Pastoralism in Transition

In this essay we focus on what appears to be an evolving transition among Gaddi and other pastoralist communities in Himachal Pradesh, India. Contrary to predictions of the demise of pastoralism, we argue that while there is evidence of sedentarisation among Himachali pastoralists, there is also an emerging trend of households managing smaller herds over a more limited part of the pastoral landscape. We use material from research conducted three decades ago, in combination with ongoing research studying the pastoral economy to understand the drivers of this transition. The essay explores shifts in labour dynamics, where increasingly pastoralist labour prefer cash payments and temporary work opportunities, indicating a reduced commitment to herding. There is an increasing trend of hiring labour from non-traditional herder households, such as Bihari and Nepalese workers, to manage pastoralist herds. Moreover, transitions to smaller herds enables easier management during the winter months when forage availability is limited. Himachali pastoralism remains profitable, but contemporary logics of herd composition, pastoral routes, and market dynamics no longer align with previous models. The essay concludes by pointing to emerging areas of research that might help in better understanding the nature of the ongoing transition in Himachali pastoralism, suggesting that sedentarisation may not be the appropriate term to describe the current trends and that these transitions and their implications must be further assessed before prescribing the eventual demise of pastoralism

‘It Takes Two Hands to Clap’: How Gaddi Shepherds in the Indian Himalayas Negotiate Access to Grazing

This article examines the effects of state intervention on the workings of informal institutions that coordinate the communal use and management of natural resources. Specifically it focuses on the case of the nomadic Gaddi shepherds and official attempts to regulate their access to grazing pastures in the Indian Himalayas. It is often predicted that the increased presence of the modern state critically undermines locally appropriate and community-based resource management arrangements. Drawing on the work of Pauline Peters and Francis Cleaver, I identify key instances of socially embedded ‘common’ management institutions and explain the evolution of these arrangements through dynamic interactions between individuals, communities and the agents of the state. Through describing the ‘living space’ of Gaddi shepherds across the annual cycle of nomadic migration with their flocks I explore the ways in which they have been able to creatively reinterpret external interventions, and suggest how contemporary arrangements for accessing pasture at different moments of the annual cycle involve complex combinations of the formal and the informal, the ‘traditional’ and the ‘modern’

Locating Local Elites in Negotiating Access to Forests: Havik Brahmins and the Colonial State 1860-1920

This paper is an exploration of how colonial forest policy in Uttara Kannara district of present day Karnataka was critically shaped by the interests of the Havik Brahmin community. Despite the protests of the forest department, the Havik community was provided a remarkably generous forest settlement to enable their production of areca nut, a high revenue earner for the revenue department. We explore the contours of the debates of the time and the strategies deployed by these areca nut cultivators. Ultimately, as is illustrated here, the forest department was able to enforce a restrictive conservation regime vis-‡-vis only certain sections of the population. By highlighting the capability of certain elites in negotiating with the state, we attempt to bolster the argument that colonial forest policy was neither excessively oppressive nor completely pliant in the face of local resistance