Nomads of India

Nomads are known as a group of communities who travel from place to place for their livelihood. Some are salt traders, fortune-tellers, conjurers, ayurvedic healers, jugglers, acrobats, actors, storytellers, snake charmers, animal doctors, tattooists, grindstone makers, or basketmakers. Some anthropologists have identified about 8 nomadic groups in India, numbering perhaps 1 million people—around 0.12 percent of the country's billion-plus population.^[1] Aparna Rao and Michael Casimir estimated that nomads make up around 7% of the population of India.^[2]^[3]

The nomadic communities in India can be divided into three groups: hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, and the peripatetic or non-food-producing groups. Among these, peripatetic nomads are neglected and discriminated against social group in India.^[4] They have lost their livelihood because of drastic changes in transport, industries, production, entertainment, and distribution systems. They find pastures for their herders.

^ Misra, Promode Kumar; Malhotra, K. C. (1982). Nomads in India: Proceedings of the National Seminar. Anthropological Survey of India.
^ Tavakolian, Bahram (2004). Saberwal, Vasant; Agrawal, Arun (eds.). "Reviewed Works: Greener Pastures: Politics, Markets, and Community among a Migrant Pastoral People by Arun Agrawal; Nomadism in South Asia by Aparna Rao, Michael J. Casimir; Pastoralists: Equality, Hierarchy, and the State by Philip Carl Salzman". Nomadic Peoples. 8 (2, Special Issue: Whither South Asian Pastoralism?). White Horse Press: 274. JSTOR 43123738. In fact Rao and Casimir point out that the largest numbers of nomads in the world are not to be found in the Middle East and Africa, where most past studies have directed our attention, but in South Asia where they contribute 7 percent of India's huge population (2003: 1).
^ Mohanty, Ranjita; Tandon, Rajesh (2006). Participatory Citizenship: Identity, Exclusion, Inclusion. India: SAGE Publishing. pp. 110–111. ISBN 978-9352805457. The nomadic population in the South Asia is the largest in the world. In India, nomadic communities form nearly 7 per cent of population and consists of about 500 different communities of mobile herders, foragers and traditional peripatetics (Rao and Casimir 2003 :1).
^ Customary strangers : new perspectives on peripatetic peoples in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia / edited by Joseph C. Berland and Aparna Rao

[ReferenceA-1] Misra, Promode Kumar; Malhotra, K. C. (1982). Nomads in India: Proceedings of the National Seminar. Anthropological Survey of India.

[2] Tavakolian, Bahram (2004). Saberwal, Vasant; Agrawal, Arun (eds.). "Reviewed Works: Greener Pastures: Politics, Markets, and Community among a Migrant Pastoral People by Arun Agrawal; Nomadism in South Asia by Aparna Rao, Michael J. Casimir; Pastoralists: Equality, Hierarchy, and the State by Philip Carl Salzman". Nomadic Peoples. 8 (2, Special Issue: Whither South Asian Pastoralism?). White Horse Press: 274. JSTOR 43123738. In fact Rao and Casimir point out that the largest numbers of nomads in the world are not to be found in the Middle East and Africa, where most past studies have directed our attention, but in South Asia where they contribute 7 percent of India's huge population (2003: 1).

[3] Mohanty, Ranjita; Tandon, Rajesh (2006). Participatory Citizenship: Identity, Exclusion, Inclusion. India: SAGE Publishing. pp. 110–111. ISBN 978-9352805457. The nomadic population in the South Asia is the largest in the world. In India, nomadic communities form nearly 7 per cent of population and consists of about 500 different communities of mobile herders, foragers and traditional peripatetics (Rao and Casimir 2003 :1).

[4] Customary strangers : new perspectives on peripatetic peoples in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia / edited by Joseph C. Berland and Aparna Rao

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