Forests integral part of our ethnicity, culture: Gujjars

Excelsior Correspondent

JAMMU, Apr 30:  Fearing evictions,  the  members  of Gujjars and Bakerwals Tribal communities of Jammu and Kashmir,  today stated,  that   forests are  an integral part of their  history,  culture  and  socio- ethnic practices,  since centuries. Speaking at a function organised by Tribal Research and Cultural Foundation ,  here ,  they appealed ,  to rehabilitate and develop  the nomadic tribes without interfering into their  culture.
Presided over by noted tribal researcher, Dr. Javaid Rahi , the programme was attended by the representatives of Gujjars drawn from different areas of  the State.
Dr.  Rahi,  in his address,  stated that  jungles are an  inseparable part of Gujjars and  Bakerwals  life, culture and economy. He said , being animal raring community their dependences on forests  is indivisible from their livelihood and day to day affairs. They are practising the forests as their home and shelter since centuries and any such exodus of community will affect on their traditions and heritage which is serving  more than 5000 years against all odds.
“We live in constant fear  to lose our livelihood ,   as in view of a number of Government orders directing us to leave jungles, so we are  expecting displacements ,” says   one of the  speaker belongs to nomads group  of community. Most of the part of the indigenous culture  of our tribe  will have adversely affected  ,  he  argued.
“Our relationship to ancestral traditions and ways of living must be retained alive and we have to fight against all those who are hell bent to throw us out from forests forcefully” another speakers said.
They demanded the adaptation of a national model to develop “forest villages” for tribal and nomadic groups of Jammu and Kashmir on the prototype of other Indian States and extension of the National Conservation Act, 1980  and Forest Rights Act 2006 to the State for the constitutional rehabilitation of their tribe in the areas belonging to them since centuries.
The Gujjar-Bakerwal Tribe, they said, are still nomadic and are shelter-less and pressing hard for identical rights available to all Schedule Tribe Communities of India for their development and rehabilitation.
There are thousands of Tribal forest villages in India developed with the financial assistance of the Ministry of Tribal Affair, Government of India, in different states but nomads of Jammu and Kashmir are without any such facilities in the State. Such provision of rehabilitation will also help a lot in stabilising tribal economy of Gujjars and Bakerwals, the speakers said.