Himalaya Bound Page 19

  We didn’t linger long at Yusuf’s, since we wanted to reach Dhumman and Jamila’s dera before dark. They’d moved to a place about a mile away from the hut where I had first met them, up a different little tributary of the same main rao. They were still surrounded by jungle-covered hills, only their new hut was a bit larger than their old one.

  Their welcome was as warm as I could have hoped for, and I instantly felt at home, as though only a week or two had passed since I had last seen these friends that I’d come to know so well. Sharafat and Appa were particularly thrilled at my return: Sharafat made sure to sit right beside me, occasionally placing his hand on my arm, as we all drank chai and exchanged news; Appa was desperate to talk about the despair she felt as her divorce remained unsettled and her future remained in a frustrating state of suspended animation. Dhumman greeted me with visible, if understated, joy. The fact that we hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye before I left the meadows at Kanasar didn’t matter at all; he’d been confident we would see each other again.

  As we began catching up, there was one thing I wanted to know about above all else. The yearling. The one with the broken leg. Had it survived?

  No, Dhumman said. Despite their best efforts, the leg had become infected, and there was nothing they could do about it. The young buffalo had been buried at Kanasar. Hearing this, I felt deflated; I had hoped to walk among the herd and see a fully-grown animal with a slightly crooked gait, happily munching on leaves.

  I switched the subject, wondering whether they’d had trouble migrating to the mountains in the spring, and I was surprised to learn about how they had spent the summer near Kalsi instead of trying to reach their meadows.

  Aside from that, and their new hut, not much of significance seemed to have changed since I’d last seen them a year-and-a-half earlier.

  The next chance I had to visit them was almost exactly two years later, in October 2012, and by that time, several things leapt out at me as being different than they’d been before.

  Unlike the pristine peacefulness that had characterized the Van Gujjars’ forest world during my previous experiences in it, this time a palpable tension gripped the deras of all the nomads we met, and the Shivaliks seemed on the verge of conflict.

  Farmers from villages just outside the forest had decided to claim sections of the jungle for themselves, eager to cut down and sell the wood from the trees whose leaves the Van Gujjars use to feed their buffaloes. A couple of weeks earlier, the villagers had set up barriers in the raos, trying to physically block the Van Gujjars from returning from the Himalayas, then they threatened to burn their huts to the ground and attack their families with force, if that’s what it took, to force the nomads to leave the lands on which they had a legal right to live.

  By the time I got there, the Van Gujjars had settled back into their huts, but remained on alert; many more villagers than usual were tramping around the jungle, removing wood and asserting their presence in a manner that bore a tacit warning. For the first time, the Van Gujjars here feared being driven from their ancestral territory by someone other than the forest department. As the situation escalated, they appealed to the police and the forest rangers, who stepped in to avert an immediate eruption of violence, and instructed the villagers and the nomads to face off in court, not in physical combat. By the time I left the jungle, nothing had been resolved, but later, as the case was about to appear before a judge, the villagers backed down and the troubles were successfully diffused. Since then, with the implementation of the Forest Right Act in Uttar Pradesh—which is far ahead of its implementation in Uttarakhand—the Van Gujjars began to feel they had little to fear from their settled neighbors.

  While not as dramatic as the threats from the villagers, some of the other changes that I saw in the jungle in the fall of 2012 were equally notable and most likely of greater significance for Van Gujjar culture in the long run. For instance, many more Van Gujjars were driving more motorbikes up the raos and along forest paths than ever before (though neither Dhumman, Yusuf, nor their children had acquired one), bringing the sounds of motors and machines into places where they previously didn’t exist. And, back in 2009, Dhumman had owned his family’s sole mobile phone; now, all of the older kids had them too, despite the lack of connectivity and the rare opportunity to charge them. Sharafat had even loaded some videos onto his, though his screen was less than two inches wide by one inch high. He knew that this was something of questionable moral probity, but since the few music videos and sitcoms he possessed were all performed by Muslim entertainers, he rationalized that it was okay to watch them—as long as his father wasn’t around. This was an all-new intrusion by the modern world, and it struck me as a radical one, like an irreparable tear in the veil of the forest and a portent of things to come.

  Sharafat had gotten married about a year before my 2012 visit, but his wife was away with her family of origin when I was there, so I didn’t meet her; for his part, Sharafat didn’t seem any more enthused or disappointed about being married than he had when he was engaged—it was neither wonderful nor terrible, just a fact of life. Meanwhile, one of his worst fears had come to pass: he had fallen out of a tree while lopping leaves. Luckily, only his wrist had been broken, and it had healed well; by the time I saw him, he was again climbing into high branches to cut fodder for the herd.

  Appa’s divorce still had not been settled, and she was losing hope that it ever would be. Just when it seemed like the details were nearly worked out, her husband’s family would change its demands. Appa had tried going back to her husband a couple of times, but was even more miserable with him than in a state of marital limbo, so she returned to her own family and steeled herself to wait for a resolution, however long it took.

  The smaller kids, of course, had grown: little Salma was doing chores like sweeping and washing dishes; Yasin was chasing buffaloes and practicing smacking them with a lathi; Bashi had graduated from tending calves to milking and climbing trees; and Goku had become a competent cook and had transformed from a cautious leaf-cutter into a human thresher.

  Since they were almost always out of mobile phone range, I had no direct contact with anyone in the family unless I was with them in person. Between visits, it was rare for me to hear any news about them. So I was surprised in the fall of 2013 when I got an email from Namith, saying that Appa had called him. His note was a bit vague, but it sounded like the family was dealing with an unexpected tragedy—from what Namith understood, Sharafat had cancer and was very sick. I wrote a number of messages to Namith, and to Manto, trying to get some clarity about Sharafat’s condition, but the channels of communication were so murky that it was difficult to glean an accurate understanding of what was really happening until it was unequivocal. In early 2014, Sharafat—my younger/ older brother in the forest—died.

  When I went back to visit the family in September 2014, I caught up with them while they were migrating down from the Himalayas. I wasn’t sure how I would broach what I imagined would be a very sensitive subject, but I needn’t have worried about it. Within two minutes of my arrival at their temporary camp on the side of the road, Dhumman asked me directly if I had heard about Sharafat. I said I had, and Dhumman and Jamila together told me how horrible it had been to see him struggle and suffer and pass away.

  While his absence was obviously felt, the family had plenty of things to take their minds off their loss. For one, Jamila had had another baby about a year before Sharafat’s death—an adorable little girl who was already toddling around on her own two feet. Goku had married and was visibly pregnant. Sharafat’s widow, whose name was Mariam, had remarried his brother, Mir Hamza, providing a strong, smart, and cheerful match for the family’s eldest son, who had been without his first wife for several years (if you recall, she was the sister of Appa’s husband, and had returned to her family of origin when Appa left her husband).

  Appa, who I had been looking forward to reconnecting with, was missing from the caravan; earlier in the year, h
er divorce had at last been finalized, and she had married again, this time to a good man who lived in the forest, not in Gandikhatta. She was with him and his family and their herd, moving down from their mountain meadow. I was able to speak with her for a couple of minutes on the phone, and when we hung up, I mentioned to Goku and Jamila that Appa sounded happy. “Yes, she is,” Jamila said. “Very.”

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  Seventeen-year-old Mariam leads her family’s caravan through the foothills of the Himalayas, while carrying her two-year-old niece in a shawl.

  Bashi watches the water buffaloes while camped at 10,000 feet above sea level.

  A buffalo yearling with a broken leg is carried over a Himalayan pass to the meadow where the family will spend the summer. Everyone hopes the leg will heal, and the buffalo will be able to walk itself down to the lowlands in autumn.

  Chamar milks a water buffalo. Buffalo milk is the main source of income for Van Gujjars, and is a major part of their diet.

  Karim, four years old, getting his milk straight from the source.

  Bashi tends to the herd at sunrise, along the Asan River.

  Moving into the Himalayas, along the road that follows the Yamuna River.

  Sharafat dries off after a swim in the Yamuna River.

  Appa makes chai with her little sister, Salma, on a chilly Himalayan morning.

  Dhumman (far right) and Yusuf (second from left) meet with other Van Gujjars to figure out the best strategy to move into the mountains and avoid trouble with forest rangers.

  Though they are Muslim, Van Gujjar women never veil their faces—except on their wedding day.

  Mariam lops leaves from a tree in the Shivalik Hills to feed the buffaloes. Van Gujjars are careful to use forest resources sustainably, knowing that they will return to the same camps year after year after year.

  Little Halima rests on the forest floor.

  A pack horse grazes among pines in the Himalayan foothills.

  Jamila makes lunch, with some help from Yasin, while camped in the forests along the Asi Ganga River.

  Mustooq, Bashi, and Salma, in the Dunda Mandal Hills.

  Moving higher into the mountains, the family takes shelter from freezing rain under thin plastic sheets.

  Van Gujjars begin milking by taking some of the buffalo’s milk into their own mouths and spitting it into the mouth of the buffalo they are about to milk. They say it relaxes the animal, helping it give milk more easily.

  Dhumman and his favorite buffalo.

  Yusuf with his herd, along the Yamuna River.

  Five-year-old Salma leads her family’s caravan out the Shivalik Hills—from their secluded world behind “the veil of the forest”—on the second day of the migration.

  The view from Kanasar, where the family ended up spending the summer.

  Buffaloes lined up along the banks of the Yamuna at Kalsi, where hundreds of migrating Van Gujjar families converge.

  Hasina and her mother, Akloo. It’s possible—some say likely—that Hasina’s generation will be the last of the Van Gujjars to migrate to the Himalayas.

  All photos © Michael Benanav

  SELECTED REFERENCES

  Baswan, B.S., Official letter written by B.S. Baswan, Secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India, titled “Removal of Encroachments on Forest Land.” Dated 18 October 2002.

  Bhargav, Praveen and G.S. Rawat, “Site Inspection Report of Govind Sanctuary and National Park, Uttarakhand State.” 26 August 2009, http://www.wildlifefirst.info/pdfs/pa_ifa/2_Final_Report_Govind_NP.pdf

  Borgerhoff Mulder, Monique and Peter Coppolillo, Conservation: Linking Ecology, Economics, and Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.

  Brockington, Daniel and James Igoe, “Eviction for Conservation: A Global Overview.” Conservation and Society 4(3), September 2006.

  Davies, Jonathan, et al, Conserving Dryland Biodiversity. Nairobi: International Union for the Conservation of Nature, 2012.

  Gadgil, Madhav and Ramachandra Guha, Ecology and Equity: The Use and Abuse of Nature in Contemporary India. London/New York: Routledge, 1995.

  Gooch, Pernille, “A Community Management Plan: The Van Gujjars and the Rajaji National Park,” in State, Society and the Environment in South Asia, S.T. Madsen. Psychology Press, 1999.

  Gooch, Pernille, At the Tail of the Buffalo: Van Gujjar Pastoralists Between the Forest and the World Arena. Lund, Sweden: Lund University, 1998.

  Gooch, Pernille, “Van Gujjar: The Persistent Forest Pastoralists.” Nomadic Peoples, 8 (2), 2004.

  Gooch, Pernille, “Victims of conservation or rights as forest dwellers: Van Gujjar pastoralists between contesting codes of law.” Conservation & Society, vol. 7, issue 4, 2009.

  Joshi, Ritesh and Rambir Singh, “Gujjar Community Rehabilitation from Rajaji National Park: Moving Towards an Integrated Approach for Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus) Conservation.” Journal of Human Ecology, 28(3): 199-206 (2009).

  Ministry of Environment & Forests, Government of India, Order titled “Traditional rights of tribals on forest lands—discontinuance of eviction of tribals thereof.” Dated 21 December 2004.

  National Human Rights Commission (India), Testimony related to Case Number 14971/24/97-98, recorded 19 February 1998.

  National Human Rights Commission (India), Order related to Case Number 14971/24/97-98, Issued 4 March 1999.

  National Human Rights Commission (India), Report related to Case Number 14971/24/97-98, Issued 12 December 2000.

  Nusrat, Rubina, “Marginalization of Himalayan Pastoralists and Exclusion from their Traditional Habitat: A Case Study of Van Gujjars in India.” International Journal of Human Development and Sustainability, 4(1) Spring, 2011.

  Pallavi, Aparna, “Uttarakhand Gujjars Being Ousted Without Compensation.” Indiatogether.org, 5 September 2008, http://www.indiatogether.org/2008/sep/hrt-gujjars.htm

  Rao, A., and Michael J. Casimir, “Mobile Pastoralists of Jammu & Kashmir: A Preliminary Report.” Nomadic Peoples, Number 10, April 1982.

  Sharma, Anju, “Keep on the Grass.” Down to Earth, 15 September 2001.

  Sharma, Jyotsana, et al, “Forest utilization patterns and socio-economic status of the Van Gujjar tribe in sub-Himalayan tracts of Uttarakhand, India.” Forestry Studies in China, 14 (1), 2012.

  Singh, David Emmanuel, “Muslim Van Gujjars of Rajaji National Park in Uttaranchal, India,” Oxford Center for Mission Studies, 2003.

  Spence, Mark David, Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

  Supreme Court of India, Order disposing of Writ petition number 78/79 Mohd. Shafi vs. State of U.P, dated 12 July 1990.

  Thapliyal, Jotirmay, “Central panel takes note of curbs on Van Gujjars.” The Tribune, Dehradun Plus Online Edition, 14 June 2010.

  “Valley of Weeds.” Down to Earth, http://www.downtoearth.org.in/ node/17792

  West, Paige and Dan Brockington, “An Anthropological Perspective on Some Unexpected Consequences of Protected Areas,” Conservation Biology, 20 (3), June 2006.

  West, Paige, James Igoe, and Dan Brockington, “Parks and Peoples: The Social Impact of Protected Areas.” Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol 35, 2006, www.forestrightsact.com

  Zahler, Peter and George Schaller, “Saving More Than Just Snow Leopards.” The New York Times, 1 February 2014.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I owe a huge debt of gratitude to several people behind the scenes who helped make the research and writing of this book possible.

  First, I’d like to thank Praveen Kaushal, known to many as Manto, who is the founder and executive director of the Society for the Promotion of Himalayan Indigenous Activities (SOPHIA). Without the generous support that he offered in countless ways, I never would have met Dhumman, Jamila and their family, and never would have been able to see this project through to the end. Our many conversations clued me in about numerous aspects of Van Gujjar life, as well as the lar
ger socio-political situation in which they are immersed, all of which would have been much, much more difficult for me to uncover and understand on my own.

  I’d also like to thank Dr. Pernille Gooch, whose field research among the Van Gujjars was an invaluable source of information about Van Gujjar culture, providing me with a rich and detailed glimpse into their world before I ever stepped foot into it. Much of the background information I present about Van Gujjars in this book is in some way rooted in or connected to her work. Moreover, the record that her papers provide has helped me track the ways in which Van Gujjar culture and their circumstances have changed over time, and helped me formulate relevant questions to ask about their lives today.

  Though I will honor his wish to remain anonymous, I must thank my translator, “Namith,” whose assistance during the migration was absolutely essential to my understanding of what was going on most of the time! I have great respect for the physical efforts he made and the discomforts he endured in the course of helping me cover this story.

  Big thanks also go to the staff of SOPHIA, including Munesh, Nazim, Reena, and Joshi, who assisted me in various ways during my time in India. Also, thanks to Avdash Kaushal, head of Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra (RLEK), for several conversations as well as the copies of court documents that he provided to me, related to the Van Gujjars’ expulsion from Rajaji National Park. I’d also like to thank Ben Lenzner, a photographer who once interned with RLEK and spent considerable amounts of time with the Van Gujjars, who offered me valuable advice before I undertook this project.