Context: The Uttarakhand High Court passed an interim order upholding the right of a qafila (caravan) of Van Gujjars to migrate to their summer homesteads in the bugyals (Himalayan alpine meadows) located within the Govind Pashu Vihar National Park.

• The court relied on Article 21 of the Constitution. It ordered the collector of Uttarkashi district and the deputy director of the park to ensure the Van Gujjar families are accommodated in pucca houses and provided with adequate food, water, medicines as well as fodder for their cattle.

Van Gujjar Community

• Van Gujjars are nomadic buffalo-herders inhabiting the foothills of Himalayan states like Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
• They are deep dependent on wild habitats in India and for them, transhumance (the practice of moving livestock from one grazing ground to another in a seasonal cycle) has been a way of life for centuries.
• The Van Gujjars pursue seasonal migration from the Terai-Bhabar and Siwalik region of Uttarakhand to the higher bugyals in the Western Himalayas in summer and vice versa in winter.
• The onset of summer makes conditions unbearable for their livestock in the warmer climate of the Siwalik and Terai.
• Similarly, snowfall in winter pushes the community back to the plains, where they can finally access the pastures which have been refurbished.
• Several Van Gujjars were frequently made to pay penalties and fines for violating such pre-conditions set forth by the forest department.
• However, the advent of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 or Forest Rights Act (FRA) has changed things.