Forest Society and Colonialism Class 9 Extra Questions History Chapter 4
Question 1.
How much-cultivated area rose during 1880-1920?
Answer:
The cultivated area rose by 9.7 million hectares between 1880 and 1920.
Question 2.
Why was railways essential to the colonial rulers?
Answer:
- For colonial trade,
- movement of troops.
Question 3.
Which places did the Indus Valley Railway touch when introduced?
Answer:
Multan on the one hand and Sukkur on the other hand, a distance of nearly 300 miles.
Question 4.
Which places were joined together by the Northern State Railway?
Answer:
Lahore on the one hand and Multan on the other.
Question 5.
Who was Dietrich Brandis and who appointed him?
Answer:
Dietrich Brandis was a German forest expert. The British Government appointed him as Inspector General of Forests in India.
Question 6.
When was the Indian Forest Act passed?
Answer:
The Indian Forest Act was passed in 1865.
Question 7.
Which Act divided the forest into reserved, protected and village forests?
Answer:
The Act of 1878.
Question 8.
Could the villagers according to the Act of 1878, make use of the reserved forests?
Answer:
The villagers could not take anything from the reserved forests, even for their own use.
Question 9.
What is scientific forestry?
Answer:
Scientific forestry is a system of cutting trees Controlled by the forest department in which old trees are cut and new ones planted.
Question 10.
What is lading?
Answer:
Lading is local name for shifting cultivation of Southeast Asia. In Central America, it is called milpa, while in Sri Lanka, it is called Chena.
Question 11.
Why did the colonial government decide to ban shifting cultivation? Give one reason.
Answer:
It was difficult for the government to calculate, taxes on shifting cultivation.
Question 12.
Name some of the nomadic and pastoral communities of Madras Presidency.
Answer:
Korava, Karacba, and Yerukula.
Question 13.
Name the leaders of the movements of Santhal Pargana, Chhotanagpur, Andhra Pradesh who resisted the British colonialists.
Answer:
- Santhal Pargana: Siddhu & Kanu
- Chhotanagpur: Birsa Munda
- Andhra Pradesh: Alluri Sitarama Raju.
Question 14.
Who were the Kalangs?
Answer:
The Kalangs were a community- of Java (Indonesia) who were skilled forest cutters and shifting cultivators.
Question 15.
“The forest area is. fast disappearing”. Substantiate.
Answer:
The forest area indeed is fast disappearing. Between 1700 and 1995, which may be characterized as the period of industrialization, 13.-9 million sq km of forests or 9.3% of the world’s total areas had been cleared for
- industrial use,
- cultivation,
- pasture’s, and fuelwood.
Question 16.
What were the banana republics?
Answer:
The power of an American owned United Fruit Company to grow bananas on the large industrial scale, in Central America is said to be banana republics.
Question 17.
Should the land unused be improved or remain with the Aboriginals,? Give your arguments.
Answer:
The land unused remains unproductive. It may be in regions like the Central America or Australia. It is important that the land be used or improved upon so to be productive. It is the land that helps us grow crops, and take from it numerous natural resources. The land wasted is the land lost. It is important that the people make use of it, and make it productive.
Question 18.
As the oak forests were disappearing, how did England manage to have timber for its shipbuilding requirement?
Answer:
By the early nineteenth century, oak forest in England were disappearing. This created a problem of timber supply for the Royal Navy. By 1920s, search parties were sent to explore the forest resources of India. Within a decade, trees were being felled on a massive scale and vast quantities of timber were being exported from India.
Question 19.
Write a brief note on scientific forestry. ‘
Answer:
The Imperial Forest Research Institute, set up at Dehradun in 1906, taught what is called scientific forestry. In scientific forestry, natural forests which had lots of different types of trees were cut down. In their place, one type of tree was planted in straight rows.
This is called a plantation. Forest officials surveyed the forests, estimated the area under different types of trees, and made working plans for forest management. The colonial rulers planned how much of the plantation area was to be cut every year. The area cut was then to be replanted so that it was ready to be cut again in some future years.
Question 20.
What were the forest Acts and what characteristics they had?
Answer:
After the Forest Act was enacted in 1865, it was amended twice, once in 1878 and then in 1927. The 1878 Act divided forests into there categories; reserved, protected and village forests. The best forests were called ‘reserved forests’. Villagers could not fake anything from these forests. For house building or fuel, they could take the wood.
Question 21.
Give the status of the Bastar region.
Answer:
In 1947 Bastar kingdom was merged with Ranker kingdom and became Bastar district in Madhya Pradesh. In 1998 it was divided again into three districts, Ranker, Bastar and Dantewada. In 2001, these became part of Chhattisgarh. Tire 1910 rebellion first started in the Kanger forest area and soon spread to other parts of the state.
Question 22.
Mention the location of the Bastar region. ?
Answer:
Bastar is located in the southernmost part of Chhattisgarh and borders Andhra Pradesh/Orissa and Maharashtra. The central part of Bastar is on a plateau. To the north of this plateau is the Chhattisgarh plain and to its South is the Godavari plain. The river Indrawati winds across Bastar east to west.
Question 23.
What is deforestation? How has cultivation been responsible for clearing of forests.
Answer:
The disappearance of forests is deforestation. The process of deforestation has become more systematic and extensive during the colonial rule. In 1600 about one-sixth of India’s landmass was under cultivation. Now the figure has gone up to about half. As population grew, so grew the demand for food, and so began the process of cultivation.
In the colonial period, cultivation expanded rapidly. Two major reasons were: first, the British directly encouraged the production of commercial crops like jute, sugar, wheat and cotton. The demand, for these crops, increased in nineteenth century. Secondly, in early 19th century, the colonial state thought that the forests Were unproductive and that land cultivation would not only yield agricultural products/but also revenue for the state. That is why we find that between 1880 and 1920, cultivation area rose by 9.7 million hectares.
Question 24.
Why did the British make use of timber for railway in India? Explain.
Answer:
The spread of railways, ever since 1850, created a new demand. Railways were essential for colonial trade and for the movement of troops. To run locomotives, wood was needed as fuel, and to lay railway lines, sleepers were essential to hold the tracks together. From the 1860s, the railway network expanded rapidly. By 1890′, about 25,500 km of track had been laid. In 1946, the length of the tracks had increased to over 765,000 km.
As the railway tracks spread through India, a larger and larger number of trees were felled. As early as the 1,850s, in the Madras. Presidency alone, 35,000, trees were being cut annually for sleepers. The government gave out contracts to individuals to supply the required quantities. These contractors began cutting trees indiscriminately. Forests around the railway tracks fast started disappearing.
Question 25.
How did the forest laws bring days of hardships for the villagers? Explain.
Answer:
The villagers had the face the days of hardships because of the stricter forest laws. After these Acts, all their everyday practices-cutting wood for houses, grazing their cattle, collecting fruits and roots, hunting and fishing became illegal.
People were now forced to steal wood from the forests, and if they were caught, they were at the mercy of the forest guards who would take bribes from them. Women who collected fuelwood were especially worried. It was also common for police constables and forest guards to harass people for demanding free food from them.
The villagers had to abandon the shifting cultivation, for the government restricted this type of farming due to heavy losses of timber burnt during the process. It felt that land which was used for cultivation every few years could not grow trees for railways timber. When a forest was burnt, there was the added danger of the flames spreading and burning valuable timber.
Shifting cultivation also made it harder for the government to calculate taxes. Therefore, the government decided to ban shifting cultivation. As a result, many communities were forcibly displaced from their homes in the forests. Some had to change occupations, while some resisted through large and small rebellions.
Question 26.
Write short notes on the following:
(i) Dutch Scientific Forestry.
(ii) Sarnin’s challenge.
Answer:
(i) Dutch Scientific Forestry In the nineteenth century, when it became important to control territory and not just people, the Dutch enacted forest laws in Java, restricting villagers access to forests. Now wood could only be cut for specified purposes like making riverboats or constructing houses, and only from specific forests under close supervision. Villagers were punished for grazing cattle in young stands, transporting wood without a permit, or travelling on forest roads with horse carts or cattle.
(ii) Samin’s challenge-Around 1890, Surontiko, Samin of Randbulafung village, a teak forest village, began questioning state ownership of tine forest. He argued that the state had not created the wind, water, early and wood, so it could not own it. Soon a widespread movement developed. Amongst those who helped organise it were Samin’s sons-in-law. By 1907, 3,000 families were following his ideas. Some of the Saminists protested by lying down on their land when the Dutch came to survey it, while others refused to pay taxes or fines or perform labour.
Objective Type Questions
1. Select correct (✓) or wrong (✗) from the following:
Question 1.
Banana Republics belong to regions such as the Central America.
Answer:
(✓)
Question 2.
Railway tracks required, at one point of time, wooden sleepers.
Answer:
(✓)
Question 3.
Brandis was an English forest expert.
Answer:
(✗)
Question 4.
Indian Forest Service was set up in 1865.
Answer:
(✗)
Question 5.
George Yule killed 400 tigers.
Answer:
(✓)
2. Select the correct word from the four alternatives given herein:
Question 1.
Bastar is bordered by the following :
(a) Orissa
(b) Tamil Nadu
(c) Karnataka
(d) Rajasthan
Answer:
(a) Orissa
Question 2.
Gunda Dhur belonged to the following village:
(a) Bastar
(b) Jagdalpur
(c) Nathan
(d) Palam
Answer:
(c) Nathan
Question 3.
Java is a place in:
(a) Thailand
(b) Singapore
(c) Indonesia
(d) Myanmar.
Answer:
(c) Indonesia
Question 4.
The Imperial Forest Research Institute was set up at :
(a) Hard war
(b) Dehradun
(c) Kashipur
(d) Badali
Answer:
(b) Dehradun
Question 5.
The forest act, first, was passed in :
(a)1864
(b) 1S66
(c) 1865
(d) 1867.
Answer:
(c) 1865
3. Fill in the blanks with the words given in the brackets:
Question 1.
In the Madras Presidency, as early as 1850s, about 35000 trees were cut ……………………… (annually, six-monthly)
Answer:
annually
Question 2.
Brandis was a forest expert ……………………… . (German, Brazilian)
Answer:
German
Question 3.
The Imperial Forest Research Institute was set up at Dehradun in ……………………… (1905,1906)
Answer:
1906
Question 4.
George Yule was a …………………….. administrator. (German, Dutch)
Answer:
British.