NCERT 9th Class (CBSE) Social Science: Forest Society and Colonialism

Question: The villagers used forest for many used. Explain any five.

Answer:

1. Fruits and tubers are nutritious to eat, especially during monsoon before the harvest season has come in.
2. Herbs used for medicine, wood for agricultural implements like yokes, ploughs, bamboo makes excellent fences and is also used to make baskets and umbrellas.
3. A dried scooped out gourd can be used to make a portable water bottle.
4. Almost everything is available in the forests-leaves can be stitched together to make disposable plates and cups.
5. The Sradi crupper can be used to make ropes and the thorny bark of the summer true is used to grate vegetables and Oil for cooking and lighting lamps can be pressed from Mahua tree.

Question: Write any four examples to show that villagers used forests in a variety of ways. How did the Forest Act of 1878 affect the villagers in India?

Answer: Villagers used:

1. Fruits and tubers for nutrition
2. Herbs for medicine
3. Wood for agricultural implements like yokes and ploughs
4. Bamboos for fences, baskets, umbrellas
5. Dried up scooped out gourd for portable water bottle
6. Leaves stitched up to make disposable plates and cups
7. Creepers to make ropes and bark of silk cotton tree to grate vegetables
8. Oil for cooking and lighting lamps.

The villagers lost the freedom to enter and take anything from Reserved Forests. All their every day practices of cutting wood for their houses, grazing their cattle, collecting fruits etc. became illegal.

Question: Why shifting cultivation was discouraged by Britishers?

Answer: Shifting cultivation is the type of cultivation in which the farmers cut trees and clear the land for cultivation.They also burn the uprooted trees and mix their ashes in the soil so as to fertile the soil. After cultivation and harvesting they move on to other land and repeat the same process. The European foresters banned it because in this process, there are also chances of hazards like forest fires, loss of fertility and for stability in the state they wanted to control these nomadic tribes.

Question: Give example to show opportunities of work did not always mean improved well being for the people.

Answer:

1. In Assam, both men and women from forest communities were recruited to work on tea plantations.
2. Their wages were low and conditions of work were very bad.
3. They could not return easily to their home villages from where they had been recruited.