NON-PASTORAL NOMADS AND BIO-DIVERSITY P.K. Misra & N. Prabhakar (Sudershan, E-583, J.P. Nagar, First Stage, 17th Main, Mysore - 570 008
[email protected]) Subthematic Paper Prepared for National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) June 2002 Sub-Thematic Paper on Non-Pastoral Nomads and Bio-diversity P.K. Misra & N. Prabhakar Introduction How are they known: Non-pastoral nomads have been referred to by a variety of names such as gypsies, travellers, peripatetics, service nomads, commercial nomads, non-food producing nomads, other nomads, symbiotic nomads etc,. Their Persistence: Pre-historical, historical and classical literature have indicated that countless generations of rural, urban and pastoral populations have experienced brief but usually recurrent contacts with spatially mobile people indulging in a variety of occupations. Joseph Berland who has worked for many years among the peripatetic communities in Pakistan writes, “By relying on flexibility and resourcefulness, spatial mobility, and judicious combinations of specialized goods, services, and skills, peripatetic communities of smiths, basket and broom weavers, toy makers, potion and jewelry peddlers, bards, impersonators, trainees of performing animals, jugglers and acrobats, singers and dancers, beggars and prostitutes, have been pervasive and persistent threads running throughout the complex, and protean fabrics of South Asia’s social systems since the dawn of recorded civilization” (to be published in Nomads of South Asia, Oxford University Press). Found all over They have been reported from Africa, Asia, Europe and America but it appears that they are more numerous in South Asia, particularly in India and Pakistan, offering more kinds of goods and services. 2 Ancient Indian Literature Ancient literature like Rigveda, later Vedic texts, Kautiliya Arthsastra, Tamil texts of Sangam period inform us of peripatetic ascetics, traders, craftsmen, entertainers, fortune tellers who travelled through towns and villages and serviced the ordinary folks (Berland not dated; Misra & Misra 1982).