What did the Harappan people really eat?
Paper: I
For Prelims: About Harappa Civilisation.
For Mains: Indian Culture – Salient aspects of Art Forms, Literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.
Context of News:
- The National Museum in New Delhi has decided to keep meat out of the ‘Historical Gastronomica’ event that it is hosting on its premises until February 25, allegedly after “a couple of MPs” reacted to the menu posted online by the Ministry of Culture.
- The event, presented by the Museum along with One Station Million Stories (OSMS), claims to treat visitors to “The Indus dining experience” through a “specially crafted menu that strictly includes ingredients that were identified by archaeologists & researchers from sites of the Indus-Saraswati Civilisation”.
Difference Between Harappa and vedic Civilisation:
- Indus Valley Civilization:
- It is a civilization developed by the Dravidian people
- It was an urban civilization
- Reflected in city life
- The people did not know the use of iron
- They used the materials like Stone, Copper and Bronze in making weapons
- The people did not know the use of horse in war
- Mother cult as well as the cult of Siva were prominent in the religious belief
- Bull were of high esteem
- No social division was found among the people
- Vedic Civilization:
- It is a civilization developed by the Aryans
- It was mainly the rural civilization, centered round the village
- The people used iron weapons extensively
- The people had the cavalry. They introduced horse in India
- People believed in one God
- Cows were the high esteem animals
- Social divisions were conspicuous in the society
What was Food of Harappa?
- Archaeological evidence from Indus Valley sites (c. 3300 BC to 1300 BC) in present-day India and Pakistan suggests that a purely vegetarian meal will not provide a complete picture of what the Harappan people ate.
- To judge from the quantity of bones left behind, animal foods were consumed in abundance: beef, buffalo, mutton, turtles, tortoises, gharials, and river and sea fish.
- Apart from meat, the people of the Indus Valley Civilisation grew and ate a variety of cereals and pulses. There is archaeological evidence for cultivation of pea (matar), chickpea (chana), pigeon pea (tur/arhar), horse gram (chana dal) and green gram (moong). Several varieties of wheat have been found at Harappan sites, as well as barley of the two-rowed and six-rowed kinds. There is evidence that the Harappans cultivated Italian millet, ragi and amaranth, as well as sorghum and rice.
- The Vedic people too, consumed meat. Achaya notes that the Vedas refer to some 250 species of animals, 50 of which were “deemed fit for sacrifice, and by inference for eating”. Marketplaces had stalls for vendors of different kinds of animal meats, including gogataka (cattle), arabika (sheep), shukharika (swine), nagarika (deer), shakuntika (fowl) and gidhabuddaka (alligator and tortoise).
- The growth of vegetarianism has been linked by scholars to the rise of the doctrine of non-violence. Buddhism and Jainism led to the gradual disappearance of animal sacrifices of the Vedic religion. Ashoka (3rd century BC) encouraged vegetarianism, and forbade the killing of many animals.
- Why this fascination for ancient cuisines?
- The enthusiasm for “Vedic foods” was masochistic enough, since a three-course Vedic meal closely resembles three kinds of porridge. Fortunately, since those times, medieval cultural exchanges and European adventurism have brought us foundational elements of modern Indian cuisine, such as South American potatoes, tomatoes and chillies, apart from stalwart creations like the samosa. The Harappans did not know of such things.
Evidence of Different Food Culture of Harappan Civilisation:
- Plant remains from Harappan sites reveal the entire repertoire, from cereals and lentils to fruits and vegetables, and even the spices used. Recognising grains is easy and has been done for nearly a century since the discovery of Mohenjodaro and Harappa because burnt cereals survive rather well and sometimes also leave an imprint on clay.
- Among vegetables and fruits, it is usually their seeds that are identified. More recently, the archaeologist has recovered and identified at Harappan Farmana (in rural Haryana), starch granules from pots, grinding stones, and teeth, showing the processing, cooking and consumption of mangoes, bananas and garlic. What was left over after the household ate was evidently fed to their animals since the same starch granules were scraped off the teeth from cattle remains found there.
- Among wild animals, from Gujarat’s Kuntasi and Shikarpur, bones of wild ass with cut marks and evidence of charring underlines that they were hunted for food.
Conclusion:
- Some scriptures did frown on or had misgivings about killing and consumption of animals. The Satapatha Brahmana, an ancient Indian religious text that forms part of the Vedic corpus, is full of fine detail about sacrificial ritual, and the eater of meat is said to be eaten in his next birth by the animal killed.
- Regardless of these occasional scriptural impediments, the general picture is of an ancient populace not just carnivorous but eagerly so.All this should give pause to modern advocates of vegetarianism who want to make ancient Indians in general and Harappans in particular appear to be like them. Harappans would most certainly have scoffed at such attempts, even as they chomped through chunks of roasted cattle and pig.
Mitigating human-wildlife conflict
Paper: III
For Prelims: Man and the Biosphere Programme.
For Mains: Conservation, Environmental Pollution and Degradation, Environmental Impact Assessment.
Context of News:
- Any human-wildlife conflict affects both the sides often in tragic ways, like the death of four tigers in Mhadei, Goa, and the reported arrest of the locals who poisoned the animals after their complaints were not attended to in a way it should have been.
- Following which chief minister of Goa, reportedly said that, “we will demarcate and fence the borders of the wildlife sanctuaries” in order to end 80 per cent of the problem.
About Man and the Biosphere(MAB) Programme:
- Launched in 1971, UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB) is an Intergovernmental Scientific Programme that aims to establish a scientific basis for the improvement of relationships between people and their environments.
- MAB combines the natural and social sciences, economics and education to improve human livelihoods and the equitable sharing of benefits, and to safeguard natural and managed ecosystems, thus promoting innovative approaches to economic development that are socially and culturally appropriate, and environmentally sustainable.
About Man & Animal Conflict:
- Man-animal conflict simply refers to the interaction between man and animal and resultant negative impact on man and his resources or animal and its habitat. Conflicts between the man and animal have occurred since the dawn of humanity.
- This Man and Animal conflict has become more intense with ever-increasing population, the lines between human settlements and forests have started to blur, resulting in more number of conflicts. The result of this conflict is severe which result into the loss of crops to farmers, human beings getting injured or killed and concerns for wildlife conservation as well.
Reasons for Man and Animal Conflict:
- Fragmentation and shrinking of habitat:
- In modern era, rapid urbanization and industrialisation have led to diversion of forest land to non-forest purposes, as a result the wildlife habitat is shrinking. This makes that landscape unviable for wild animals as their needs are not fulfilled. This results in animals straying out of habitat in search of food, water or shelter bringing them in conflict with humans.
- Land encroachments:
- In recent times due growing demand for food there is rapid conversion of forest lands into farm fields for cultivation. Also forest is being cleared for mining and developmental activities resulting in destruction of habitat of wildlife. This results into herbivores straying out of the forest and causing depredation of crops.
- Expansion of road and rail network through forest ranges has resulted in animals getting killed or injured in accidents on roads or railway tracks.
- Infestation of wildlife habitat:
- Infestation of wildlife habitat by the invasive exotic weeds like Lantana, Eupatorium etc. have resulted in decreased availability of edible grasses for the wild herbivores. As a result, herbivores come out of forest area and cause depredation of agricultural crops on the fringes
- Impact of human activities:
- The increasing population has also led to many human settlements coming up near the peripheries of protected areas and encroachment in the forest lands by local people for cultivation and collection of food and fodder etc. thus increasing pressure on limited natural resources in the forests.
- Livestock grazing:
- Livestock grazing in the forest areas has increased man-animal conflicts as carnivorous are attracted to easy prey thus becoming the direct enemy of man. Livestock grazing has also led to the shortage of food for wild herbivores as they have to compete with livestock for food.
Suggestive Measures:
- Relocation of human settlements should be done, which will alter the ecological setting in favour of wild animals, and thus prevent conflict.
- Ecocentric tourism must be promoted so that the unique habitats of animals do not get disturbed or polluted.
- Training programmes should be conducted to address the problems of human-wildlife conflict. Awareness programmes should be conducted to sensitize the people about the Do’s and Don’ts to minimize conflicts.
- Encouraging and supporting involvement of research and academic institutions, and leading voluntary organizations having expertise in managing human-wildlife conflict situations.
- Poaching of wild animals should be stopped so, that the number of wild animals can stabilize at its carrying capacity allowing it to reach equilibrium in the ecosystem. Thus, equilibrium in the numbers of prey and predators in the forest ecosystem would be maintained.
- Wildlife habitat fragmentation should not be done in the name of developmental projects.
- Using GPS tracking collars and GIS mapping software, researchers can identify hot spots where human-wildlife conflict is likely to occur. And such data can also help in forming policies.
- Prompt delivery of compensatory assistance for the victims of conflicts may help mitigate local hostility towards animals to some extent.
Conclusion:
- The solutions are simple: Inclusive development with a long-term vision that cares for the environment. It is about better public services in terms of transparency, accountability and genuine assistance
- Environmental justice could be achieved only if we drift away from principles like sustainable development and polluter pays principles, as these principles are based on a strong bias towards interests of human beings rather than environmental concerns. When choosing between development and environment, the tilt should always be towards saving the environment.