Articles
A State, Union Territory and Three Political Classifications:
The Gaddi Sippis of J&K and Himachal Pradesh
2022 Volume 12 Pages 19-36
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2022 Volume 12 Pages 19-36
Popular images and scholarly analysis of Gaddis almost always focus on those living in Himachal Pradesh. Most Gaddis live in Bharmour, the tribal-reserved area of Chamba, with a migratory contingent settled in Kangra. Many differences resonate between Gaddis living in their tribal homeland and in Kangra—most politically salient, their distinct histories of tribal classification and the ongoing disenfranchisement of Scheduled Caste (SC) Gaddis from tribal recognition in Kangra. This article examines one such SC group, Sippis, who have three political classifications (SC, ST, STO) based on locality and are actively petitioning for a fourth category (STD). I focus on the experiences of Sippis in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), where the state government classifies Sippis as an independent tribe culturally allied but juridically distinct from Gaddis. I show how reservation categories and ethnoreligious Othering have redrawn aspects of Gaddi sociality and created novel conditions for tribal Dalit belonging.
Building off the insights of Marc Galanter’s (1984) formative analysis of Indian reservation, anthropologists in the past decade have intensified the use of qualitative methods and critical ethnography to study the social field of affirmative action policies in South Asia (Shah and Shneiderman 2013). India’s affirmative action system is among the oldest and most ambitious in the world, extending back to the utilitarian experiments of 19th-century colonial ambassadors. Formally ratified in the Indian Constitution, the reservation system went through periods of expansion during the 1990s Mandal Commission and the recent addition of an Economically Weaker Section (EWS). Analyzing the recursive looping of government-administered ethnological paradigms for uplifting marginalized groups and the effects of such processes on ethnicity is a pressing matter in India, where roughly a quarter of the population lies within either Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) status and several thousand petitions for SC/ST classification await state adjudication. Researchers have analyzed this issue via the subjective contingencies of state ethnography (Middleton 2011); the changing idioms of caste antagonism through the stereotyping of recipients of affirmative action (Still 2013); and the growth of commensality restrictions when a homogeneous community is cleaved by different government quotas (Kapila 2008).
This article contributes data about the sociopolitical effects of Gaddis, a multi-caste tribal community that receives different reservation quotas based on locality. Specifically, it analyzes the Gaddi and Sippi tribes of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), whose ethnopolitical mobilizations for tribal rights has received no scholarly attention. Their uniqueness as a Gaddi migratory contingent only comes into focus after a brief detour into the caste heterogeneity and regional diversities of the broader Gaddi community.
The Gaddis are considered the paradigmatic pastoralists of the Western Himalayas, their notional heartland resting in Bharmour, in the Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh, a constitutionally-protected tribal area. Many Gaddis traditionally practiced transhumance, their seasonal migration routes extending between summertime Chamba highland pastures and wintertime Kangra lowlands. A sizable contingent of Gaddis permanently settled in Kangra along the southern spurs of the Dhauladhar Mountains. At that time, Kangra existed as a part of the Punjab, an area that British colonizers administered on the assumption of being tribal free (while simultaneously notifying several Punjabi castes as so-called Criminal Tribes). As a result, Gaddis living in Bharmour, Himachal Pradesh, received designation as a Scheduled Tribe (ST) at the first constitutional tribal scheduling in 1950 while Gaddis living in Kangra did not. The Punjab Reorganization Act of 1966 shifted Kangra into Himachal Pradesh, and the Mandal Commission reforms in the 1990s created favorable conditions for Gaddi ethnopolitical mobilization. In 2002, after a multi-decade effort, Gaddi Rajputs and Gaddi Brahmins (often called Bhatt Brahmins) living in Kangra petitioned for and finally received ST status. Alongside a raft of new constitutional protections, political representation, and economic opportunities, ST Gaddis in Kangra now legally held status akin to their ST Gaddi kin in Bharmour. The bureaucratic loophole that had divided Gaddis based on seemingly-arbitrary geographical locality now closed. Gaddis joyfully paraded in the streets of Dharamsala.
But the story is more complicated. While Kangra Gaddi Rajputs and Gaddi Brahmins celebrated their hard-won ST status, Gaddi Dalits lamented their exclusion from the petition for reclassification. They felt used by Gaddi leaders who led state ethnologists, during their tribal survey to ascertain if Gaddis living in Kangra were ‘authentically tribal’, into areas inhabited by impoverished Gaddi Dalit but then ultimately excluded these same Gaddi Dalits from the petition. These Gaddi Dalits—five castes in total, encompassing Sippi, Rihare, Badi, Dhogri and Hali—have variable degrees of Gaddi consciousness in how they self-identify as Gaddi, speak Gaddi language and exhibit various aspects of Gaddi culture and spirituality. They live in Gaddi villages and, in many cases, lived earlier in subordinate jajmānī relations or labored under a system of unfree agricultural bondage called hāliprathā.1 Over centuries, they went through a process of tribalization to partially-integrate into Gaddi life, but still they faced systemic casteism from Gaddi Rajputs and Brahmins in the domains of caste commensality, highland pastureland restrictions, caste endogamy and ritual exclusion. Some of these practices continue through today, although grassroots mobilizations seek Dalit inclusion as Gaddis and some mainstream Gaddi civic organizations broadly count SC Gaddis as authentically Gaddi. An ongoing social contestation in Kangra weighs whether the Gaddi tribe includes only ST Gaddis or embraces self-identifying SC Gaddis, as well.
Against the backdrop of contested multicultural tribal definition in Kangra, we turn our attention to the settled migratory Gaddis and Sippis in J&K. In many cases, they live in Muslim tribal majority areas that enmeshes them in episodic Hindu-Muslim communalism. Depending on locality, many Gaddis/Sippis classify as ethnoreligious minorities and have tenuous connection to their ancestral homeland of Bharmour and ‘commonsense’ markers of Gaddi ethnicity.2 Sippis, an SC group in Kangra and mobilizing for ST Gaddi inclusion, are categorized as an independent tribe in J&K. Sippis are considered culturally allied but political distinct from Gaddis, also categorized as an independent tribe. While both broadly Scheduled Tribes, with respect to reservation in ‘professional institutions’ (Part IV), both fall under the quota of Scheduled Tribe Other (STO), a category perceived as discriminatory (later discussed). This classificatory disjuncture grows even more tangled: in Bharmour, most Sippis are recognized within the ST quota, recorded as ‘Gaddi Sippi’ on their caste certificates and in the Revenue Record. Thus, Sippis in Kangra have SC status and seek Gaddi ST inclusion; those in Bharmour are ST by virtue of living in the tribal-protected Gaddilands; and Sippis in J&K exist as a distinct tribe. From one state to one Union Territory, three political classifications. This does not even address the grassroots mobilization for Scheduled Tribal Dalit (STD) status for Sippis and other Gaddi Dalits in Himachal Pradesh (see Christopher 2020a for a fuller analysis of contested tribal multiculturalism).
Before we examine how federal categories take on a life of their own in diverse sociocultural milieus, it is important to note that this is not only a Gaddi/Sippi story; the Denotified Criminal Castes (Vimukt Jātiyān) are also classified differently based on state:
For example, in Maharashtra, the ‘Phanse Pardhis’ are included in the STs, but their counterparts, the Haran Shikaris or Gaon Pardhis are categorized under the VJNTs (Vimukta Jatis and Nomadic Tribes, as they are called in Maharashtra). Similarly the Kaikadis in the Vidarbha region are grouped under the SCs but those from the rest of the state are under the VJNTs. The same Kaikadis are categorized as STs in Andhra Pradesh. One of the most populous tribes, the Banjaras or Lambadas (and their sub-sections) are included in the VJNTs in Maharashtra but categorized as SCs in Karnataka. Such anomalies are plenty (Bokil 2002: 1).
An anthropology of affirmative action needs to address the socio-historical contextualizations of such classificatory anomalies, interrogating if in fact they are anomalous. An urgent need to ethnographically study outlier cases exists not only as theoretical interest to scholars of caste and tribal studies but also in order to advocate for state recognition of intersectional identities and the reapportionment of reservation to more equitably distribute government assistance to the most needful. Behind the depersonalized acronyms of SC, ST, STO and STD is an easily forgotten but tremendous reserve of human suffering and aspiration.
This article draws from fieldwork in Gaddi/Sippi mountainside hamlets approximately two hours above Bhaderwah town and adjacent villages in Doda District. Kakol and Kansar villages account for approximately 85 families, and a handful of others live scattered in Bharo, Dhamnuda Bharai, Seri and Banjala. This research also takes into account interviews with Gaddi/Sippi intellectuals in Udhampur and with leadership in tribal NGOs such as the All Jammu and Kashmir Gaddi Sippi Tribes Welfare Association (AJKGSTWA). I also include observations from popular tribal Facebook groups I participate in since completing fieldwork in 2016; these online groups total more than 7,000 Gaddi/Sippi regional members.
Gaddis/Sippis migrated to J&K during a broader spreading out of pastoral communities into low-lying temperate zones during the winter months, brought on by state intervention. Several scholars have analyzed how state control of pastureland access shaped Gaddi migratory patterns (Axelby 2007, Saberwal 1996) and encouraged their nomadic interdependence with settled communities—ultimately “appropriate[ing] the caste superstructure, even though they remained external to its social dynamics” (Sharma 2015: 274). While the theoretical framing of the Rajputization of Gaddi pastoralists and the adoption of caste hierarchy remains debated, Gaddis clearly fanned out and integrated into neighboring low-lying areas outside Bharmour. The largest group of migratory Gaddis crossed over several passes linking Chamba and Kangra to ultimately settle in hill villages in and above Dharamsala, Palampur and Baijnath, and further down into a sprawling Punjabi cultural milieu. Their relative political power in those constituencies, where they hold approximately 30 percent of the vote share in recent elections, has given these ‘settled’ Gaddi communities considerable economic and political sway.
In J&K, the ‘Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Amendment) Act, 1991’ passed to amend the 1989 Scheduled Tribe Order. It constitutionally mandated the scheduling of four new tribes: Gujjar, Bakarwal, Gaddi and Sippi. Eleven years before Gaddis received ST status in Kangra, this amendment increased the number of tribes in J&K to 12, including the Ladakhi Buddhist tribes such as Mon, Changpa and Brokpa. When the state awarded this ST status in 1991, its census recorded 39,124 Gaddis and 6,195 Sippis. Their population, spread across often-remote districts of Udhampur, Doda, Kathua, Reasi and Ramban, figured 13 times fewer people than the combined total of Muslim Gujjars and Bakarwals.3 Although Jammu district is majority Hindu (33.45 percent Muslim), many Gaddi/Sippi villages lie in Muslim-majority areas, and Gaddis shepherds often interact with Gujjars and Bakarwal shepherds in seasonal pasturelands like Seoj Dhar. The contextual minority status of J&K Gaddis/Sippis—Hindu pastoralists who migrated from nearby Himachal Pradesh into often Muslim-majority regions—plays a key comparative difference between the two states. For example, Axelby analyses the strategies of collective advancement of Muslim Gujjars in Chamba, who must compete as ethnoreligious minorities within the Gaddi- and Pangiwal-dominated ST quota. He concludes that minority Gujjars “are less adept at profiting from the political influence and social contacts that other ST and SC groups have been able to draw upon to reduce their education disadvantage and economic marginalization” (Axelby 2020: 879). This dynamic is reversed in J&K as Gaddis/Sippis feel marginalized within the Muslim-dominated ST quota. Their successful alliance for shared tribal recognition is an alliance which does not hold in Kangra, where Sippis remain in the SC quota alongside other low-caste Gaddi-aspiring groups.
The Sippis of J&K experience their Gaddiness in complementary and contrasting ways from the Sippis of Kangra. Although granted ST status in 1991, Sippi ethnic entrepreneurs continue to pressure the Government of J&K with appeals for Koli inclusion as concealed Sippis, bolstering their plea with community-authorized auto-ethnographies.4 They contend that thousands of Kolis are misrecognized by the state; throughout Shipota and Udhampur, Kolis intermarry with Sippis, speak Gaddi dialect and for all non-official purposes locally considered as Sippis. This is analogous to caste conversion practices among Halis in Himachal Pradesh, who adopted Arya Samaj identities before the first constitutional scheduling and their current general caste name ‘Arya’ precludes them from reservation quotas (Christopher 2022b). Across the Dhauladhar Mountains, in Kangra, there are villages where several Hali families have emended their caste names to Sippi in the Revenue Record in order to marginally jockey for status among SC Gaddi groups. In all these instances of concealing stigmatized Dalit identities—Sippis becoming Kolis in J&K, Halis becoming Arya in Chamba, and Halis becoming Sippis in Kangra—what began as an agentive strategy for increased social status has backfired and unintentionally consigned marginalized people into ethnographically-incorrect and overly-competitive federal categories. These state misrecognitions have generated a range of tribalizing practices, ethnic associations, and political mobilizations.
As this article explores, J&K Sippis also struggle for social validation and caste equality. Intermarriage between Gaddis and Sippis is exceedingly rare, and segregated sacred spaces, cremation grounds and eating practices at functions continue as the norms of social hierarchy in many villages. The awarding of ST status to J&K Sippis, not as an interdependent part of the caste-heterogeneous Gaddi community but as a separate tribe unto itself, paradoxically enshrines difference as a means of social equality. This ‘separate but equal’ government solution reflects social realities that are neither separate nor equal. Scheduling Sippis as an independent tribe has divided Sippi opinions between gratefulness and resentment about the so-called ‘and wall’ (aur kī divār)—Gaddi and Sippi Tribes, plural—that further beclouds Sippi identity and impedes their cultural recognition as Gaddis. Many Sippis privately fret about being tribal but not Gaddi, especially given their vocational and sociocultural interdependence with Gaddis. Many feel that the government award has further entrenched perceived differences and impeded the birth of a multicultural Gaddi order.5
In contrast, the spectral threat of Muslim militancy and the need to form a unified front for tribal recognition have led to increased social solidarity between generically Hindu Sippis and Gaddis and an ‘us-them’ opposition with Muslims. In contrast with the situation throughout Himachal Pradesh, where pastoralism is widely viewed as atavistic and happily replaced with sedentary wage labor, J&K Gaddis/Sippis genuinely lament the loss of pastoralism. They blame the rise of Islamic militancy in the early 1990s for restricted pastureland access and a culture of jungle terror that stripped them of a profitable profession and a vocational sense of belonging. The social minoritization of the J&K Gaddi/Sippi community—as a tribal band alienated from the Bharmouri heartland and tenuously connected to identity markers—is further reinforced by the perception of Islamic demographic, social, and legislative dominance. As such, social cohesion between Gaddis and Sippis buttresses shared feelings of fear and distrust at Muslim neighbors and an opposing government administration. Meanwhile, Gaddis and Sippis in Kangra, bureaucratically divided into ST and SC quotas, exhibit as much social competition as social cohesion, depending on the context. Election-time vote banking rhetoric stresses the diverse unity of the Gaddi community while civic organizations like the Gaddi Welfare Board or Wool Federation exclude SC Gaddis from participation.
Kansar village is a mountainside hamlet above Bhaderwah town marooned without a drivable road. During fieldwork in early summer, I often chatted with passers-by while walking the path. “I have to buy new sneakers every three months,” a schoolchild joked while running his palm over the smoothed sole of his worn-down sneakers. A college student complained that he underperformed on exams because of time wasted hiking the mountainside trail. Every morning and early evening, about 30 Sippi students and many more adults traverse the ‘up-down’ (ūpar-nīce) path that connects them to the widened employment opportunities, educational facilities and cosmopolitan possibilities of Bhaderwah, nicknamed the ‘Kerala of J&K’ by locals for its historic degree college, high literacy rate and contribution to the arts. Accordingly, some Gaddis from Kansar village have abandoned their property and agricultural fields in surrounding mountain villages and taken up permanent residence in Bhaderwah.6 With the notable exception of the late Shiv Kumar, a respected Sippi ayurvedic doctor (vaid) who had a medicinal shop in Sairi Bazaar and a home at the city perimeter, many Sippis lack the financial resources to rent or buy accommodations in the city. As an aggregate, Sippis in J&K have less socioeconomic status than Gaddis due to their historical subordination as tribal Dalits—a trend also observed in Himachal Pradesh (Pattanaik and Singh 2005). As a result, many Sippis must allocate three hours of walking (one hour down, two hours up) from their village homes to their schools and workplaces.
In the past three decades, armed political conflict has uncomfortably closed the gap between Bhaderwah town and Gaddi/Sippi mountain villages. Although there have been many bouts of sporadic violence, interlocutors often described one seminal event. On May 21, 1990, members of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) opened fire, allegedly without provocation, on thousands of mourners participating in the funeral procession of Molvi Muhammad Farooq Shah, the spiritual leader (mirwaiz) of the Kashmir Valley and chairman of the All Jammu and Kashmir Awami Action Committee.7 En route to the Eidgah Martyrs Graveyard in Srinagar, the procession allegedly shouted pro-Kashmir slogans when it reached the Gowkadal Bridge and thus met with gunfire resulting in 21 official fatalities.8 In response, dozens of young Muslim men from Bhaderwah supposedly absconded to Pakistan to undertake training in armed resistance. “Most Muslims sided with the fighters (mujahid) and rejected the military presence,” a Bachelor’s student born after the events described to me. “They returned to Bhaderwah and received our sympathy,” even as, he continued, local Muslims and especially Gujjars and Bakarwals suffered harassment at their hands. In 2017, Masood Ahmed Beigh, the Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission Deputy Superintendent of Police, released an interim report holding 15 CRPF officers guilty of indiscriminate massacre (Kashmir Convener 2017).
Military brutalities and the excesses of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) have impacted Bhaderwahi communalism and led to spill over violence in Gaddi/Sippi villages. Beginning on August 15, 1992, guerrilla-style insurgencies claimed the lives of 180 civilians within two years in Doda District, including Muslim informants and Hindu shepherds (Baweja 1994). Kashmiri militants killed 16 Hindu bus passengers near Kishtwar, which led to cascading Hindu protests and state curfews. In retrospect, this event was a harbinger of spreading militancy into Jammu and violent reactionary measures by Hindu political parties, such as the BJP’s Save Doda Agitation (Sharma 1995). Communalism intensified in 1994 when, in the span of a week, Swami Raj Katal, the BJP district Vice President, and Ruchir Kumar, an RSS leader and political firebrand, were both assassinated in Bhaderwah. While Hindus retaliated by assaulting Muslims and razing their homes, the Border Security Force chased insurgents into mountain preserves.
In Kansar village, a splintered hole in a wooden veranda beam is the last visible marker of the ensuing gun battle between Sippis and fleeing militants in 1994. According to the Kansar lambradār,9 militants fired warning shots into the air from the perimeter of the village while surrounded Kansar Sippis and Gaddis huddled in their homes, armed with knives and a few antique guns called ‘twelve anklet bells’ (barahbor) due to their arcane loading mechanisms. Until early the next morning, the lambradār exhausted the fifty or so rounds of ammunition stockpiled from surrounding homes. Eventually three Indian soldiers slipped into his home and overwhelmed the militants with superior firepower. They fled to nearby Dandi village, where they were apprehended.
“It is told (sunī sunāī vālī bāt) that a captured militant described to the police how in our village he was followed by a woman, dressed in blood red, sometimes darting in front and back and side-to-side, always escaping his gunfire. We believe that this woman is Chandi Mata”, the lambradār continued, the protector deity of Kansar renown for slaying a local monster (rākshas), whose gigantic calcified molar tooth remains enshrined in the local temple as physical evidence.
For many Gaddis, the perception of Muslim violence or first-hand experience with militants serve as the stated reasons for embracing Sippis as part of a culturally-unified tribal fold. Although Bhaderwah is not a site of intense communalism, pastoral tribes periodically find themselves caught in the crosshairs of Hindu-Muslim violence. The assassination of Ruchir Kumar was a watershed moment. More recently, however, Quranic verses were allegedly found packed inside exploded firecrackers in Sairi Bazaar the morning after Dussehra, a prominent Hindu festival. A photograph circulated on social media of charred Quranic verses spilling out of blackened firecracker shells. From the floor of the Jama Masjid, leaders of the Anjuman-e-Himayat-e-Islam called for a ban against Hindus. “Those of you feeling so much emotion (jazbā) about this injustice should not buy even one liter of petrol from a Hindu”, a Muslim man recounted from the speech to me. The Hindu families most prominently involved in anti-Muslim hooliganism (pange kā kām) are not Gaddi, and in general, Hindu and Muslim shepherds are considered impacted bystanders or conscientious objectors in the political wrangling of the ‘Hindus Unite’ sloganeering of the Sangh Parivar or the anti-state agitations of Jamaat-e-Islami and Anjuman-e-Himayat-e-Islam.
Sippi boys in Kansar village showing a bullet hole reminder of militancy. Photo by the author.
The ideological consequence of the threat of Islamic militancy, real or perceived, leads to the notion among Gaddis that caste-based discriminations are effectively consigned to the past. Parveen Jaryal, president of the All Jammu and Kashmir Gaddi Sippi Tribes Welfare Association (AJKGSTWA), described to me how he feels like since the 1990s the only meaningful social division is between Hindus and Muslims. “Before militancy, Gaddis treated Sippis just like they do in Bharmour—discrimination (chutachāt) at feasts and around stoves (chule). But militancy in Bhaderwah has nearly eliminated Gaddi discrimination. We are now part of a two-party system: Hindu versus Muslim.”
During bouts of communal intensification, Sippis and Gaddis formed alliances borne from fear of wandering militants in the dense underbrush between mountainside villages. “We would only travel down [to Bhaderwah] in groups of fifteen. It didn’t matter then who was Gaddi [Rajput] and who was Sippi. We were in something together.” Such fears contributed to the gradual abandonment of pastoralism as a viable lifestyle. “The maximum damage during militancy happened to Gaddis because our entire profession (pāśā) was undermined”, Mr. Jaryal continued.
We had to sell our flocks; we couldn’t even go into the mountains. Many of us had to abandon our homes and fields. Only the bravest Gaddis would dare go into the mountains to reason with the militants, saying ‘We are poor; please excuse us and our flocks.’ But after several Gaddis were murdered, even the bravest could not overcome the restrictions. You see, we decided as a community that life is more important. It was our loss. I tried to graze my flock secretly (chupchup ke), but I too gave it up.
Such nostalgia for pastoralism, primarily driven by fear and resentment about Islamic militancy, uniquely arises for Gaddis in J&K. Transhumant pastoralism has sharply declined among Gaddis in Himachal Pradesh as they happily replace the physical dangers of the migratory cycle over the Dhauladhar Mountains for sedentary employment in the tourism or civil service sectors. Small-scale shepherding has ceded to consolidated mega flocks, and among Gaddi youth, social aspirations drift towards urban cosmopolitanism and away from their ancestral vocations. Even 40 years ago in Kansar village, which had among the largest proportion of shepherding households in Kangra, it saw a similar drift towards sedentary urban labor opportunities (Phillimore 2014). There is, however, a youth-driven idolizing of a lifestyle of itinerancy and indeterminacy through the social media tag #radkaat (raṛkāṭ)—a Pahadi word meaning ‘wanderer’ that carries the same valance as ghumantu in Hindi. Under the hashtag #radkaat, Himachali youth, Gaddi and Pahadi both, fold a nostalgic image of their pastoral pasts into a larger critique of urban modernity (Christopher 2020c). Comparing the pastoral longing of J&K and Himachali Gaddis highlights their relative difference. J&K Gaddis lament the forced abandonment of pastoralism from fear of Islamic militancy, whereas Himachali Gaddis more optimistically swapped pastoralism for higher paying and more socially-dignified work.
The key difference lands in the articulated lack of agency J&K Gaddis feel in freely choosing their profession. This feeling may be magnified by the perceived inadequacies many J&K Gaddis feel as tribals lacking the outward displays of tribality—without flocks (dhan), sheep sacrifices (nuālā) and contemporary ties to a notional homeland (Bharmour). In Kangra, Gaddis also communally negotiate what it means to be ‘diaspora’ Gaddis outside of tribal-reserved areas of Chamba. They still face stereotypes from caste plainspeople as the racialized tribal Others. Derisive attitudes about tribal dialects have caused many Gaddis to linguistically code switch to Hindi to obscure their origins, part of a larger program of de-tribalization and Rajput caste-passing that informs everything from naming practices on Facebook to new trends in exchanging mangal sūtra during marriage. As Gaddis have increasingly integrated into the Punjabi cultural milieu of the lowland Kangra, their Gaddiness has come under increasing anxious introspection. Like J&K Gaddis, Kangra Gaddis must effortfully practice their ties to their Gaddi homeland through pilgrimage, collective memories and ritual practice. Beginning in the 1970s and continuing to the present, a Gaddi student group called the Kailash Association hosts communal rituals and events to celebrate Gaddiness. Similarly in J&K, many conventional Gaddi markers of language, ritual practice and culture are tenuous and cause communal anxiety; the difference is that such anxieties about ‘tribal authenticity’ are often sublimated into fear of Islamic militancy.10
Across Bhaderwah, Gaddis downplay caste discrimination against Sippis by emphasizing shared distrust of Muslims. Gaddis often invoke the comparison that the social solidarity between Gaddis and Sippis are analogous to solidarity between Gujjars and Bakarwals. Sippis also emphasize the perceived common threat of Muslim militancy, although not to the extent that it completely ameliorates Gaddi discriminations. For example, the 2020 pastureland death of Gaddi shepherd Shivraj Sharma led to unified Gaddi/Sippi street protests for justice and accusations against Gujjars.11 To prevent further inter- and intra-communal clashing, a police post was opened at the midway point of Ranmatha, about 15 kilometers from the shared pasturelands of Seoj Dhar and the 2009 site of armed conflict between the Indian Army and Laskhar-e-Toiba (LeT) militants.
Despite these accusations of criminality, harassment and forced labor, a meaningful space exists for fraternity among pastoral Gaddis, Sippis, Gujjars and Bakarwals regardless of religious affiliation. They all feel the impact of militancy and state surveillance (Warikoo 2000: 38). Routes see significant impact by the closing of the Line of Control and, emboldened by AFSPA, the BSF sometimes mistakenly fire on shepherds. As Muslim Gujjars and Bakarwals moved into the higher reaches of the Pir Panjal range for seasonal migration, they often found themselves sandwiched between armed insurgents and surveilling Indian armed forces; this quickly led to more than 39 percent of shepherds abandoning their profession in the early years of conflict (Suri 2014: 58-9). On the other hand, fraternity between Hindu and Muslim shepherds, both unwittingly caught in the crosshairs of escalating state violence, leads some mainstream Bhaderwahi Muslims to denigrate Muslim shepherds for their neutrality and willingness to sympathize with Hindu Gaddis.
From the outset of research in Bhaderwah, a primary research question was to understand if the awarding of Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to Sippis ameliorated social stigma and provided communal uplift and inclusion as Gaddi. This is, after all, the plea of Sippis and other Gaddi Dalits throughout Kangra consigned to the Scheduled Caste (SC) quota who feel state misrecognition validates their tribal marginalization. The data suggests trends in both directions. On the one hand, the intensification of some village customs reflects caste solidarity, such as the caste-reciprocal bringing of wood during funerary rites and death rituals (dāg). Militancy had undeniably pushed Gaddis and Sippis closer together and overlaid the rapid loss of pastoral lifeway with the sometimes-imagined and often-exaggerated patina of nostalgia and victimization. There is an approximate economic equality within the Gaddi community; although some Gaddis have enough wealth to shift out of their village hamlets and into urban centers, many Sippis have availed themselves of interest-free loans, civil service employment and reserved university seats through the tribal quota. Compared to the widening class cleavages in unevenly modernizing Dharamsala, Bhaderwahi villages may exhibit more muted economic disparities.
On the other hand, Kansar typifies caste organization both in residency patterns and in segregated cremation grounds (śamśām ghāt)—Sippis must use Jaishu Nala, whereas Gaddis choose between Naintu Kund and Duggi/Dandi. These separate cremation grounds are conventionally justified through the legendary account of two brothers divided by hierarchically unequal caste vocations. An elderly Gaddi woman explained, “Sippis want to have marriage relations (kuṛmāī) with us Gaddis. They say we are equal. But we won’t allow it; they are separate from us. I refuse to make relations with them. We [Gaddis] don’t attend their lifecycle ritual celebrations (marne jīṇe). We will give bartan, but we don’t share food. I don’t ever allow Sippis to come near my stovetop, and whenever they come, I give them a chair and feed them but not near the kitchen. Child, this is a big difficulty (musībat).”
She later offered me snacks, joking, “It is okay, child, we are clean (succe); you can eat from our hands.” Sippis oftentimes described how the greatest perpetrators of casteism are not Rajputs but Gaddi Rajputs, with proximity and cultural sameness birthing new forms of resentment and distinction. This Freudian ‘narcissism of small differences’ exacerbates minute distinctions in the maintenance of ethnic boundaries, best summarized in an oft-quoted idiom among Sippis that “brothers are the natural adversaries of brothers” (bhāī bhāī kā vairī hotā hai). Pocock (1972: 67) earlier identified how closeaffines and blood relatives can intensify into sites of rivalry and status differentiation among agricultural castes in Gujarat.
Such exclusions extend to temple access and ritual practice. On the second floor of an animal shed in the village of Rindayu is a Chandi Mata temple, called Chound Mata by local Gaddis. She is ferocious form of Shakti, a personification of divine feminine power. There are no lights or windows in the temple, and one must use a torch to take darśan of Shiva’s silver tridents and Chamunda’s golden representation, which was stolen but returned some years back. My guide, Swaroop,12 explained to me as we crossed the threshold from outer to inner room that Sippis, Kolis and other SCs are not allowed to enter the mūrti room. “If they somehow enter by accident, without knowing that they shouldn’t, then Chound Mata will show forgiveness. But if they enter knowingly, this is very bad, and they will be punished by Mata. She is very powerful (śaktiśālī).”
Displays of tribal unity and public protest for more equitable distribution of the Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) and the establishment of a Gaddi/Sippi university hostel. Photo courtesy of Parveen Jaryal.
After darśan, Swaroop and village elders recalled some of the feats associated with the local manifestation of Rindayu Chound Mata. In one case, a Brahmin temple priest with leprosy performed 24 years of ascetic practices (tapsyā) for Chound Mata, surviving on neither food nor water. One night he had a vision of a young woman (kanyā) and was healed. In another case, a Brahmin fell and shattered his jawbone. He could eat nothing and slowly wasted away in bed. Out of frustration his wife removed her marriage nose ring (nath), customarily done after the death of a husband, and threw it in the mud. She cursed Mata, “What difference does it make if I do this now or later; he’s basically dead either way!” That night Mata came, again in the form of a girl (kanjak), and healed her husband. When he died many years later, after cremating his corpse, a calcified jawbone—some say it was made of iron—was found in the ashes. Such supernatural tales form the basis for Chound Mata worship in Rindayu and are used to justify the exclusion of low castes groups.
When I spoke with Gaddis about the temple exclusion of Sippis and Kolis, I met with a variety of justifications. “That has nothing to do with discrimination,” an elder lectured me. “You saw Sippis beat drums (nagara) at the outer entrance to the temple? Well, they must have made a mistake playing the drums at some point, maybe one- or two-hundred years ago, no one remembers now, but based on their own karmic actions they were barred (vārjit).” Others suggested that the tantric power of Chound Mata simply overpowers individuals of inferior caste, and the prohibition is for their own protection. Another justification was that Gaddis never actively bar access to the temple and that low-caste communities self-monitor and -exclude.
When I interviewed Sippis and Kolis, most passively accepted their exclusion. One afternoon I participated in communal roof building (laddi). In Himachal Pradesh, Gaddis call this event ‘going to build a roof’ (laiṭar pāṇā gaṇā) and shares structural similarities to the collective assistance of cultivating individual rice fields (juār). On that day, Kolis were present, divided into two teams competing to fill their half of the roof first. From outer to inner, roof construction is multi-layered: a second coating of outer mud (chokadi); a first layering of mud (shyarn); a layer of twigs (sathar); quartered wood lattice (balj and barga chal); supporting pillars (tham) and stone foundational supports (pral). The mood was festive, the labor eased with local brew. We worked from two to six, teams collectively pulling baskets (kild) and shoveling dirt, frequently breaking to sing Dogri-language songs (bakh) reserved for joyous occasions. On hand, the local chiropractor (ang caḍhāne vālā; Dogri: calada) analyzed work-related sprains and gave satisfying cracks accordingly.
Downhill, in clear view of our construction site, stood the Rindayu Chound Mata temple. During a break I asked the workers about their relationship to Chound Mata. After meeting Sippi ethnic entrepreneurs determined to reschedule Gaddi-speaking Kolis as ST Sippis, I was surprised by the variable Dalit/tribal consciousness among Koli villagers. Some expressed no objection to remaining in the peripheral antechamber of the temple while beating the drums; a few actively justified their exclusion. “Mata has her good reasons for denying us. I don’t want to raise any objections. She is very powerful, and we must follow her rules.” My gentle encouragements to de-spiritualize their social exclusion fell on apathetic ears, as did my comparisons to Hali exclusions from the Gaddi Kuarsi Nag temple and legal complaints lodged in Chhota Bhangal to forcibly desegregate temple access.
These vignettes of tribal casteism, when put in conversation with the awarding of separate ST status, generates the discourse of the so-called ‘and wall’ (aur kī divār)—occasionally called the ‘and line’ (aur kī rekhā)—that paradoxically recognizes the tribalness of Sippis without validating their Gaddiness. The campaign to award ST status to Gaddis at first did not include Sippis; in 1976, political mobilization began when Thakur Das registered the Gaddi Sabha, an association that purposefully excluded Sippis as marginal Gaddis. Among the excluded were also Gadde Brahmin (called Bhatt in Himachal Pradesh), Sippi and Rihare castes. Concessions were later made to include Sippis as a separate but culturally-aligned tribe. According to Thakur Das’ account of the formation of the Gaddi Sangh, MLA Mangat Ram Sharma recommended the exclusion of marginal self-reporting Gaddis. According to Thakur Das, in 1989 MLA Sharma declared that “Gadde Brahmins shouldn’t get ST[O] status. They are Brahmins. Leave them out. Rihare are only about 250. [...] Some in Bani and Visant Garh. Leave them out.” Compounding these exclusions, Thakur Das was unfamiliar with problem of Koli-named Sippis and their plight was absent from the petition.
Definitional ambiguities and political calculations have plagued Gaddi enumeration from the beginning. This has sometimes translated into ‘Gaddi’ being an umbrella moniker that, in everyday parlance, includes Sippis.13 At other times, especially in government documents, parroting officialese emphasizes communal distinction. Leadership within the All J&K Gaddi Sippi Tribes Welfare Association has vacillated between broad communal inclusion and tribal exclusion; the current president, an affable Gaddi businessman, has unified Gaddis and Sippis around shared grievances against the state for consigning both Hindu tribes to the least compensated sub-categorization of ‘Scheduled Tribe Others’ (STO) in Part IV of the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation Rules, 2005. Gaddis/Sippis feel that sharing one percent reservation with several other tribes for inclusion in ‘Professional Institutions’ is the result of being Hindu tribal minorities lacking legislative representation in J&K.14 Gaddi/Sippi leadership questions how the Central Government’s granting of ST status refracted through state politics and led to the creation of STO—which many perceive as unconstitutionally establishing a provision for caste-based sub-categorization within the ST quota. Former MLA Jewan Lal Lalhal often gave fiery speeches about the discrimination (bhedbhāv) of the STO category, and Gaddi intellectuals like Subhash Brahmanu have published several newspaper articles demanding equal classification (while others demand equal recognition as Scheduled Tribe Gaddi Sippi (STGS).15 Allegations that the selection merit score of Scheduled Tribe Gujjar Bakarwal (STGB) was lower than STO for admission to state professional colleges has further exacerbated Gaddi/Sippi resentments.
The shared predicament of Gaddis/Sippis regarding state recognition, set against a backdrop of perceived favoritism to Muslim pastoralists, helps to obviate caste hierarchy and official designations of tribal separation. Disputes about the establishment of Gaddi/Sippi-reserved Welfare Boards and university hostels provide yearly grist for public demonstrations of tribal unity rarely if ever seen in Himachal Pradesh.16 Current demands include establishing six more tribal hostels, political reservation to the state legislature, establishment of an advisory board, unbiased implementation of the Tribal Plan in Gaddi/Sippi areas, a shift out of the STO quota and into a STGS quota, and 6th-schedule preservation of Gaddi dialect. While many of these ambitious demands are unlikely in the near future, the AJKGSTWA scored two big wins in 2021. First, the announcement of the ‘Smart School’ scheme included 21,000 scholarships specially reserved for Gaddi, Sippi, Dard and Sheena children. In a public address, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha recognized that bureaucratic favouritism has disadvantaged Gaddis and Sippis.17 Second, nine assembly constituencies became reserved for STs.18 Gaddis celebrated those reserved areas might include Gaddi-dominated constituencies like Bani, where former MLA Jewal Lal Lalhal had been the first Gaddi to win state-wide office. Hope grew that reserving constituencies in Chinani, Baliver, and even Bhaderwah might favour Gaddis. Such gains in state-wide representation might allow Gaddi leaders to authorize an ethnological survey to reclassify many Kolis as Sippis and, in effect, bolster tribal demands by increasing their relative population. However, the recommendation from the Delimitation Commission is that only Gujjar- and Bakarwal-majority constituencies in Rajouri and Poonch districts would receive ST seats.19 Gaddis have withheld their outrage in the hope that recommendation for reserved constituencies will be more diversely administered.
Part of AJKGSTWA’s power to unite Gaddis and Sippis derives from the commonly-narrativized experience of being Hindu tribal minorities amidst periodic episodes of Muslim militancy. The other part, I argue, is a pervasive feeling of anxious belonging as J&K Gaddis alienated from many Gaddi cultural markers. Thakur Das, who began the Gaddi Sabha and played an instrumental part in appealing for a Central Government survey, hinted at such anxieties about tribal authenticity while recounting how state recognition shaped—even created—Gaddi tribality.
In 1987, I was invited by the Central Government to Jammu to showcase Gaddi culture. I was instructed to bring whatever stuff was necessary to do a cultural presentation. This really bothered me because our Gaddi traditions and rituals were totally lost in J&K after our migration here. You can still see it all in Himachal, but here the language and music and dress got mixed (madgam). So I wrote back with the excuse that I’m poor and can’t afford to come. I live in a remote area! Some weeks later, I received an official at my house who personally invited me and assured me that expenses would be accounted for. All my worries came back to me then. Somehow, I went and presented Gaddi culture. A few months later, the Gaddi Sabha received a letter. Four IAS officers would travel through Balore and Udhampur to assess the petition for Scheduled Tribe status. This gave me even more botheration. I called together my secretaries. We found an old Gaddi woman who had lived most of her live in Bharmour [the Gaddi heartland in Chamba, Himachal Pradesh], and she trained some of our youngsters. See, we lied about so many things. I can just tell you straight. Those youngsters needed to learn some Gaddi language, since we’ve left our own language (chūṭ gayī thī). They needed to learn how to wear colā. Our ancestors must have worn it, but we’ve lost it. They needed to know about sheep, but who has sheep now? Militants (habsī) were sacrificing (halāl kar dete) Gaddis, demanding sheep, so we had to leave our profession. So our youngsters had to learn how to act and be Gaddi.
Such anxieties are widespread and not confined to ethnic entrepreneurs alone. Gaddis with economic means overwhelmingly shift down from mountain villages to urban centers, such as Ram Nagar and Udhampur, where they trade knowledge of Gaddi language and customs for educational and employment opportunities conducted in Bhaderwahi, Dogri and Urdu languages. They anxiously lament cultural loss while participating in demographic relocations that further alienate Gaddis from the tropes of tribal pastoralism. One ethnic leader lamented the erosion of Gaddi language during an interview in his office, and then at home sheepishly introduced me to his teenage daughter who spoke to me in Hindi and admitted she never learned Gaddi dialect.
The nuālā, a hallmark ritual of Gaddiness back to the colonial record, is rare even in the mountains. Chattrari village hosts a single sheep sacrifice every four years, officiated by a family priest. The cotton thread (mālā), the symbolic home of Shiva for the evening universally used by Himachali Gaddis, is replaced with a generic fire pit (havan) officiated over by a Gadde Brahmin; Gaddi-language folk songs are replaced with Dogri-language devotional music (bhajan); and Shiva-centric nuālā rituals are replaced with Chound Mata-centric jājrātās. Beginning in 2010, government restrictions on sheep sacrifices during pilgrimage to Bharmour further alienated J&K Gaddis from the cultural heartland. The 300 to 400 Gaddis who yearly pilgrimaged seventeen days to Bharmour, routinely performing animal sacrifices (paśu bali) whenever they halted (dera), have dwindled considerably.
While some Kangra Sippis eagerly look to J&K for inspiration in their pursuit of ST inclusion, the relationship is not reciprocal. Throughout J&K, Jewan Lal Lalhal was the first and last Gaddi MLA in state history; the lack of political representation makes Gaddis feel that government initiatives overwhelmingly favor Muslim STOs. These anxieties reached a crescendo in 2016, when the Government of India sharply increased the J&K Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) to about 44 million USD (100 kroṛ). Gaddis and Sippis have publicly protested the distribution of funds, arguing that their consignment to STO has handicapped them in competition with STGB. Among the twelve counted tribes of J&K, including Ladakh, only Gujjars and Bakarwals have coveted Advisory Boards, and they routinely receive accusations of preferential treatment from the Muslim-dominated government. In all these ways, J&K Gaddis experience anxious belonging, betwixt and between Kashmiri and Gaddi identities, neither fully accepted nor wholly rejected.
Sippis are further suspended between identities: STO in J&K as a separate tribe; ST in Chamba as a part of the Gaddi community living within the 5th Schedule; SC in Kangra. Their caste boundaries are notably porous due to status jockeying, with Sippi-converted Kolis in J&K and Hali-converted Sippis in Kangra. One end has caused political agitations for government reclassification, the other has ironically propped up Sippi purity claims through caste emulation by Halis. Contestation over tribal belonging—with either a retreat into or out of Gaddiness at the center—has led to fractured social identities backed up with mismatching administrative categories. In J&K, while the ‘and wall’ partitions them from full state recognition as Gaddis, their recognition as a tribe has brought them federal parity with high-caste Gaddis and shifted the focus to Muslim Othering and the quotidian experience of being Hindu minority tribes amidst demographic Muslim-majority tribes.
By way of conclusion, it is important to reemphasize the structural forces that unify Gaddis and Sippis in J&K and exacerbate anxieties about Muslims. Frøystad (2005) conducted fieldwork with upper-caste Hindus in Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh) during the ethnoreligious communalism that ensued after the razing of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. She argues that the quick return to the salience of caste politics and the diminution of Muslim Othering are attributable to the synchronicity of macro-level politics and local values/practices. She analyzes the specific mechanisms for perpetuating caste and religious boundaries in people’s everyday lives. Her argument concludes that caste idioms of the good, dirty and small conceptually seep into both caste and religious boundary maintenance, reinforcing and contradicting each other at different levels of analysis. In her case study, the relative dominance of caste politics over religious Othering is connected to upper caste resentment about reservation policy that was perceived as zero-sum: the enfranchisement of Dalits was felt as less economic opportunity for unreserved groups. This led to upper caste groups gaining backdoor advantage through nepotism and bureaucratic corruption.
In the case of Gaddis and Sippis in J&K, by contrast, the reshuffled prioritization of Muslim Othering over internal caste hierarchy is largely because both high- and low-caste groups stand to benefit from being demographically counted as culturally-aligned tribes. Their appeal for tribal inclusion was complementary and not contestatory. Sippis, who continue to face caste prejudice, gained political co-equality as tribal aspirants to Gaddi ethnic entrepreneurs. Gaddis continue to shift the focus from intertribal caste-based hierarchical exclusion to state favoritism towards Muslim pastoralists (e.g., the 2021 awarding of new ST-reserved constituencies in Jammu Division to only Gujjar- and Bakarwal-majority areas). The recentering of the Muslim Other was, and remains, bolstered by quotidian social reinforcements, punctuated state/militant violence, contestation over pastureland rights and grievance against state nepotism. Such public-facing discourses about the shared tribal qualities of Gaddis and Sippis lean into stereotypes of tribal egalitarianism and conceal ongoing tribal casteism.
Yet, as this article explored, the scheduling of Sippis as an independent tribe in J&K has instantiated political parity as co-equal tribes without resolving the more systemic problem of how and if Sippis belong within a caste-heterogenous Gaddi community. Although this matter remains unresolved, turning an analytic lens on the work of the late Thakur Das and other ethnic entrepreneurs highlights the social constructiveness of tribal identity, especially among migratory contingents and demographic minorities living in zones of political uncertainty. Markers of Gaddi tribality in Himachal Pradesh, such as transhumant pastoralism and the nuālā, are fluid signifiers of anxious belonging in Jammu. Considering that India has over 700 Scheduled Tribes and 2,000 petitioning communities for tribal recognition, it is likely that the dynamics explored above are evident in other ‘anomalous’ tribal communities that are divided into different state quotas depending on locality or are birthing multicultural orders from the ashes of caste exclusions. Synthetic survey data from all tribal and tribal-aspiring communities are needed to build up a generalizable theoretical approach to the contested integration of tribal Dalits under the existing ethnologics of the Indian state.
1 For the seminal works on hāliprathā bonded servitude, see Bremen (1974: 1993).
2 Because of ongoing social contestation about who counts as Gaddi, I appeal to the ‘commonsense’ view of Gaddiness, often articulated by Gaddis themselves, of a shared dialect, culture, spirituality and attachment to homeland. This kind of cultural nationalism is similar to Johann Gottfried Herder’s concept of Volksgeist (cultural nationalism).
3 In the 2011 Census of India, Gaddis and Sippis combined account for less than 4% of the total tribal population in J&K and .41% of the total statewide population; whereas Gujjars and Bakarwals account for about 73% of the combined tribal population and about 8.5% overall. There is considerable dispute about how to count Gaddis/Sippis because of Koli caste emendations. Some Gaddi/Sippi grassroots activists estimate the population as high as 3.5 lakh.
5 Some Gaddis I interviewed also expressed dismay about how government classifications were artificially dividing a unified tribe.
6 This process of moving from remote hilltop village to downside population centers with superior infrastructure is seen throughout the Himalayas.
7 Mirwaiz Shah was assassinated by the pro-Pakistan group Hizbul Mujahideen.
8 Some media reported the unofficial number of dead at 56. See: https://www.awazthevoice.in/india-news/who-was-mirwaiz-moulvi-farooq-2525.html
9 Lambradār are hereditary (and sometimes appointed) village tax collectors and law enforcers with colonial roots (Lee 2018).
10 McLeod Ganj and other localities in Kangra also had sizable populations of Muslims who were forced to flee by marauding Gaddis during Partition. In Dharamsala, land transactions of former Muslim’s properties are conducted by the WAKF Board; and a rumor persists that a Muslim cemetery between Bhagsu and Jogiwara Roads sometimes emerges after monsoon sliding.
12 A pseudonym.
13 For example, the Facebook group ‘J&K Gaddi Community’ has 2,900 members and automatically includes Sippis. This could be seen as affirming Gaddis as the dominant reference group or celebrating a multicultural Gaddi order that implicitly includes Sippis, regardless of their scheduling as a separate tribe.
14 This is compared to six percent reservation to Muslim Gujjars/Bakarwals and two percent each for Leh and Kargil regions.
15 https://www.dailyexcelsior.com/discrimination-gaddi-sippies-jk/.
16 A long and fractious demand for a Gaddi/Sippi hostel at the Government Degree College in Udhampur was recently granted. See: http://www.thenewsnow.co.in/newsdet.aspx?q=36944.
