• Tribal government programmes have not significantly helped the tribals
in raising their economic status. The British policy had led to ruthless
exploitation of the tribals in various ways as it favoured the zamindars,
landlords, moneylenders, forest contractors, and excise, revenue and
police officials.
• Banking facilities in the tribal areas are so inadequate that the tribals
have to depend mainly on moneylenders. Being miserably bogged down
in indebtedness, tribals demand that Agricultural Indebtedness Relief
Acts should be enacted so that they may get back their mortgaged land.
• About 90 per cent of the tribals are engaged in cultivation and most of
them are landless and practise shifting cultivation. They need to be
helped in adopting new methods of cultivation.

17. In short, the main problems of the tribals are
poverty, indebtedness, illiteracy, bondage,
exploitation, disease and unemployment.
After independence, tribal problems and tribal
unrest have become politicised. An articulate
and effective political elite have emerged in sev-
eral tribal areas. These elite are conscious of
tribal rights and are capable of making
calculated moves to gain their acceptance.

18. PRESENTED BY:
• Roopanshi Virang
• Navya Airachia
• Anirudh Pratap Singh
• Shraddha Chauhan