Caught in India-China clashes, Ladakh’s nomadic herders worry for future | Politics

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Chushul, Ladakh, India The effervescent sound of water boiling on the range and the aroma of spinach dal fill the air in Tashi Angmo’s kitchen as she rolls dough to make a sort of Tibetan bread.

“This is a dish which we call timok in Ladakh and tingmo across the border in Tibet,” she says as she prepares the equipment to steam the dough she has rolled into balls resembling dumplings. “It’s a delicious meal after a hard day’s work.”

Angmo, 51, lives in Chushul, a village which sits at an altitude of 4,350 metres (14,270 toes) in India’s Ladakh, one of many highest areas on the planet, identified for its pristine rivers and lakes, excessive valleys and mountains and clear skies. Chushul additionally lies about 8 kilometres (5 miles) from India’s Line of Precise Management with China, the disputed, de facto border between the 2 nations.

A sort of Tibetan bread known as timok in Ladakh and tingmo throughout the border in Tibet [Priyanka Shankar/Al Jazeera]

“I was around 11 years old when I realised that my family and I lived very close to the Chinese border. Back then, we used to be a family of shepherds, and I often went near the border with my father, to take our sheep herding,” Angmo says.

She now works as a labourer doing a wide range of duties from cleansing roads to serving to with development and cooking meals for different employees, for the Border Roads Organisation – the Indian Defence Ministry’s initiative to keep up roads within the subcontinent’s border areas.

Ladakh
Tashi Angomo lives in Chushul, a village which borders China in India’s Ladakh [Priyanka Shankar/Al Jazeera]

“We even used to trade apricots and barley which grew in our village with the Chinese shepherds. In return, we brought back chicken, some Chinese cookies and also teapots!” she exclaims and factors to the teapots which she nonetheless retains in her kitchen cupboard.

Even the Sino-India warfare in 1962 over border and territorial disputes between the neighbours, after New Delhi had given shelter to the Dalai Lama and different Tibetan refugees, didn’t undo that delicate steadiness.

What did was a lethal conflict in the summertime of 2020. Because the world was absorbed in its battle towards the COVID-19 pandemic, Indian and Chinese language troopers fought with sticks, stones and their naked palms alongside the Line of Precise Management in Ladakh’s Galwan valley. All sides claimed that the opposite’s troops had crossed into their territory. The shut fight combating led to the demise of 20 Indian troopers and a minimum of 4 Chinese language troopers. These have been the primary deaths alongside the border in many years.

Ladakh
The Indo-China border seen from Chushul, which lies about 8 kilometres (5 miles) from India’s Line of Precise Management with China [Priyanka Shankar/Al Jazeera]

Since then, either side have stepped up border patrols and moved troops to the area, and their troops have often engaged in standoffs.

In lots of Ladakhi villages bordering China, grazing and farming near the frontier has now been restricted by the Indian navy. Boating within the pristine Pangong Tso lake, elements of that are claimed by each New Delhi and Beijing, has additionally been restricted to solely navy boats.

“We can’t go near the border any more or trade with Chinese people. Shepherds – most of whom are nomads – have also lost land close to the border since the Indian military oversees the area,” she says.

The land has largely been swallowed by navy buffer zones on either side of the border, with wealthy pasture land for 2km in both path now a no-go zone for the herders.

Interactive_India-China_border_Galwan valley_October 10, 2024

Younger nomads and farmers shifting away

Donning a pink scarf and a gray sweater, Kunjan Dolma, who’s in her late 30s, belongs to the Changpa group – seminomadic Tibetan individuals who reside within the Changtang plateau in japanese Ladakh. She lives in Chushul in the course of the winter months and is nomadic all through the remainder of the 12 months.

Dolma tells Al Jazeera that the land close to the Chinese language border is a vital winter pasture for his or her animals. “But if we take our sheep and goats near the Chinese border, the military stops us and advises us to find grazing lands elsewhere. We have lost important pastures in recent years, but we have begun adjusting to the restrictions,” she says as she milks her sheep in an open-air shed constructed with stones and surrounded by the low-lying mountains.

“In a way, the military restrictions also make sense. They protect us from the Chinese soldiers who I fear might take away our sheep in case we go very close to the border.”

Dolma lives together with her husband and teenage daughter and the household has about 200 sheep whose wool they promote to make pashmina shawls. It is a vital supply of revenue, she explains.

She spends days within the mountains to make sure their yaks and sheep have entry to the perfect grazing lands in the course of the hotter months of the 12 months. The Changpa group retreats to the villages within the lower-lying hills of Ladakh throughout winter. She earns her dwelling promoting pashmina wool, and yak meat and milk.

Ladakh
Kunjan Dolma, who belongs to the Changpa group – seminomadic Tibetan individuals who reside within the Changthang valley in japanese Ladakh – tends to her sheep together with her household [Priyanka Shankar/Al Jazeera]

However Dolma’s daughter, like many younger individuals from the nomadic households of the Changtang plateau, has begun turning to different professions to earn a dwelling. Dolma added that navy restrictions on grazing land have additionally elevated the momentum of younger nomads turning away from this conventional lifestyle.

Sipping on a cup of heat water earlier than she heads to the mountains to make her cattle graze, Dolma reminisces about her youthful days when border tensions didn’t exist of their lands.

“I’ve spent many joyful days in these mountains with my sheep and when there were no border restrictions, it was very easy for us to take our cattle across pastures. We would also interact with nomads from China who were very friendly,” she says, including that she needs her daughter might expertise that very same nomadic way of life.

On the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Growth Council (LAHDC), an administrative physique within the union territory’s capital of Leh, Konchok Stanzin, 37, is a councillor working with the village leaders in Chushul to make sure native governance runs easily.

Talking to Al Jazeera on the LAHDC headquarters, Stanzin acknowledges the problems nomads in Ladakh have been enduring resulting from border tensions.

“Grazing land comes under the buffer zone which is currently no-man’s land. So, nomads face a challenging situation, trying to figure out where to take their yaks and sheep. Besides land, we also face difficulties in Pangong Tso where military border controls continue,” Stanzin explains. Tso is the Tibetan phrase for lake.

“[Young people] migrating out of their villages in search of work is a serious concern,” he famous. “This is also leading to the disappearance of nomadic traditions like herding which enable the production of pashmina. So we are trying to educate the youth to continue their traditions while also working on improving the economic situation in border villages.”

Ladakh
Tsering Stopgais, the son of Tashi Angmo, has moved to Ladakh’s capital, Leh, for work [Priyanka Shankar, Al Jazeera]

‘I still remember the Chinese cookies’

As he enjoys a cup of Ladakhi staple butter tea in his mom Tashi Angmo’s kitchen, Tsering Stopgais, 25, notes that producing jobs is the largest problem for the area.

“There once was an open trading route between India and China along this border. If that opens again, it will be a huge economic opportunity for many of us,” he says.

“My grandfather has crossed the border to trade with China and earned well. My mother used to also go near the border and trade with the Chinese. I still remember the Chinese cookies she would bring home.”

Angmo chimes in, saying the border clashes are all political.

“Social media also plays a role in spreading rumours about border tensions. In reality, it is not an active war zone and it is peaceful right now. It is a standoff between politicians and not people on either side of the border,” Angmo says.

On the sidelines of the United Nations Common Meeting assembly in New York in September, India’s Minister of Exterior Affairs S Jaishankar addressed the scenario in japanese Ladakh and mentioned: “Right now, both sides have troops who are deployed forward.”

At an occasion organised by the Asia Society Coverage Institute, a assume tank in New York, he continued: “Some of the (border) patrolling issues need to be resolved,” highlighting that this facet would remedy the dispute.

Chushul
Chushul village, which sits very near India’s Line of Precise Management with China [Priyanka Shankar/Al Jazeera]

Retired Senior Colonel Zhou Bo, who was within the Individuals’s Liberation Military (PLA) of China and is now a senior fellow of the Centre for Worldwide Safety and Technique at Tsinghua College and a China Discussion board knowledgeable, advised Al Jazeera that border patrols proceed as a result of “each side has its own perception about where the border lies”.

“So sometimes, for example, the Chinese patrolling troops patrol in areas which are considered by Indians as Indian territory. And likewise,” he says.

Based on native media stories, China has denied Indian troops entry to key patrolling factors in japanese Ladakh, claiming these areas belong to Beijing. New Delhi says this has made it tougher for the Indian military to hold out its common border safety actions within the area.

Senior Colonel Bo says that whereas the border problem is tough to unravel, each militaries have signed agreements prior to now to keep up peace and talks are persevering with to discover a resolution to unravel the navy and political discord.

‘Education can bring peace’

Counting the beads on her Buddhist mala and chanting a prayer, 71-year previous Kunze Dolma, who lived by way of the 1962 Sino-India warfare in Chushul when she was about 9 years previous, says she thinks schooling is what can result in peace.

“I just remember how scared I was during that war as a little girl. I thought the Chinese army would enter our school,” she tells Al Jazeera.

71-year old Kunze Dolma
Kunze Dolma, 71, thinks schooling can deliver peace between India and China [Priyanka Shankar/Al Jazeera]

“I now work as a cook in the village school and hope the children are educated about maintaining peace along the border and how people on both sides of the border need to understand each other better,” she tells Al Jazeera.

Tsringandhu, 26, teaches on the authorities center faculty in Chushul. “I teach children aged three to 10 years at this school. I teach them the Ladakhi Bhoti language which is an offshoot of the Tibetan language. I teach the students about the border in our village by telling them the history of this language and explain to them that Tibet is now a part of China and is across the border,” he advised Al Jazeera.

“When we educate children, we just tell them that the land across the border is China and not an enemy country. I look at education as a way to bring peace. If a teacher educates children about places and cultures in the right manner, hostilities will not exist and peace will prevail,” he says.

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