Van Gujjars and the Indian Army
Thoughts from our Political Editor on the withdrawal of three policies by the Modi Govt, a take on August's longform on Van Gujjars by Sharjeel Usmani, and whats in store for September.
Hello hello! In August, the Narendra Modi government withdrew three policies after announcing them—the Waqf Bill, the Broadcasting Bill and the lateral entry recruitment for civil services. Each move was widely criticised by opposition parties and civil society organisations, and most crucially, by coalition partners. Three withdrawals within the first three months of the third term—there were as many across the ten years of Modi’s first two terms with absolute majority. Perhaps a clearer sign of a weakened union that cannot easily be masked with the aggressive posturing of UAPA sanctions.
Apart from the continuing simple pleasures of a coalition government, it’s also been a great month because we finally published our big investigation! After four months of reporting, which included multiple trips of hours of trekking into the Shivalik forest, we published Sharjeel Usmani’s investigation into the killing of Van Gujjars by the Indian Army. Sharjeel reported on three individuals—28-year-old Fatima, 11-year-old Mohammad Haneef, and 55-year-old Gulam Mustafa—whose families said that the Indian Army, firing from the Asan Field Firing Range, had led to their deaths.
Fatima was eight months pregnant and bled to death in front of her family, as they sought shelter in a trench while the firing continued above them; Haneef picked up an explosive that had failed to detonate mistaking it for a toy, Mustafa died shielding his daughter as shrapnel pierced through his house wall. Sharjeel’s reporting is remarkable not just for bringing these stories to light—which includes a moving video testimony by Fatima’s father-in-law, Noor Mohammad—but for highlighting the social, political and economic context that explains the impunity and apathy at the centre of the story.
The Van Gujjars are a forest-dwelling pastoralist community who have lived in the region for generations, with 100-year-old documents to prove it, and practice seasonal migration between mountains and lowland pastures. Many Van Gujjars said the migration is important for the forest to heal and regrow—a consideration that is, in cruel irony, used to deprive them of forest rights, and ignore their existence in the jungle, putting them in the line of army firing. Meanwhile, as Sharjeel discovered, the locals of the nearby villages are happy to look the other way because of a lucrative contract that gives them the right to pick up the shells left in the forest and sell them.
Despite Fatima’s death occurring during a period that the army did not even hold a valid lease on the forest land, it was subsequently renewed for 30 years, until 30 June 2050. The Van Gujjars, meanwhile, continue to struggle for their forest rights. ““We are not saying that only we will stay in the forest and the army has to go,” Noor said. “We only want peace in our lives. We want to be relocated to a safer place where our daughters and sons don’t die from bombs dropping from the sky. We want us to be safe, and our jungle to be safe.”
Do read Sharjeel’s excellent, and first, investigation for the Polis Project. There’ll be more where that came from—quite literally, the Shivalik forest and the Van Gujjars have many stories to tell, and Sharjeel will be there to hear them. But more on that next month. Meanwhile, Watch The State is tracking the targeted assault and intimidation of Muslim locals and shop owners in Uttarakhand, as the pattern from last year begins to repeat itself.
This month, as Kashmir goes to polls for the first time in ten years, we are excited to publish an important piece that looks at a central feature of life in the region, which may not be about electoral politics, but as most things Kashmiri, it’s not not political. We’ll be publishing that very soon. And even sooner than that, we are incredibly grateful to be able to continue our BK-16 Prison Diaries series, with a powerful, insightful and evocative piece by Ramesh Gaichor, written in prison and translated from Marathi. And as always, our Disappearance and Demolitions projects will continue to bring important stories from often forgotten places. It’s going to be a promising month! Until the other side.
Arshu John
Political Editor
Disappearances
In the Disappearance project, Aabha Muralidharan will document the state practice of disappearances. This month, we will look at the disappearances caused by the heatwaves in India, apart from looking at other state-enforced disappearances of land, bodies and mind.
Sign up for Aabha’s monthly newsletter here for updates and discussions from her research!
Demolitions
In the Demolitions project, our research will delve into important issues surrounding demolitions in India, including housing rights, impact on communities, legal frameworks, displacement and development, and the broader socio-political contexts that lead to it. This month, we are excited to publish our first profile of one of the houses, studying the demolitions through an ethnographic lens by looking at the lives and histories associated to these properties. Through this research, we hope to amplify the voices of affected communities and advocate meaningful interventions.
Sign up for a monthly Demolitions newsletter here!
Photo by: Meer Faisal
August long form
Here’s a little excerpt from Sharjeel’s investigation, “Jungle Raj: Indian Army accused of killing Van Gujjars during illegal use of firing range in Shivalik forest”:
Over the years, Noor and other Van Gujjars have picked up some details about the army’s training. They noted that in subsequent years, the practice sessions involved use of more dangerous artillery and explosives in the training. Most Van Gujjars I interviewed could identify various weapons, and some could recognise the different teams practicing those weapons. “There are three main explosives they use here,” Noor said. “The one that killed Fatima was the 12-kg one. It has a helicopter shaped body—with a tail, or like a rocket. When it explodes, its impact is felt in all directions.”
Correction: In the August newsletter, I wrote that Karan Bhushan Singh won the Lok Sabha polls from the Kairana constituency. He won from Kaiserganj, which was previously represented by his father, Brij Bhushan Singh. Apologies for the error.