Troubled tribe

The eco-friendly Van Gujjars, inhabitants of the Shivalik ranges in the Himalayan foothills, have today become a victim of a faulty environmental conservation policy, writes Radhakrishna Rao

The nomadic ways of Van Gujjars are the very lifeline of this culturally vibrant forest-based community

For hundreds of years now, the thick forest stretches in the Shivalik ranges running through parts of North-Western India, have served both as a home and source of livelihood to the Himalayan indigenous community of Van Gujjars. The fiercely independent, peace-loving Van Gujjars have excelled as superb herdsmen by perfecting a forest-based form of buffalo rearing. Incidentally, the key to their pastoral profession lies in their nomadic lifestyle. For long, these vegetarian tribesmen, who are Muslims by faith, have been practising transhumance between the two distinct eco zones of the Himalayas.

As the summer sets in, Van Gujjars, along with their herds of genetically robust Neeli Ravi herd of mountain buffaloes, move from their forest homes in the Shivaliks in the Himalayan foothills to the luxuriant alpine grasslands in the upper Himalayas, which are known as bugyals in the local parlance. The vegetation-rich bugyals offer excellent fodder to these animals. As the winter approaches, these tribesmen return to their forest abodes in the Shivaliks.

Interestingly, their nomadic ways are the very lifeline of this culturally vibrant forest-based community. "If you are settled, you are like a stone," says a Van Gujjar chieftain. It is said that the hardy mountain buffaloes of the community, which can easily climb mountain stretches raising up to 10,000 ft above the sea level, become restless as the plains of the Shivaliks begin to warm up by late March, inducing the community to move to the cooler and salubrious upper Himalayan reaches. In the same way, as the mountain air gets cooler by September, the animals long for the warmth of the plains. Deep-rooted emotional attachment to their buffalo herds is the most striking feature of the community.

According to Avdhash Kaushal, chairperson of the Dehradun- based non-government organisation Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra (RLEK), which has been fighting to secure the rights and entitlements of the socially exploited Van Gujjars for well over two decades now, Van Gujjars make a sustainable use of the forest resources to meet the fodder needs of their buffaloes, thus leaving the precious farmland free for cultivating crops meant for human consumption.

At about the same time, Kaushal rues the fact that like other indigenous communities in other parts of the world, the eco friendly Van Gujjars are victims of a faulty environmental conservation policy.

For more than two decades now, Van Gujjars residing in Rajaji National Park (RNP) spread over an area of 825 sq km and straddling across the states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, have been under intense pressure to move out of their forest homes to lead a settled mode of living in rehabilitation colonies. Moreover, in recent years the nomadic lifestyle of the community has been seriously affected by many of the stringent regulations governing forest resources and environmental conservation. For many of the resources, the rich areas, where these herdsmen used to spend their winter, spell now stand absorbed into national parks across the states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. Clearly and apparently, these national parks have banned human interference in any form. To add to the discomfiture of these forest-dwelling nomads, in many villages falling on their migratory route, they are drawn into conflict with the local communities over the sharing of resources.

Around 1500 Van Gujjar families living in RNP are being constantly intimidated by the park authorities to vacate their forest homes. For, the argument of the RNP authorities is that the fast degrading forest stretches in the Shivaliks, of which RNP is an important component, can no longer sustain a "fast exploding human and animal population." The reluctance of the community to leave their forest homes despite heavy pressure from the forest bureaucracy has led to constant conflict between the community and park authorities. "Because Van Gujjars are vegetarians, they have never been a threat to the wealth of the park. This is the best example of human and animals living in perfect harmony. They don’t even burn a log if they find an insect resting on it," says Kaushal.

Around 600 Van Gujjar, families which reluctantly moved out to settle at Gandikhata, located at a distance of 25 km from the well-known pilgrim town of Haridwar, are now slowly realising that making a living outside the forest environment is not "their cup of tea." Each family was allotted 10 bighas of land on which have they have put up their improvised dwellings.

Of course, before they moved out of their forest homes, they were promised a whole lot of facilities, including permanent houses, cattle sheds, protected water supply, fodder for buffaloes as well as a doctor and a veterinary clinic to take care of their buffalos. "But so far none of these promises have been fulfilled," says Praveen Kaushal, Director of Sophia (Society for the Promotion of Himalayan Indigenous Activities), which runs the milk marketing enterprise of the community.

The moral of the story is that prior to the resettlement of an indigenous community given to a nomadic way of life, proper ground work would needed to be done to open the doors of livelihood opportunities in an environment they are not familiar with.