PEER KI GALI, Jammu and Kashmir—It was a breezy, sunny midday at Peer Ki Gali, a mountain go within the Pir Panjal vary of the Himalayas, connecting the Poonch and Shopian districts of Jammu and Kashmir. Because the solar and clouds performed cover and search, 20-year-old Asima Chaudhary, a Gujjar-Bakarwal herder, a nomadic group identified for rearing sheep and goats throughout the mountains, watched her flock grazing on the slope. Her dhoka, a stone-and-mud shelter, was a 20-minute stroll away by steep, uneven terrain.
Of the 1.49 million, Gujjar-Bakarwals in Jammu and Kashmir, many nonetheless undertake seasonal migrations between Jammu’s plains and Kashmir’s high-altitude meadows. Ladies, who handle households and herds throughout these grueling journeys, contribute virtually nothing to carbon emissions but bear the brunt of local weather change: erratic warmth waves, unpredictable snowfall, and useful resource shortage. Their struggles lengthen past bodily hardship right into a silent psychological well being disaster largely absent from coverage discussions.
For ladies like Asima, these summary statistics and coverage gaps translate into grueling day by day routines throughout steep slopes, the place each step carries each bodily pressure and psychological burden.
As Asima’s elder brother returned from his lunch break, he whistled in her course. Recognizing the sign, Asima picked up her sweater and stick and commenced strolling towards her dhoka. “He’ll handle the herd now. I’ll go have tea and fetch some water whereas mom cooks,” she mentioned, persevering with alongside the slender path. Halfway, she paused and gestured towards a patch of grass. “Not that manner, it’s moist and slippery,” she cautioned. Her fast intuition and sharp eye for the terrain revealed how effectively she knew each inch of the hillside, information constructed by years of dwelling and herding in these mountains.
This deep familiarity with the mountains makes the adjustments Asima has witnessed over latest years all of the extra putting. Sitting exterior her dhoka, she spoke about how the rising warmth has worsened her household’s day by day wrestle for water. “5 years in the past, we may fill our pots from the spring simply behind our dhoka,” she mentioned, adjusting her scarf towards the solar. “Now we stroll for hours, and the trail is dangerously steep. Some days, we go twice, morning and night, simply to have sufficient for cooking and consuming.”
The water scarcity turns into particularly difficult throughout menstruation. “There are not any washrooms, and bathing is already onerous. We used to make small enclosures close to the spring, however now even that primary dignity is a wrestle,” Asima mentioned.
“Generally it feels suffocating,” she mentioned of the day by day challenges for survival. “We maintain asking ourselves, why do we’ve got to stay like this?”
Asima’s wrestle is emblematic of a broader actuality confronted by Indigenous ladies whose day by day lives and well-being are intimately tied to the land. For these ladies, the bodily hardships of migration intersect straight with psychological well being challenges, with nervousness, despair, and power stress creating what consultants describe as a silent, widespread disaster largely absent from coverage discussions.
“Indigenous ladies’s lives are inseparably tied to the land and forests. Sadly, local weather change strikes on the very root of their existence, appearing as a drive of cultural and financial disruption. It straight impacts ladies’s psychological well being by a number of interconnected pathways,” Bijayalaxmi Rautaray, a improvement practitioner who works on well being and livelihood points with Indigenous ladies, informed International Coverage.
“In these communities, ladies bear the burden of the whole household. Erratic climate, droughts, and landslides drive herders to stroll farther and work more durable to maintain their households. Even accumulating firewood has develop into a bodily exhausting job, including to the pressure they already carry,” Rautaray added.
In response to a 2021 Jammu and Kashmir Policy Institute research, local weather change is reshaping life for Gujjar-Bakarwal communities, with ladies disproportionately affected. Drying springs, erratic rainfall, and longer treks for water drive these ladies into cycles of exhaustion which have severe psychological well being penalties, from persistent nervousness to sleep deprivation.
Specialists say such lived experiences reveal a crucial coverage blind spot, one the place psychological well being stays largely excluded from local weather and well being planning.
“Whereas there’s rising recognition that local weather and well being responses should embrace psychological well being, the lived experiences of Indigenous and nomadic communities nonetheless obtain little or no consideration,” mentioned Anant Bhan, a world well being and bioethics researcher. “With worsening climate disruptions, teams dwelling on the margins—like nomadic populations—face disproportionate dangers. Their well-being, together with psychological well being, should develop into a central a part of local weather and well being planning.”
He added, “Coverage frameworks want each flexibility and depth to answer these realities. Addressing such challenges requires a multi-sectoral method, one which hyperlinks well being, local weather adaptation, livelihoods, and earnings help, in order that no group is left behind.”
This coverage invisibility compounds day by day life for girls like Asima, whose bodily and psychological pressure is steady, intensified by the dearth of accessible well being providers and societal help.
“Indigenous ladies stay with stress, nervousness and at occasions face despair, however they don’t know easy methods to clarify it to medical doctors,” mentioned Arif Maghribi, a psychiatrist who conducts cellular medical camps alongside the migration routes of Gujjar-Bakarwal communities.
“Language limitations and social stigma usually go away these illnesses untreated,” he added. “Social pressures, together with the observe of consanguineous marriages frequent in the neighborhood, add one other layer of stress, significantly for girls caring for kids at larger threat of developmental challenges or mental disabilities.”
These challenges mirror a broader sample documented amongst Indigenous ladies worldwide. A 2023 Women Deliver report inspecting local weather impacts on marginalized communities discovered that environmental change amplifies current gender and well being inequalities, particularly in distant, resource-dependent populations. The analysis reveals a spot: When local weather adaptation plans fail to combine sexual, reproductive, and psychological well being providers, they deepen the very vulnerabilities they intention to deal with.
For Gujjar-Bakarwal ladies, this coverage hole means tangible day by day penalties—drying springs, erratic rainfall, and longer treks for water that drive them to traverse treacherous terrain a number of occasions day by day, a bodily exhausting routine that makes primary wants like menstrual hygiene and bathing more and more troublesome to take care of. The lack of grazing lands compounds family financial stress, a burden that falls disproportionately on ladies who should discover methods to stretch dwindling assets.
“The mountains are altering, and so is our life,” Asima mentioned, her voice carrying the burden of exhaustion. “What our moms and grandmothers did simply, we now wrestle with day-after-day. It’s not nearly strolling additional for water or discovering much less grass for our animals, it’s about feeling helpless and questioning if this life is even potential anymore. The wrestle doesn’t simply tire our our bodies, it breaks one thing inside us.”
Asima’s wrestle is shared by many others within the mountains. Two miles away is one other dhoka the place 18-year-old Samina Chaudhary lives together with her household of eight. Like Asima, she spends her days tending to the herd, however her obligations lengthen past the pastures.
Samina’s burden intensified three years in the past when her youthful brother started displaying indicators of developmental delays, a situation Maghribi defined may be linked to consanguineous marriage frequent of their group. Now, along with herding and family work, she helps look after her brother whereas managing her personal well being struggles. “Some nights I can’t sleep, eager about the whole lot, the animals, my brother, whether or not we’ll have sufficient water tomorrow,” she mentioned, twisting the sting of her dupatta. “My mom says I fear an excessive amount of, however how can I not? The burden of all of it sits on my chest.”
“Being a lady right here means carrying the burden of the household and the herd collectively,” Samina mentioned. “We stroll miles to fetch water, are inclined to the animals, cook dinner, clear, and handle everybody, together with visiting relations. On prime of that, we handle our well being and privateness in a spot the place nothing comes straightforward. Each day is tough, however we depend on one another to maintain going and survive.”
The friendship between Samina and Asima, shaped over years of neighboring migrations, has develop into a lifeline for each. When isolation and stress develop into overwhelming, they search one another out alongside the mountain trails; not simply to share tales about herds and routines, however to debate the intimate emotional and bodily challenges they share that neither can absolutely clarify to their households.
For ladies who develop into moms in these harsh situations, the day by day challenges develop even heavier. For 22-year-old Rubeena Ali, being pregnant was one of many hardest intervals of her life. “There was no relaxation, no time to consider myself,” she recalled. “Even carrying water or cooking felt heavier, and I anxious on a regular basis concerning the child after I climbed the steep slopes.”
Since delivery to a child woman a month earlier, life had grown much more demanding. When the interval of seasonal migration started, her household made the troublesome determination to depart her behind with relations. Rubeena had simply delivered and couldn’t stroll lengthy distances or carry her new child safely.
“It was such a troublesome part,” Rubeena mentioned. “I used to be adapting to a brand new way of life and wanted my rapid household, particularly my husband, round me. However they needed to maintain going for survival, whereas I stayed behind for my well being and the infant’s security. Each day, I’d consider my household and cry in isolation.”
Even now, the obligations of caring for her new child, mixed with recollections of that isolation and the continuing stress of local weather uncertainty, weigh closely on her. “Each day appears like carrying a mountain on my shoulders,” Rubeena mentioned. “The warmth, the water, the animals, the infant–all of it comes collectively, and I really feel stress, musibat [misery], on a regular basis. Generally I simply need to disappear, however I can’t. I’ve to maintain going for my household.”
For ladies like Rubeena, these broader systemic and environmental pressures translate into very actual day by day struggles which can be each bodily exhausting and mentally taxing.
Maghribi, the psychiatrist, famous that “pregnant ladies in these nomadic communities endure excessive stress from local weather challenges. But nobody talks about how this impacts their psychological well being. Insurance policies ignore them, and authorities usually dismiss their struggles, pondering consciousness may ‘spoil’ the group. It’s unethical; they face immense challenges they’d no position in creating.”
In response to Bhan, ladies in nomadic communities just like the Gujjar-Bakarwals are among the many most susceptible to climate-induced stress and disruption. “Given their migratory way of life, these ladies face a number of layers of threat, from displacement and disrupted livelihoods to elevated caregiving burdens and lack of well being care entry,” he mentioned. “Local weather-related occasions akin to floods and droughts can worsen these pressures, resulting in heightened psychological well being challenges, delayed care-seeking, and deepened gender inequities. The social context, marked by heavy workloads, restricted help, and home violence, solely amplifies the psychological toll.”
As Bhan’s insights spotlight the bigger coverage gaps, native medical doctors like Maghribi are calling for sensible, community-based options.
“Identical to cellular faculties observe Gujjar-Bakarwal youngsters, cellular medical vans ought to journey with the communities, offering look after power diseases and psychological well being help the place they stay and migrate,” Maghribi mentioned.
For now, because the mountains develop harsher and is derived vanish, ladies like Asima, Samina, and Rubeena proceed to hold each the water and the burden of a altering world. Their lives reveal a silent disaster: Local weather change isn’t just an environmental or financial menace; it’s a profound psychological well being emergency for girls whose survival is dependent upon mobility and resilience.
This story has been produced in partnership with Pulitzer Heart.
