Email: faridi.afreen@gmail.com

Affiliation:   Jawaharlal Nehru University

Nationality:   Indian

Food Sovereignty of Pastoral Nomads in Western Himalayas: From Subsistence to Dependence

Abstract

The Himalayas of South Asia are home to many tribal communities. The Gujjar-Bakarwal tribe of Jammu and Kashmir are one of the largest transhumant tribal groups which undertake seasonal migration across the Himalayas along with their flock. The collaboration of modernisation project under neoliberalism during the period of the Covid-19 pandemic and rearrangement of the federal structure have reshaped the various spaces occupied by this pastoral tribe and their ecological occupations.

It is the contention of this research proposal that the destitution of tribal societies in India through an analysis of tribal policies, programmes and research based on 'exclusionary' politics is simplistic and misleading. The Indian state has promoted policy tools that enable such groups to represent their interests and become collaborators in the policy making process. However, its policies of market orientation and globalisation have burdened pastoralists through privatisation and commercialisation of community-regulated resources (Agrawal 2005). In this regard, there is a need to view state and market mechanisms as a tool of 'integration' of tribes into the mainstream mode of production which at once exploits and impedes the socio-economic progression of tribal communities. Furthermore, there is a need to analyse land and livelihood policies for determining the shifts in modes of production and reproduction utilised by tribes, in the 'modern' nation-state against the predominant market system, through the notion of 'adverse inclusion' (Nathan & Xaxa 2012).

The proposed paper locates renewed land and livelihood policies in Jammu and Kashmir as an anthropogenic tool of ecological dispossession and ethno-nationalism which peripheralizes the native pastoral communities in this Western Himalayan state. Such an analysis would unravel the impact of state policy - through variance in land use and political representation - on informal agrarian production undertaken by nomadic pastoralists of Jammu & Kashmir living in border areas affected by climate duress and extreme weather conditions in the Himalayas. As researchers locate climate change and multiple vulnerabilities (Sajad and Batool 2022; Malik and Ford 2024), this research seeks to explore the 'metabolic rift' occurring within the tribe itself and the factors contributing to it. Set against the changing federal structure and state policy, stormy political climate and new policy land regimes in Jammu and Kashmir, the research shall locate the shifts in informal ecological labour and food production regimes within the tribe and its consequences for the region's environment and native ecologies. In the context of the lived experiences of the Gujjar-Bakarwal, political ecology (Sultana 2022; Long 2024) will be used to view the impact of changed federal structure and climate change on spatial and social mobility of the tribe. The proposed paper shall use ethnographic narratives to situate access to food and livelihood within the Gujjar-Bakarwal community as the ever-growing city engulfs their traditional settlement zones in the winters. Such an analysis would unravel the prospective impact of social fragmentation and political representation on the nomadic pastoralists' ability to produce and procure essentials for social reproduction.

Bio

Afreen Gani Faridi is PhD Candidate at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He had recently joined as an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Communication and Critical Thinking, JK Lakshmipat University.

Afreen specialises in utilising Political-Economy to analyse Constitutionalism, Public Policy, & shifts in Labour Practices amongst the pastoral tribes of Jammu and Kashmir. founded the Peoples of Himalaya Academic Network to strengthen local academic capacities in the Western Himalayas.