Shifting Ground explores fresh critical questions about India's environmental past in terms of environmental issues and human intervention. Cutting across divides of prehistory and history and of ancient, medieval, colonial and independent India, this book makes us rethink our premises about ecology, polity and landscape in a land reshaped by human presence across millennia. Analyzing current environmental concerns regarding forests, pastures, wild and domesticated animals this volume explores their interconnections with state making and political visions of the future.