How India-China border tensions impact Ladakh nomads
Deutsche Welle :
One evening in mid-September, as the sun began to set, the grunts of Kunzes Dolma’s yaks filled the sandy streets of Chushul, a Himalayan village in Ladakh, India, near the border with China.
The 68-year-old whistled to guide the animals towards her brick hut. Dolma is a herder from the Changpa community, a semi-nomadic group that lives in eastern Ladakh’s Changthang Valley. Her family owns over 300 sheep and 50 yaks.
“The nomadic lifestyle is harsh, but I enjoy taking my cattle to graze in the mountains,” said Dolma, who sells the sheep’s wool and yaks’ milk in the local market.
Dolma told DW that life has become difficult for her family because the Indian military has restricted grazing near the India-China border due to a territorial dispute.
“The pasture in that region is very good. Now, we cannot use the land to graze our cattle,” Dolma said, with her 37-year-old daughter, Tsering Lamo, echoing her concerns.
“These days with restrictions triggered due to military tensions, it is no longer pleasurable to be a nomad,” Lamo said, adding it is a harsh lifestyle, suggesting that, “it is better for younger people to take up other jobs.”
Chushul is about 8 kilometers from the de facto border between India and China known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
The high-altitude village was impacted by the 1962 Sino-Indian war, triggered by differences over the ownership of the regions of Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh.
The conflict lasted for over a month and ended with Beijing declaring a ceasefire and claiming sovereignty over Aksai Chin.
While India and China have fought only one major war since the 1960s, there are occasional clashes along the LAC – which India claims is 3,488 kilometers long and China says is shorter.
In May 2020, a skirmish in the Galwan river valley resulted in the deaths of at least 20 Indian soldiers, with China later confirming four of its troops had been killed.
Since then, both nations have ramped up patrols along the LAC and on Pangong Tso lake, a pristine but disputed area claimed by both sides.
Rigzhin Dorjay, a farmer who has lived in Chushul all his life, said the 2020 clashes reminded his family of the 1962 war.
“I was not born when the war in the 1960s took place but my parents often told me about how afraid they were,” the 55-year-old told DW.
“They said the Indian military had helped them feel secure. So, when the 2020 clashes took place, I trekked up to the mountains to give the Indian military officers securing our border food and rations.”