The life of a nomad is clearly tough. In a time of increasing modernization and the build-up of infrastructure in a country such as India, nomads are finding it harder and harder to make a living. They travel constantly, and from the pictures that Cat provided, look more like gypsies and a traveling circus. Their carts are the only thing of great value they posses, other than their own family members. It seems that these nomads are finding less open country to travel, as India becomes a country defined by extreme economic, social, and structural growth. Nomads can live on the income from selling spoons, or performing their entertaining acts, but cannot compete with the speed at which every other social class is climbing the socio-economic ladder. I would think that nomads would be the best people possible to raise livestock, yet their governments haven’t given them the means to do so. It seems as if the Indian government is focused on building up the cities in which most people will see in pictures, movies, and in travel brochures, while leaving the nomads to fend for themselves as they have done so for generations.
Other groups of nomads that I know about include the Bedouins of the Middle East and the nomadic tribes of Mongolia and Tibet. Talk about a census count, approximately 40% of the ethnic Tibetan population is nomadic or semi-nomadic. Mongolia’s nomadic people range in the 3 millions. I think that what it really comes down to is that it depends on the country itself. Countries like Mongolia, Tibet, or Yemen are not currently experiencing double digit economic growth. These countries are not receiving billions of dollars in foreign investment. These countries do not have traditional, modern educational systems. There is a lack of basic tools to facilitate socio-economic growth in these countries. India and China have these systems in place, and as a result, they are modernizing and throwing out the traditions and people that once pervaded its land centuries ago.
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