Shrinking pastoralism, fear of eviction — Forest Rights Act is the only hope for Van Gujjars of Sirmaur

Developed with World Bank funding, NH 907A from Shimla, the capital of Himachal Pradesh, to Paonta Sahib is wide and smooth, unlike any typical mountain road. 

It is almost a symbol of Himachal’s reputation as one of the progressive states in the country, often compared with states like Kerala on social development indices.

But as we hit the terai region of Paonta, the highway is surrounded by forests. We make our way through these to reach the deras (camps) where the Van Gujjars, a tribal community, reside.

Located within a 5 km radius of the highway is one such dera, Jammukhala. An untarred road through a dense sal forest leads us to Jammukhala, where traditionally adorned mud homes stand in the middle of wide agricultural fields and herds of buffaloes.

Van Gujjars constitute one of the major pastoral tribes of Himachal Pradesh and account for 23.6 per cent of the total Schedule Tribe (ST) population of the state, which is also the largest among the tribal population.

They primarily reside in Chamba, Solan, Mandi, Kangra, Sirmaur and Bilaspur districts of the state. It has also been the most vulnerable community in terms of religious marginalisation and facing the continuous threat of eviction.

The entire terai belt of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himachal, where they have historically settled because of rich fodder-laden forests, has been impacted by it, especially in the last decade.

Although Himachal Pradesh had a comparatively better record, the recent events of religious hate have begun to take Himachal into their grip, as evident in Sirmaur. 

In Sirmaur, Van Gujjars have settled around the nearby Panchayats of the national highway in areas like Jammukhala, Dhaulakuan, Puruwala, Majra and Behral, among others.

Even with no land in their names and houses made on government land, they have government addresses and identity proofs like Aadhar cards, voter identity cards and a few with ST certificates.

Although these ID cards give a sense of belonging to an individual, other than the name of their deras, which are associated with these panchayats, they do not own anything of these revenue villages.

By getting hardly any benefits that a village and its people avail under the Panchayati Raj Act, the Van Gujjars living in these unsurveyed villages depend on animal husbandry and forests as two major sources of livelihood and practice agriculture. 

 Directory of Villages having concentration of Schedule Tribe population excluding schedule areas in Himachal Pradesh. Source: (2011 census), data from Tribal Development Department, the government of Himachal Pradesh.

“Keep coming straight on the NH and stop when you see a shiv mandir (temple) on your right side, park your car there only, I will bring mine as yours can’t be driven on the kuccha road that leads to our village, it is extremely bumpy,” these were the instructions given to us by a young Gujjar Gami from Jammukhala when we were specifically asked about the type of vehicle we were driving. 

“I will show you how we live with nothing in these forests, I doubt you’ll come next time,” he jokingly commented while driving us through the dense forest for 2 km.

“Our children do not know anything, not even complete ABCD,” he said, blaming the parents for not paying attention to their child’s education.

“Although there is a road from the main highway to school, we need to drop off our children at the school during the monsoon due to the fear of snake bites; half of them don’t even go, many times even the teachers don’t come, no one will survive if bitten by a snake,” continued Gami who is the only person in his entire village to complete high school.

“Our deras are the best compared with others.They neither get any help from the Panchayat nor any support from the government. At least we could bring water pipeline and electricity under The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, (FRA) 2006 through vote bank pressure,” Gami said with a sigh.

Recently, Parduni Panchayat made a complaint against the illegal encroachments of Van Gujjars settled in the outskirts of revenue village on forest land for many decades when they began filing claims under FRA.

This proves the uneasiness of the Panchayat towards the religious identity of this Schedule Tribe. On the other hand, these Van Gujjars are determined to fight for their rights under FRA, as they believe it to be the only way to do so.

Paradox of tribal development

The Van Gujjars of Jammukhala, predominantly a nomadic tribe, stay on pastures grazing cattle for six months during summers and shift to their deras in Paonta Sahib during the winters.

Wildlife sanctuaries and national parks were being made in the 1970s. At that time, the forest department stopped giving grazing and camping permits to them from the Churdhar area of Sirmaur district in return of an assurance that they would be given land, which did happen for many families who were settled in Paonta Sahib.

In fact, Himachal Pradesh has a better record in rehabilitating Van Gujjars as compared to the neighbouring states such as Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir.

Even the Van Gujjars from Jammukhala were shown such lands to settle, but when the Forest Conservation Act of 1980 came into force, these families could not be settled. Permits were given to some Van Gujjar families on other forests, which too were stopped due to the formation of Simbalbara National Park in Paonta Valley, Sirmaur district.

The government has given tribal status to this community but did not fulfil the promise of settling them all. Many families who are still landless cannot even buy land because of the state’s policy. When this homeless community started living on government land, cases of illegal encroachments were filed against them. Some families with ongoing cases against them have been living in fear of eviction.

FRA, the only hope

The life and livelihood of pastoralists have been shaped around the forest policies since independence. Decade after decade, they had to become accustomed to the new ways of living with the systems that made them compromise their profession, and now it’s climate change that has hit them hard. 

Until today, this forced compromise and sacrifice of their identity and livelihood has not been recognised by any state government, even after repeated assurances. This incompetency could earlier be blamed on the forest laws that took away the power of giving/distributing forest land under various land reform acts by the state government. However, the passing of FRA has given the state government a chance to amend this historical injustice.

The Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs, in its letter to all Chief Secretaries written on 8 November 2013, gave clarifications and issued orders regarding the conversion of Forest Villages and Impacted Villages into Revenue Villages under section 3(1)(h) of FRA.

Around 350 titles of land and houses and 28 titles of land were given to the right holders of Kinnaur and Lahaul Valley, respectively, at pre and post-election times, that the people were struggling to get since 2014.

But no single title has been given to any pastoralist in the 16 years of FRA, limiting the concept of tribal development only to the ‘visible and settled’ tribals of the tribal districts.

Even after a lot of political complexities, marginalisation and various forms of vulnerabilities that the Gujjar Bakarwal community has faced, Jammu and Kashmir has been recently ranked as the best performer by the tribal affairs ministry for implementing FRA and Gujjar Bakarwals have benefitted from it.

At the same time, the newly elected Congress government, in its manifesto, committed the recognition of the rights of forest dwellers through the speedy implementation of the FRA — a commitment for the first time by any elected government in Himachal Pradesh. The questions remain: How and when do they plan to give the long-awaited justice to this community if not now? 

Views expressed are the authors’ own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth

Himshi Singh & Prakash Bhandari are members of Himdhara Environment Research & Action Collective working on the issues related to environment justice in Himachal Pradesh.

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