Access to Sal trees was crucial to modern descendants of the Asura, such as the Agaria. In 1942, British anthropologist Verrier Elwin wrote that ‘where there are Sarai trees, there will you find Agaria.’ Traditional ironworking communities were itinerant– they lived in forests and moved according to access to iron ore and timber. The iron-making process would begin with all members of the family collecting Sal in the forest. The wood would then be set on fire in a pit, covered by leaves and sand. Once ready, the charcoal was used to fuel open-air furnaces, producing raw iron that the Agaria traded with agrarian communities.

By the nineteenth century, the Agaria and other ironworking communities descended from the Asura had depended on Sal forests for their livelihoods for hundreds of years. However, with India under the control of the British East India Company, colonial officials began planning how to best exploit India’s rich iron resources. They aimed to stamp out traditional Indian ironworking, monopolizing charcoal sources and taking control of Indian iron and steel production. The East India Company enacted the first Forest Act in 1865, which prohibited unauthorized timber-cutting and limited charcoal burning by hill tribes to certain areas. The law weaponised narratives of conservation and preservation against the production processes of Indigenous ironworkers, arguing that traditional Indian charcoal-making and ironworking methods were wasteful, ‘unorganised,’ and caused rampant deforestation.