Question

How and why did the commercial forestry come in India? How did this implementations affect the lives of Indian forest dwellers?

Answer 1

With the rapid depletion of forests the British got worried that the use of forests by local people and the reckless felling of trees by traders would destroy forests. So they decided to invite a German expert, Dietrich Brandis, for advice, and made him the first Inspector General of Forests in India. He believed that a proper system had to be introduced to manage the forests and people had to be trained in the science of conservation. So Brandis set up the Indian Forest Service in $1864$ and helped formulate the Indian Forest Act of $1865$. The Rules were made and the system was made legal sanction. Felling of trees and grazing was restricted so that forests could be preserved for timber production. Anybody found cutting the trees without following the system was punished.
The Imperial Forest Research Institute was set up Dehradun in $1960$. The system they taught here was 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. They planned how much of the plantation area to cut every year. The area cut was then to be replanted so that it was ready to be cut again in some years.
(i) All their everyday practices - cutting wood for their houses, grazing their cattle, collecting fruits and roots, hunting and fishing - became illegal.
(ii) 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.
(iii) People constables and forest guards would harass people by demanding free food from them.
(iv) The government banned shifting cultivation. They considered it a waste of fertile land which could instead be used for growing railway timber.
(v) Communities were forcibly displaced from their homes in the forests.
(iv) Shifting cultivators were forced to change professions, while some participated in large and small rebellions opposing the changes.