Underdevelopment
Kham isolation, official neglect, underdevelopment and poverty essentially continued through the 19th and 20th centuries. The main export was manpower as mercenaries to the British and Indian armies, or whatever other employment opportunities could be found for largely uneducated and unskilled labor. Kham also practice transhumance by grazing cattle, sheep and goats in summer pastures in subalpine and alpine pastures to the north, working their way down to winter pastures in the Dang-Deukhuri valleys, but the carrying capacity of pastures accessible to the Kham is finite. Despite unending toil, food shortages have become a growing problem that still persists. Food deficits were historically addressed by grain imports bought dearly with distant work at low wages.
As economic development brought schools electricity, motor roads, hospitals and a wider range of consumer goods to surrounding areas, few benefits trickled up into the highlands and contrasts became even more invidious. Perversely, development introduced motor transport which diminished porterage employment. Cultivating hemp and processing it into charas (hashish) lost standing as an income generator after 1976 when international pressure persuaded the national government to outlaw these recreational drugs and close government stores where those so inclined could freely purchase what was illegal in most of the world. Initiatives to replace the indigenous hallucinogen industry with cultivating fruit and produce largely failed after transport infrastructure reaching the Kham highlands proved inadequate to carry perishable goods to market.
Read more about this topic: Kham Magar