Caring for Glaciers

Land, Animals, and Humanity in the Himalayas

Karine Gagné, K. Sivaramakrishnan

• Editorial: University of Washington Press
• Año: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780295744025
• Categoría: Storia
• Categoría: Storia dell'India e dell'Asia meridionale

Regional geopolitical processes have turned the Himalayan region of Ladakh, in northwest India, into a strategic border area with an increasing military presence that has decentered the traditional agropastoralist economy. This in turn has led to social fragmentation, the growing isolation of elders, and ethical dilemmas for those who strive to maintain traditional subsistence activities. Simultaneously, climate change is causing glaciers—a vital source of life in the region—to recede, which elders perceive as the consequence of a broken bond with the natural environment and the deities that inhabit the landscape. Caring for Glaciers looks at the causes and consequences of ongoing social and cultural change in peoples' relationship with the natural environment. It illuminates how relations of reciprocity - learned through everyday life and work in the mountains with the animals, glaciers, and deities that form Ladakh's sacred geography - shape and nurture an ethics of care. Integrating contemporary studies of affect, landscape, and multispecies anthropology, Caring for Glaciers contributes to the anthropology of ethics by examining the moral order that develops through the embodied experience of life and work in the Himalayas.

CHAPTER ONE

The Loneliness of Winter

Continuity and Change in the High Mountains

It is really good times for the children these days, but for the old people it is very miserable and sad, because they are all alone.

—TSERING DOLMA, NYE VILLAGE

Though it was tougher then, people were happy at heart.

—TASHI YANSKIT, BASGO VILLAGE

ENTERING SHAM BY FOLLOWING THE INDUS DOWNSTREAM ABOUT 30 kilometers from Leh, the visitor is greeted by the magnificent sight of the confluence with the Zanskar River. A 2-kilometer trek along the Indus’s immaculate, gray-colored sandbanks leads to Nyemo village. The water, which turns brownish in summer, when the surrounding glaciers are in their seasonal melt, slowly becomes turquoise in autumn, before partly freezing in winter. In the absence of central heating, winter can be a time of physical discomfort, but this is offset by the charms of the beautiful wintry landscape. By early January, the surrounding summits have become white and the fields are covered with snow. With this winter landscape comes a strange silence. The ambient noises are muted, as if absorbed by the white blanket. The winter cold seems to slow the pace of all activity. Time appears to stand still. The small village of Nyemo feels quasi-abandoned. Elders sitting in the warmth of the afternoon sun are just about the only souls to be seen. The villagers who have not deserted Ladakh for the winter take refuge in their kitchens, the only comfortable part of a Ladakhi house at this time of the year. Even Leh town starts to feel like a ghost town as early as November. As winter creeps in, all activities become increasingly difficult.

1.1Harvesting potatoes by the Indus in Nyemo in October

To understand the ramifications of these seasonal changes on Ladakhis’ engagement with Ladakh as a place, we must first look at the elements of the traditional organization of life and work in the region. This requires considering the household as a site of integration for various economic activities, something made possible only through a division of labor among extended family members. Seasonal outmigration is one of several patterns of mobility adopted by Ladakhis today, which brings a wide range of experiences, often contrasting along generational lines. Along with rural depopulation, seasonal outmigration shows that the traditional Ladakhi household is no longer the fundamental site of economic integration. For many, the pursuit of aspirations often entails physical departure, sometimes partial, sometimes complete, from a unit that not so long ago was the only means of survival in this region.

The nature of the Ladakhi household as a locus of social integration, in particular for different generations, is also today seriously compromised. In both academic and popular discourses, descriptions of Ladakh often revolve around the trope of remoteness, with the region being painted as extremely isolated geographically. More than the product of a distinct geography, the experience of remoteness is often the result of historical processes, political violence, and discursive constructs (Hussain 2015; N. Mathur 2015). Moreover, imaginations about edges and remote spaces are inseparable from conceptions of centers (Harms et al. 2014:363–65). Although from the economic and political perspective of Delhi, Ladakh may have long been a remote area, the feeling of isolation experienced by Ladakhi elders today is only exacerbated by state interventions that, since the independence of India, have aimed at integrating the region with the rest of the country. These measures have ramifications in the Ladakhi household, which is losing its nature as a site of continuity and interdependence between generations. Many elders increasingly experience Ladakh in terms of isolation, as family members and neighbors move outside the villages for extended periods of time.

“Loneliness” here refers to the profound sense of isolation elders feel amid what many describe as “empty houses,” as well as a feeling of having become a burden. Articulation of this feeling often gravitates around the perception that household dynamics and communal life are no longer the same, as people have seemingly become more preoccupied by their own interests than by those of their family and their community. For elders, loneliness is a product of a younger generation’s social and economic aspirations, which are closely linked to the increased presence of the state. Since India’s independence, Ladakh has benefited from infrastructure development and poverty reduction schemes, and has seen increased access to employment in the state apparatus, whether in the army or the civil service, which by and large implies long stays outside the villages or even relocation to Leh. But overall, because it has not proceeded at the same pace as elsewhere in India, development has generated unmet expectations, especially in the rural area, which has become increasingly conceived as an outer fringe with limited opportunities. More than any geographical disposition, it is precisely dissatisfaction with the absence of development that often leads younger generations of Ladakhis to depict Ladakh as a remote place. Many lament the lack of access to resources in the region, the poor quality of communication infrastructure, and the physical discomfort as well as lack of sources of income during winter.¹ Elderly Ladakhis, meanwhile, often emphasize how government investment in the development of the region has brought an easier life for younger generations, while they find themselves increasingly alone.

To be sure, the distinct winter climate of Ladakh imposes its own rules, which a growing number of Ladakhis are trying to avoid today. Winter is not unlike a long sleep.² Time stands still and a calm prevails, seemingly broken only during the festivities of Losar (Lo gsar), the Ladakhi New Year. Winter is a time of making the best of a difficult situation: enjoying the company of family, friends, and neighbors, talking for hours while drinking chang (a homemade barley beer) or butter tea. Without this dimension of social life and the rewards of social cohesion, winter can easily become a tremendously arduous experience. But this is becoming the reality for many today.

Movement outside Ladakh in winter is a relatively recent development. If perhaps not widespread, this phenomenon is significant enough to have arguably taken on an aspect of social capital, primarily because spending the winter in Ladakh signifies hardship. Among other things, winter means not having access to fresh fruits or vegetables and undergoing the sometimes intense physical discomforts of such ubiquitous Ladakhi winter chores as fetching water from a frozen stream, washing clothes by hand in frigid water, feeding the bokhari with wood, shivering at night despite sleeping under a heavy pile of blankets, and, worst of all in my experience, bathing in the winter cold. In addition, especially for those who do not have access to farm produce, life in winter is quite expensive.³ For families like Namgyal’s, who do not have a tree plantation, buying wood for the bokhari is a major expense. Indeed, we experienced it first-hand during the winter: when our supplies ran out, in late January, we needed to restock our firewood, but locating a source, finding a place to chop the logs to a size that could fit in the bokhari, and hiring help to carry the loads over the very uneven ground separating the road from the house all proved to be a logistical nightmare that stretched over many days and turned out to be a surprisingly costly affair.⁴

A significant group of Ladakhis who remain outside the region during winter is constituted of youths attending college or university; increasingly too, those who can simply afford to do so, especially among younger generations, spend the season in more temperate places, such as Jammu, Delhi, or Goa. In addition, the organization of livelihood around paid work, probably the most significant difference between generations in Ladakh, takes people out of the villages for many months or most of the year. While government employees, in particular teachers, are posted to various locations throughout the region, many others, such as those working within the ever-expanding government bureaucracy, have to relocate to Leh, and men employed in the army spend most of the year away from home. Overall, the population movements redefining present village life are varied and have significantly contributed to transforming village and household dynamics. The effects tend to be more evident in the harshness of winter, which can transform simple everyday activities into a challenging task.

BEFORE THE “GREAT HINDUSTAN”

Nyemo village is located on the bank of the Indus and thus along the same main road that in colonial times travelers, caravanners, and officials on duty took to Leh or Kargil area and beyond. One of only two roads that connect Ladakh with the rest of India, the National Highway 1D, crosses the village, having paved over what must once have been a bucolic settlement. This highway connects the town of Leh to Kargil District; the second major road links Leh to Manali, 480 kilometers away in Himachal Pradesh state. By November, both these roads are closed when snow covers the high mountain passes, and they open again only around May.⁵

When India became an independent country in 1947, the economy of Ladakh was based largely on subsistence agriculture and livestock rearing. Barter was also a crucial element of local economic relations, essential to providing households with necessary supplies. In Sham, the trade of local wool for various commodities from Kargil, Suru Valley, and Baltistan, as well as Changthang and Gertse in Tibet, was fundamental to the Ladakhi household economy. Each of these occupations, cattle rearing, agriculture, and trading, constituted a way of engaging with the environment and knowing the territory in this part of the Himalayas.

Today, as in the past, Nyemo village is an almost inevitable stop for anyone traveling through Sham toward or from Leh. In the era of trade caravans, the village was a supply point where travelers would buy various provisions for themselves and feed for their animals. And as a regular stop along the bus route, Nyemo maintains this function to some extent today. Several stores cater to travelers, most of whom stop here only long enough to have a meal and do some quick shopping. Buses and trucks come and go, their old engines leaving behind huge clouds of thick dark exhaust, which dissipates only very slowly in this high-altitude thin air. Adjacent to the village is a vast and charmless military camp.

Behind this frantic transit hub is a tranquil village filled with memories of the past. Tsewang Jorgais has lived all of his ninety-one years in Nyemo. When he was young, the village’s population was a fraction of its present size, which today stands at about a thousand inhabitants, according to official census data. The official numbers, however, are only a rough approximation of the reality on the ground, as significant proportions of villagers today spend more than half the year outside their home village. Tsewang Jorgais was already a married man when India gained independence in 1947. Sitting outside by the mud brick wall next to his house, he wears a brown koncha (gon cha), the traditional Ladakhi long woolen coat; a turquoise earring; and a long beard. Peeking out from under his wool hat is a small ponytail, thinned by age. The man still wears his hair in the style of the old days: shaved at the front and long at the back.⁶

Tsewang Jorgais is old, and he feels old: “I have lived beyond what is needed,” he tells me as we sip butter tea under the sun. He is tired of being trapped in a body no longer strong enough to cope with even the most mundane matters. “My eyes are so weak now, I cannot even see your face,” he confides. Loss of eyesight affects both old and not so old in Ladakh, thanks to the long-term effects of exposure to intensely bright sunlight, which leads to development of cataracts that often remain untreated. Tsewang Jorgais’s wife, Tsering Dolma, is only a few months younger than her husband and equally blind. “Both of us are of the same type,” he observes. “Both of us survived through very difficult times, and we are waiting for death to take us.” Although the years have not stolen Tsering Dolma’s ability to speak, her desire to do so is not apparent. She sits silently next to her husband. The couple’s attitude toward death reflects that of many elders in Ladakh. The pain of aging in this harsh environment and the consciousness of inevitably becoming a burden for others translate for many into a readiness for death, and elders like Tsewang Jorgais are often explicit about it.

The difficult living conditions elders experienced under autocratic, pre-Independence local rulers have also left scars. As an elderly lady once told me, “We saw so much hardship in our childhood that we became old really quickly.” For some, aging also comes with a profound feeling of loneliness, a situation as true in Ladakh as in many places throughout the world. “I have seven children,” explains Tsewang Jorgais, “and there is no one nearby, except one daughter who lives in Nyemo.” The rest of his children live in other villages, and it is easy to deduce from Tsewang Jorgais’s tone that they rarely visit their parents.

Tsewang Jorgais’s life, in his words, has been that of a sad man burdened by perpetual debts—a recurring narrative among the elders of Ladakh who once lived under the rule of the Maharaja of Kashmir. As a result of a long history of autocratic regimes, until two generations ago Ladakhi farmers were inescapably “born in debt, lived in debt, and died in debt” (Sheikh 1999:345). The written history of Ladakh contains numerous gaps, but the available sources show that in the eighth century Ladakh was under Tibetan suzerainty (Rizvi 1996:56). The boundaries between Ladakh and Tibet were established in 1684, after the death of the Fifth Dalai Lama (Rizvi 1996:73–74). The succession of kings who continued to reign over Ladakh nonetheless had to pay a small tribute to Tibet, which maintained a (loose) suzerainty over the region. This came to an end following the capture of Ladakh by the Dogra army led by Zorawar Singh in 1834.⁷ The takeover was sanctioned by the British colonial regime, which saw Ladakh as a “natural border” for India.⁸ In 1846, the treaty of Amritsar officially transferred Ladakh to the Dogra ruler, albeit under British suzerainty.⁹

Under the Dogra rule, which ended following the independence of India, Ladakhis were taxed unscrupulously.¹⁰ The tax load had to be paid partly in cash (bhap) and partly in food grain and firewood (jines); these goods were stored in state-run supply depots and sold to trade caravans or distributed as rations to government employees (Rizvi 1996:87). While forced labor (begar) already existed under the rule of the Ladakhi kings, it became a systematized feature of life under the Dogra rule. Peasants were forced to fulfill begar obligations, including working as porters, herders, and laborers for the state, the monastic estate, and for official and nonofficial travelers.¹¹ Begar obligations, as well as the collection of taxes for the tehsildar,¹² were supervised by local officials, who often took advantage of the system to enrich themselves at the expense of peasants. Intimidation, mistreatment, and violence perpetrated by officials was widespread. Far from being elusive, as can be the structural violence of bureaucracy that frequently characterizes the modern state, the violence of the Dogra state was not only physically real, but also all the more inescapable because it was often perpetrated by one’s neighbors.

Begar obligations left lasting marks on Ladakhis’ memories. Many elders remember with incredulity how when the British traveled in the region, Ladakhis had to carry individual palanquins bearing not only them and their spouses, but also their dogs. The work’s physical strain was exacerbated by abuse on the part of government officials, who would beat the Ladakhi porters with rods if a palanquin did not stay level on the steep mountain paths. Overall, the Dogra are remembered locally as greedy for both territory and resources, as well as for their often-brutal imposition of forced labor (Aggarwal 2004:35; Bhan 2014:29; Bray 2009:49). Elders in Ladakh today are unequivocal about the hardships of this period, which they roundly describe in terms of exploitation. “How miserable it was,” remembers Tsewang Jorgais. “We would come back from begar work at night in winter and it was so cold that our beards and mustaches would be stuck with ice.”

The taxation system generated a vicious cycle of debt, in which peasants were forced to borrow from richer families in order to meet tax levies, at interest rates as high as 25 percent, and it was common practice for moneylenders to treat debtors as bonded laborers. The peasantry’s living conditions ...