AR Bhat
“A Nomad I will remain for life, in love with distant and Uncharted Places”
Before examining the endeavours of Gujjars and Bakarwals, let’s see the current status of such an amazing nomadic tribe. I still recall the thoughts that came to my mind on getting posted to Kashmir that, Kashmiris are the ones residing in Kashmir, however, it got clarified on the very first day of arrival at Srinagar Airport when my fellow officer asked the taxi driver” are you a Gujjar?” and he replied “no sir, i am a Kashmiri”. There was a noticeable drift and bitterness in his answer and that’s how I got introduced with two different communities residing in the valley, the Kashmiris and the Gujjar/Bakarwals. Instead of mentioning then separately, I have remarked Gujjars and Bakarwals as one community because as per number of Cast and Census surveys in the year 1861-1941, the Bakarwals are mentioned as Gujjar shepherds and claims the same origin as Gujjars.
In the overview of Kashmir’s traditions, the role played by Gujjars & Bakarwals doesn’t fit in the front stage, it always gets diluted because of their life style and livelihood and the balance work is being ensured by the transhumance process which Gujjars & Bakarwals follow every year. Since, for the duration of the year i.e. summers, in which all kind of works are carried out in the valley floor to include agriculture, infrastructure development, job fairs and transportation, the contribution from Gujjars & Bakarwals seems very less because for this duration of the year, more than 50% of the Gujjar & Bakarwal’s population migrate to upper reaches of Himalaya and by the time they fall back, it is already winters thus almost everything takes a seasonal break in Kashmir which perforce limits the development process.
In personal interactions with the said community, especially in my area of responsibility, many villagers who are in their 70s to 80s shared magical stories of their deterioration because of the prevailing terrorism during the years 1987 onwards, which, comparatively, didn’t affect much of the other community of Kashmir. As per their wisdom, since the style of livelihood enabled Gujjars & Bakarwals to memorise each and every mountain ridges and routes till and beyond our western borders, the abductions of their kids in their early age had started to mould them into anti national elements resulting into beginning of the decadence of Gujjars & Bakarwals as a community. Many families of this community claim to have possession of lands equivalent to that of Kashmiris up-till the year 1990, however, because of the scourge of terrorism, the community as a whole was hit by a setback particularly in the region of Jammu and Kashmir and within few years almost all of them were in debt and till date they are still trying to recover from the losses
The problems faced by the community were recognised and considered by the government and the tribe was designated as Indian Scheduled Tribes in the year 1991 for Gujjars & Bakarwals of UT of Jammu and Kashmir[1]. It won’t be incorrect in mentioning that over last two decades the conditions of Gujjars & Bakarwals have improved. Few months prior, when I was sharing a cup of tea with a Bakarwal family, during the interaction one of the individuals (must be near 35 years of age) told “Sir, please help us to bring tourists here, so that we can also generate self-employment”. I was surprised to hear such a thought process and foresight by a Bakarwal. This isn’t a mere statement, rather it’s a wave of change and aspiration among one of the oldest nomadic tribes in the world.
Appreciating the aspiration from this community to contribute towards development of society be it in agriculture field, tourism industry, infrastructure development, conservation of forests and supporting security forces in maintaining the normalcy in valley, the government has started many schemes and programmes to include hostel facilities for their children, different loan related to livestock and amended forest act to facilitate dhoks on the upper reaches. Such facilities will definitely raise the living standards of Gujjars & Bakarwals community and also will imbibe sense of contribution in the society.
