All pastoralists operated in the mountains, they all were also to be found in the plateaus, plains and deserts of India. Dhangars were found in this area they are an important pastoral community of Maharashtra.

By October the Dhangars harvested their bajra and started on their move west. After a march of about a month they reached the Konkan.

The reason of the seasonal rhythms of the movement of Gollas, Kurumas and Kurubas were Monsoon and dry season. In the dry season they moved to the coastal tracts, and left when the rains came.

Banjaras were yet another well-known group of graziers. They were to be found in the villages of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

In the deserts of Rajasthan, the community of Raikas live. The rainfall in the region was meagre and uncertain. On cultivated land, harvests fluctuated every year.

From the mid-nineteenth century, Waste Land Rules were enacted in various parts of the country. By these Rules uncultivated lands were taken over and given to select individuals.

Gujjar Bakarwals are pastoralists belonging to Jammu and Kashmir region. They are great herders of goat and sheep. Many of them migrated to this region in the nineteenth century in search of pastures for their animals.

The pastoralists had to pay tax on the houses they were living in. To expand its revenue income, the colonial government looked for every possible source of taxation.

Between the 1850s and 1880s was the right to collect the tax auctioned out to contractors. These contractors tried to extract as high a tax as they could to recover the money they had paid to the state.

Dhangars were an important pastoral community of Maharashtra. In the early twentieth century their population in this region was estimated to be 467,000.