State 'Simplification'

The protest of the Garos was a result of their dissatisfaction with colonial natural resource management practices, which were based on expropriation of resources long seen as customary rights. The resistance against the colonial order and the zamindars soon transformed itself into a broad-based struggle for a homeland, a demand that figured in similar protest movements during the colonial period. These movements were largely unsuccessful, yet their legacy lives on. This is because natural resource management in the post-colonial period is still marked by some continuity with an earlier period. This is especially true with regard to the centralised framework of forest management introduced by the British, which still remains in place.