How did the expansion of commercial agriculture effect the life of forest dwellers?
(i) The forest dwellers earned their livelihood from hunting and shifting agriculture. But all these activities were seasonal. For example, the Bhils collected forest produce in the spring, fished in the summer, cultivated land in the monsoon and hunted during autumn and winter. They had to observe a perpetual mobility.
(ii) However the spread of commercial agriculture immensely affected the life of forest-dwellers. They exported forest products like honey, gum and beeswax. It encouraged an overseas export from India in the seventeenth century. They even captured and sold the elephants. The Lohanis of Punjab were engaged in overland trade between India and Afghanistan.
(iii) The commercial agriculture also brought a considerable change in the social life of the forest-dwellers. Many tribal chiefs had become zamindars. A few of them had even become the kings. It was the royal monopoly of the Ahom kings to capture wild animals.
