Contribution short abstract:

This research explores how the Gojri buffalo informs the identity and land rights claims of the Van Gujjars. By examining their multispecies relationship, the study analyzes how they navigate right-wing ecological discourses that label them outsiders.

Contribution long abstract:

The presentation explores the Van Gujjar community’s efforts to claim land rights under the Forest Rights Act 2006 rights in Uttarakhand, India. A pastoralist group primarily tending to Gojri water buffalo have historically faced marginalisation and displacement due to forest enclosures and conservation policies from colonial times, which have continued into the post-colonial era. The research focuses on how the community's relationship with their buffalo shapes their identity, resistance, and claims to land rights and citizenship. Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 and the ongoing challenges of claiming land rights under the Forest Rights Act 2006 have heightened the community's anxieties regarding citizenship. With the recognition of the Gojri buffalo as a separate breed in 2023, the community laid a claim to a form of specific traditional knowledge essential to formulating Indigenity under the Schedule Tribes Act.

The study aims to understand how Van Gujjar's relationship with the Gojri buffalo and forest influences their claims to indigeneity and citizenship, particularly as they navigate a political climate increasingly influenced by right-wing ecological discourses as ecologically impure and socio-political outsiders as Muslim pastoralists in Uttrakhand. By examining the multifaceted ways in which the Van Gujjars' multispecies relationships shape their lived experiences, this research aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness between human and non-human lives, the politics of belonging, and the ongoing debates in the forms of indigeneity in India, where the role of indic and non-indic faith assumes significant.