Maharashtra’s Mendrachi Vancharai System

Context: An IIT Bombay researcher has found that colonial-era land reforms led to the disappearance of Maharashtra’s Mendrachi Vancharai System.

Mendrachi Vancharai System

• Mendrachi Vancharai System enabled nomadic shepherds (primarily Dhangars and other pastoral communities) to graze their flocks across vast stretches of uncultivated land, forests, and common property resources.
• Pastures were not confined to village boundaries, but were defined by natural features like riverbanks, forming extensive “grazing corridors” across districts.
• Shepherds paid fees or taxes (makta) to local authorities for the right to access and use these pastures.
• The system was formal and institutional, recorded in administrative documents (like Peshwa diaries) and recognised by regional rulers.
• Access to pastures was based on negotiated agreements rather than rigid administrative rules.
• Mobility was legal and legitimate; shepherds moved seasonally without violating any law, as long as dues were paid.

What Happened Under British Rule?

• British colonial land reforms (notably the Survey and Settlement Act, 1865) abolished these corridors and replaced them with fixed, village-based grazing lands.
• The result: Criminalisation of nomadic movement and the decline of communal pasture management.
• Pastoralists’ customary rights were eroded, impacting their traditional livelihoods and the governance of common lands.

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