The nation watched the long
march home of workers during the lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic. But there
was another vulnerable group that the cameras did not focus on. Nomadic herders
were stuck at several places with little fodder or water, many falsely blamed
for spreading the coronavirus.
Modern bias against
pastoralists has been fueling for long. British labeled them as thieves and
robbers and banned animal grazing, to protect forest for timber and to expand
agriculture into pasture areas for revenue generation.
Post-Independence
restrictive conservation policies continue to exclude them from forests while
open grazing grounds have shrunk due to encroachments and industrial takeovers.
Farmers who used to await the herders for field preparations no longer need
their support while climate crisis is disrupting the migration calendars.
All these factors have
forced many nomadic families to go for temporary migration or agro-pastoralism
which is a mix of farming and animal keeping. This has brought dramatic
changes, especially in the lives of women pastoralists.
They have lost autonomy and
financial independence while work responsibilities have increased. On the other
hand, girls are able to access formal education even if for a limited period of
time. These dynamic shifts at home and in field are making women re-negotiate
their rights and boundaries.
Pastoralism undermined
There are about 35 million pastoralists in the country grazing farm fallows,
grasslands and forests. Moving hundreds of kilometers with their herds, they
are well informed about seasonality and changing climate conditions.
Earlier, farmers used to
await arrival of herds because animals consumed crop residue and supplied
manure to the field. Preference for mono cropping, round-the-year crop
cultivation, and use of chemical fertilizers instead of animal manure have
broken this complementary link between farmers and herders. Now, crop residue
is burnt in the fields while herders find it tough to find fodder for animals.
Emergence of wildlife
sanctuaries have restricted access to forests while conversion of pasture lands
into solar parks, industrial zones and plantations have undermined the
productivity of pastoralists. Even though many have taken to settled livestock
rearing, they face challenges accessing local village grazing grounds as well.
Women’s increased responsibilities
Settled living also leads to
diversification in profession. Young men migrate to cities for alternate jobs
or for higher education, leaving women and girls with additional
responsibilities, including grazing, lopping and finding new sources of fodder
and water.
A film on women from Raika community, a pastoral group
of Rajasthan, has a woman saying, “As our men take up other work for survival,
we are more involved with the animals now. From dawn, our endless tasks include
cleaning the pen, bathing the animals, feeding them, milking, making buttermilk
and then household chores.”
The woman further narrates
that they have to finish all these chores before taking the animals for
grazing. “My daughter dropped out of school to help me. Her participation is a
big support,” she says in the film titled Raika Women Speak.
New gender divisions
Women from the Brokpa tribe
of yak herders in Arunachal Pradesh have similar
experiences.
Rising temperatures due to climate crisis have affected rearing of pure bred
yaks that are sensitive to heat.
Availability of fodder and
water in the pastures has reduced due to shortened winter and extreme weather
events. While some herders adapt by keeping their herds at higher altitudes for
longer time, many families settled down and took to rearing hybrid yaks that can
withstand higher temperatures at lower altitudes.
There was no gender division
of labor during the nomadic yak pastoralism, and women had equal access to
resources as men. But the recent integration into monetized economy has
confined women to household chores. They get into the trap of unseen, unpaid
work.
When these women started
going for daily wage labor work, they were disappointed to know that women are
paid less than men for the same work. This was never the case in their
traditional occupation.
Varied impacts
The change from a nomadic to
a settled form of pastoralism has in one way provided women the stability of a
homestead, but also produced instability in terms of loss of autonomy in
decision-making regarding economic spending and charting their future.
Selling milk and animal
droppings as manure used to give pastoral women financial independence. When
they choose a sedentary life, the milk from their animals goes to dairy
cooperatives, and the money goes to the men.
Women from Maldhari pastoral
community in Gujarat feel that diversification of livelihood has reduced their
access to economic resources.
“Their traditional outfit
had a pocket to store earnings from local sale of dairy products. Now they feel
more dependent on men and thus a loss of self-esteem,” says Neeta Pandya of Maldhari
Rural Action Group (MARAG), a herders’ advocacy group in Gujarat.
Attraction of money has also
reduced the quantity of dairy products women consume. The milk is sold to the
cooperative and whatever is left is consumed first by other members of the family.
Pastoral women are losing
many practices that they were passing on to generations during their journey.
Skills in making temporary shelters for family and pen for the animals,
identifying medicinal herbs of different areas, and bartering of goods have
declined.
Changing lifestyles
Strong local networks and
social circles that once enabled their survival and movement got disturbed with
changing lifestyles and patterns of migration.
“Life cycle of these women revolved around
co-existence but now their very ecosystem is changing, leading to shift of
power to men,” says Anu Verma of MARAG. “Strong, vocal and powerful
women have now taken to domestic labor. They feel loss of dignity. Yet, they
look for an opportunity to revive their traditional lives.”
Agency of Raika women is
undergoing changes as some of them get access to education and are finding
avenues to express their voices and reflect on individual and collective
freedom. To be able to ascertain the value of these transformations as negative
or positive is very difficult, said this report compiling views of Raika women.
These women are also exhibiting
resilience. They are finding ways to dissent with the existing systems, for
example, by stealthily grazing their flock in village gauchars (pastures) where
there is prohibition on grazing put into place through committees where the
Raika are not represented.
Limited education
Young Raika girls perceive
education as an important tool to navigate through various oppressive
institutions that they interact with on a day-to-day basis, and as a means to
secure a better livelihood other than day labor jobs.
However, women who have
successfully finished high school are usually discouraged from interaction with
the outside world, including going to the nearest town to pursue higher
education, through community rules dictated by men.
Many girls have to take on the
existing gendered role within the household, which includes taking care of
animals and taking on all those activities that contribute to pastoralism. In
the absence of young men who leave house for better job prospects, the lives of
younger Raika girls are tied down to pastoralism.
Shanmuga Priya T is an
independent researcher based at Surat, Gujarat. Views are personal.
This was first published in GoI Monitor.
Tags:
agro-pastoralism, Brokpa tribe, gauchars, Maldhari pastoral community, Maldhari Rural Action Group, MARAG, nomadic pastoralism, pastoralism, pastoralists, Raika community, yak herders, yak pastoralism