Traditional economy

India is a predominantly agrarian country. The majority of its population is engaged in agriculture. It specializes in plant cultivation, although the country possesses the most numerous head of livestock. Thanks to the warm climate farming is possible all the year round. The largest part of the cultivated area is under food crops, necessary to feed the growing population of an enormous country.  The land cropping areas are located predominantly in the highly fertile valleys in the river basins of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. The land is cultivated with a plough, since ancient times irrigated cropping is practiced. Nowadays India ranks first among the countries of the world as far as the size of the irrigated territory is concerned. 

Some peoples inhabiting mountainous areas, in northwestern India in particular, burn the forests out and plant crops on these areas, cultivating land with a mattock. This practice leads to the annihilation of forests (a man “eats the forests up”). As a result one has to switch to permanent irrigated farming. The indigenous inhabitants of the Andaman Islands are on the verge of dying out. And some tribes of the southern Indian mountains (the Kadars, Chenchu and some others) earn their means of subsistence by hunting, gathering, and fishing. The population of the river and sea shores is engaged in fishing. 

A shepherd with his flock. India, the Indians. Uspenskaya Y.N. Yanes M.A. 2005		Tea picking in Sri Lanka (former Ceylon). The Singhalese. The First Quarter of the 20th Century.		Ox team - common transportation mode in rural India.By 1903.
Goats are common in a city.India.Snatenkov V.		Waterskins were used as an transportation mode on mount rivers in the Himalayas region.By 1903.		Tilling in Sind.Pakistan. The Pakistani. 2005.
The Himalayan sheep.Nepal.Snatenkov V.		Terraced field in the Himalayas.Nepal.Snatenkov V.		Terraced field in the Himalayas.Nepal.Snatenkov V.
Fishing.India. Kerala. The Indians. 2005.		Terraced field in the Himalayas.Nepal.Snatenkov V.		A village in Rajasthan.India. Rajasthan. The Rajasthanians. 2005.
Nomads in Kvetta valley.Pakistan. The Pakistani. 2005.		Camel fair in Pushkar.Rajasthan. The Rajasthanians. 2005.		Shoe polisher.India. Delhi. The Indians. 2005.
Ricksha in Calcutta street.India. Calcutta. The Bengali. Vasilkov Ya., 1995.		Street tailor.India. The Indians. Uspenskaya E., Yanes M., 2006.