Revision summary
Shifting cultivation is hill livelihood and, when fallow shortens, a slope risk. Elwin treated bewar as economy, not laziness. FRA community title can legalise rotation. Terrace rice, longer fallow, and local council rules are the balance kit. Blanket bans and eviction fail both people and the forest.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
Shifting cultivation, or jhum, is a rotational forest-farm livelihood in many hill tribes. Balance means a live fallow and a live household, not a ban that starves or a short cycle that strips the slope.
Body
The two pressures
- Livelihood: grain, vegetables, and ritual plots for Naga, Mizo, Baiga, and other hill groups. Elwin defended Baiga bewar as economy, not as waste.
- Degradation: shortened fallow after population rise, timber reservation, and cash ginger or oilseed on steep plots. The Forest Act tradition treated jhum as offence, which pushed it onto worse slopes.
How balance is struck
- Restore fallow length with community forest, not only with a planting target. FRA, 2006 community titles can legalise the rotation instead of chasing it.
- Mix settled wet rice in terraces, as in some North-East valleys, with a smaller jhum for ritual and vegetables.
- Pay for ecological service: longer fallow, fire lines, and seed banks through ITDP and hill council funds, not a one-time rubber monocrop.
- Gram Sabha under PESA and traditional councils must set the cycle. A distant working plan cannot.
- Chipko taught that local women may defend the tree that the contractor calls surplus. Jhum policy needs that local veto.
What fails
- Blanket ban, free seedlings of a single market tree, and eviction in the name of carbon all break livelihood and then fail the slope.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD J[Jhum] --> L[Livelihood grain ritual] J --> E[Short fallow erosion] B[FRA PESA council] --> F[Longer fallow mix]
Conclusion
Balance is a long fallow under community title, plus terrace and wage buffers. Criminalising jhum without a living alternative is not conservation.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Purushartha and righteous living today
Next question on this syllabus topic (2021 · Q1(a)). View answer →
-
Is all shifting cultivation destructive?
A long-fallow cycle can hold the slope. A two-year cycle on a steep reserved remnant does not.
-
Does settled farming always solve it?
Only where water and terrace labour exist. Forced settlement without that is a new poverty.
Same topic · past papers
UPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
-
2025 · Q3(b) · Anthropology GS 2 · 15 marks
Examine the environmental and biocultural factors influencing the health of tribals of India
More from this topic
Q6(a) · UPSC Mains 2026 · Anthropology GS 2 · 20 marks · Solution
Make a critical appraisal of the mesolithic culture of Ganga basin with reference to artifacts, faunal and human skeletal remains excavated from different sites
Evolution of the Indian Culture and Civilization
• Ganga basin Mesolithic sites like Sarai Nahar Rai, Mahadaha, and Damd
Q5(e) · UPSC Mains 2026 · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks · Solution
Contribution of L. K. Ananthakrishna Iyer in Anthropology.
Evolution of the Indian Culture and Civilization
L. K. Ananthakrishna Iyer is a pioneering figure in Indian anthropology, known for his monumental ethnographic surveys like The Cochin Tribes and Castes and The Mysore Tribes and Castes. Working during the colonial era, he bridged western anthropological methods with indigenous scholarship. His documentation of social stratification, material culture, and folklore laid the empirical foundation for Indian sociology and anthropology. Iyer also established the first department of anthropology in India at the University of Calcutta, shaping institutional teaching and research.
Q5(c) · UPSC Mains 2026 · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks · Solution
Article 371A of the Indian Constitution.
Evolution of the Indian Culture and Civilization
Article 371A of the Indian Constitution grants special autonomous status to Nagaland, protecting its traditional socio-religious practices, customary laws, and land ownership rights. Enacted via the 13th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1962, following the 16-point Agreement, it reflects the asymmetrical federal framework of India. The article places a special responsibility on the Governor regarding law and order and regional financial allocations. It balances tribal autonomy with national integration, though it faces implementation challenges in modern governance.