Answer: Because most of India has a monsoon climate with moderate rainfall and a long dry season.
- Deciduous (monsoon) forests grow in regions receiving about 100 to 200 cm (moist deciduous) and 70 to 100 cm (dry deciduous) of rainfall, and such rainfall is received over a very large part of India.
- Most of the rain falls mainly during the four months of the south-west monsoon; the rest of the year is largely dry.
- In the dry season the trees shed their leaves to reduce the loss of water through transpiration.
- Such conditions prevail over most of the peninsular plateau and parts of the northern plains, so teak, sal, sandalwood, bamboo and shisham forests are found on a large scale.