India is a mélange of multiple agrarian and nomadic cultures. The complex entanglements of these two diverse identities give ample scope for academic as well as activist research. The ever-deepening agrarian crises and the continuous encroachments on the village commons have left the above-mentioned binary in confusion about their existence. Evolution of human civilization keeps the nomadic and settled lifestyle as its two major elements, the latter succeeding the former. As humans evolved their nomadic instinct to a settled lifestyle, numerous changes concerned with shelter, food consumption and food production manifested themselves. The agony of this transition was that it could not absorb the nomadic population in its entirety. While a big chunk of the population started tilling the soil and producing their own food and settled in areas favoring their survival, another chunk remained in the nomadic sphere of life, hunting, gathering, moving from one place to another. Advent of technological development led to reduction of constraints in communication, resulting in further complexities in the social order. Infrastructural development led by technological development paved the way for a free flow of goods, services and knowledge. Apart from the positive outcomes of infrastructural development, crises came along in different legitimate forms from the state. The present research work is an attempt to explore the effects of the public policy on the complex nature of relations between pastoral nomads and settled farmers. It reviews previous works done by social scientists and draws conclusions by considering the commonality and differences developed over the course of time and also looks into the changing trends in the Nomad-Farmer relations in India.
