ABSTRACT
The Van (forest) Gujjars are a community of forest pastoralists living in the central parts of the Indian Himalaya. The world of the Van Gujjars is a world of forest and they see themselves and their buffaloes as part of the forest and its wildlife. In 1992 the Van Gujjars were denied entrance to their winter quarters when they returned after spending summer in the alpines. This was the start of a conflict over conservation that turned into a movement for forest rights and environmental justice. The chapter discusses how two contradictory discourses have dominated discussions surrounding the Himalayan environment and the people subsisting on their natural resources. One is the Malthusian approach blaming the rural poor for destruction of the environment. The other sees the rural poor, dependent on natural resources for their subsistence, as the protectors of the environment. The chapter shows how the Van Gujjars were presented as ‘destroyers of nature’ at the start of the conflict, here seen as a dystopia. During the movement that evolved, and with the assistance of a local NGO, the Van Gujjars changed their position from destroyers to protectors and were close to obtaining forest management. This has been seen as the imagery of a concrete utopia. In the end the Van Gujjars lost out – still in the forest but without any formal right. The study is based on extensive and engaged fieldwork stretching over a period of three decades.
