How were the lives of forest dwellers transformed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?

Transformation in the lives of forest dwellers (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries):

(a)    Forest dwellers having their own culture, way of life and occupation: Forest dwellers were termed jangli in contemporary texts. Being jangli, however, did not mean an absence of “civilisation”, as popular usage of the term today seems to connote. Rather, the term described those whose livelihood came from the gathering of forest produce, hunting and shifting agriculture.

(b)    Performance of seasonal activities : Different activities were largely season specific. Among the Bhils, for example, spring was reserved for collecting forest produce, summer for fishing, the monsoon months for cultivation, and autumn and winter for hunting. Such a sequence presumed and perpetuated mobility, which was a distinctive feature of tribes inhabiting in these forests.

(c)    A place of mawas or refuge : For the state, the forest was a subversive place-a place refuge (mawas) for troublemakers. Once again, we turn to Babur who says that jungles provided a good defence “behind which the people of the pargana become stubbornly rebellious and pay no taxes”.

(d)    Collection of elephants by the state or the rulers : External forces entered the forest in different ways. For instance, the state required elephants for the army. So the peshkash levied from forest people often included a supply of elephants.

(e)    Provision for providing justice by the emperor: In the Mughal political ideology, the hunt symbolised the overwhelming concern of the state to ensure justice to all its subjects, rich and poor. Regular hunting expeditions, so court historians tell us, enabled the emperor to travel across the extensive territories of his empire and personally attend to the grievances of its inhabitants. The hunt was a subject frequently painted by court artists. The painter resorted to the device of inserting a small scene somewhere in the picture that functioned as a symbol of a harmonious region.

(f)    Clearance of forest for agriculture settlements by the outsiders : The people from different areas outside of forest region entered for their economic self motifs. For examples, some people tried to clean forest and try to develops land for agriculture and to have dwelling units for agricultural settlements and different peoples definitely the tribal people took it a challenge. They fought against the outsiders but ultimately some outsiders got success with the help of rulers or other powerful groups of the people.

(g)    Development of trade : Trade development between the hill tribes and the plains also disturbed forests settlements.