PEER KI GALI, Jammu and Kashmir—It was a breezy, sunny midday at Peer Ki Gali, a mountain move within the Pir Panjal vary of the Himalayas, connecting the Poonch and Shopian districts of Jammu and Kashmir. Because the solar and clouds performed disguise 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 via 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 girls like Asima, these summary statistics and coverage gaps translate into grueling every 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 path. Recognizing the sign, Asima picked up her sweater and stick and commenced strolling towards her dhoka. “He’ll care for the herd now. I’ll go have tea and fetch some water whereas mom cooks,” she stated, persevering with alongside the slender path. Halfway, she paused and gestured towards a patch of grass. “Not that approach, it’s moist and slippery,” she cautioned. Her fast intuition and sharp eye for the terrain revealed how properly she knew each inch of the hillside, data constructed via years of dwelling and herding in these mountains.
This deep familiarity with the mountains makes the modifications Asima has witnessed over current years all of the extra putting. Sitting outdoors her dhoka, she spoke about how the rising warmth has worsened her household’s every day wrestle for water. “5 years in the past, we might fill our pots from the spring simply behind our dhoka,” she stated, 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 aren’t 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 stated.
“Generally it feels suffocating,” she stated of the every day challenges for survival. “We maintain asking ourselves, why do now we have to dwell like this?”
Asima’s wrestle is emblematic of a broader actuality confronted by Indigenous ladies whose every day lives and well-being are intimately tied to the land. For these ladies, the bodily hardships of migration intersect immediately with psychological well being challenges, with nervousness, melancholy, and persistent 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, performing as a pressure of cultural and financial disruption. It immediately impacts ladies’s psychological well being via a number of interconnected pathways,” Bijayalaxmi Rautaray, a improvement practitioner who works on well being and livelihood points with Indigenous ladies, advised Overseas Coverage.
“In these communities, ladies bear the burden of your entire household. Erratic climate, droughts, and landslides pressure herders to stroll farther and work tougher to maintain their households. Even gathering firewood has change into a bodily exhausting process, including to the pressure they already carry,” Rautaray added.
In line with 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 pressure 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 vital 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,” stated Anant Bhan, a worldwide 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 change into a central a part of local weather and well being planning.”
He added, “Coverage frameworks want each flexibility and depth to reply to these realities. Addressing such challenges requires a multi-sectoral strategy, one which hyperlinks well being, local weather adaptation, livelihoods, and revenue assist, in order that no group is left behind.”
This coverage invisibility compounds every day life for girls like Asima, whose bodily and psychological pressure is steady, intensified by the dearth of accessible well being companies and societal assist.
“Indigenous ladies dwell with stress, nervousness and at occasions face melancholy, however they don’t know how you can clarify it to docs,” stated Arif Maghribi, a psychiatrist who conducts cellular medical camps alongside the migration routes of Gujjar-Bakarwal communities.
“Language obstacles and social stigma typically go away these illnesses untreated,” he added. “Social pressures, together with the follow of consanguineous marriages widespread locally, add one other layer of stress, significantly for girls caring for youngsters at increased 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 present 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 companies, they deepen the very vulnerabilities they goal to handle.
For Gujjar-Bakarwal ladies, this coverage hole means tangible every day penalties—drying springs, erratic rainfall, and longer treks for water that pressure them to traverse treacherous terrain a number of occasions every day, a bodily exhausting routine that makes primary wants like menstrual hygiene and bathing more and more troublesome to keep up. 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 stated, her voice carrying the load of exhaustion. “What our moms and grandmothers did simply, we now wrestle with day by 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 doable 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 tasks 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 is perhaps linked to consanguineous marriage widespread of their group. Now, along with herding and family work, she helps take care of her brother whereas managing her personal well being struggles. “Some nights I can not sleep, eager about every thing, the animals, my brother, whether or not we’ll have sufficient water tomorrow,” she stated, 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 girl right here means carrying the load of the household and the herd collectively,” Samina stated. “We stroll miles to fetch water, are inclined to the animals, prepare dinner, clear, and care for everybody, together with visiting kinfolk. On prime of that, we handle our well being and privateness in a spot the place nothing comes straightforward. Day-after-day is difficult, however we depend on one another to maintain going and survive.”
The friendship between Samina and Asima, shaped over years of neighboring migrations, has change into a lifeline for each. When isolation and stress change 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 girls who change into moms in these harsh circumstances, the every day challenges develop even heavier. For 22-year-old Rubeena Ali, being pregnant was one of many hardest durations of her life. “There was no relaxation, no time to consider myself,” she recalled. “Even carrying water or cooking felt heavier, and I apprehensive on a regular basis in regards to the child after I climbed the steep slopes.”
Since start to a child lady a month earlier, life had grown much more demanding. When the interval of seasonal migration started, her household made the troublesome resolution to go away her behind with kinfolk. Rubeena had simply delivered and couldn’t stroll lengthy distances or carry her new child safely.
“It was such a troublesome part,” Rubeena stated. “I used to be adapting to a brand new life-style and wanted my speedy household, particularly my husband, round me. However they needed to maintain going for survival, whereas I stayed behind for my well being and the child’s security. Day-after-day, I’d consider my household and cry in isolation.”
Even now, the tasks of caring for her new child, mixed with reminiscences of that isolation and the continuing stress of local weather uncertainty, weigh closely on her. “Day-after-day appears like carrying a mountain on my shoulders,” Rubeena stated. “The warmth, the water, the animals, the child–all of it comes collectively, and I really feel rigidity, musibat [misery], on a regular basis. Generally I simply wish to disappear, however I can’t. I’ve to maintain going for my household.”
For girls like Rubeena, these broader systemic and environmental pressures translate into very actual every 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 typically dismiss their struggles, pondering consciousness would possibly ‘spoil’ the group. It’s unethical; they face immense challenges that they had no position in creating.”
In line with 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 life-style, 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 stated. “Local weather-related occasions reminiscent of 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 assist, and home violence, solely amplifies the psychological toll.”
As Bhan’s insights spotlight the bigger coverage gaps, native docs like Maghribi are calling for sensible, community-based options.
“Identical to cellular colleges observe Gujjar-Bakarwal kids, cellular medical vans ought to journey with the communities, offering take care of persistent sicknesses and psychological well being assist the place they dwell and migrate,” Maghribi stated.
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 load of a altering world. Their lives reveal a silent disaster: Local weather change isn’t just an environmental or financial risk; it’s a profound psychological well being emergency for girls whose survival is determined by mobility and resilience.
This story has been produced in partnership with Pulitzer Heart.
