Fields of Fire, Vales of Snow

The dark shape I see out of the corner of my eye is an Asiatic black bear. I dare not turn to look, but it is a bear. Or a leopard. Yes, a leopard. Or a wolf.

I turn my head slowly. A Ganzfeld wolf — which is to say, no wolf at all. With the light of my headtorch reflecting off the mist of my breath, everything around me is shrouded in white. Ergo, I’m seeing things because I can’t see anything.

I can’t hear anything either, over the babble of the stream I crossed a minute ago, stumbling in blind hope from boulder to boulder. Before that, I was on the path from which Ghulam had pointed out Brein nar this morning — the broad gully on the bare mountain where Himalayan serow and musk deer hang out. That path has now abandoned me. Ghulam has abandoned me.

Wait, I hear something. The muffled crack of a twig. And again. Paws padding in my direction. A leopard, I’m sure. Or a wolf. I pick up a stick and raise it over my head.

“Aap idhar khade ho? Why aren’t you following me?” Ghulam asks, appearing like a genie through the mist. “You must stay close. We have to reach the Core gate fast; it isn’t safe to be in the forest at this hour.”

Then, seeing my fear-flushed face, he softens: “Here, I’ll turn on my torch; follow the light to see where I’m going. Don’t worry, I won’t leave you behind!” 

Force of Will and Strength of Leg

We are in the 141-sq-km Dachigam National Park, a Protected Area in the Srinagar district of Jammu & Kashmir. Here, amidst the soar and swoop of the park’s topography (1,600-4,200 m), you find a striking profusion of wildlife, an assortment of forests, from temperate moist deciduous to alpine scrub; the last viable population of the critically endangered Kashmir stag (hangul); one of the largest populations of Asiatic black bear; other species of global conservation significance like the Himalayan grey langur, the Himalayan brown bear, and the Himalayan wolf; and a glittering array of avifauna, from lammergeiers to Himalayan monals, Kashmir flycatchers, and Tickell’s leaf warblers. Here, next to the bustle of Srinagar city, serving as the primary catchment of the Dal Lake, lies a true biodiversity jewel. Or, as Ghulam calls it: “Mera bageecha (my garden).”

Ghulam Ahmad Bhat, age 49, is a Forest Guard with the J&K Department of Wildlife Protection (DoWP). He has worked in Dachigam since 1992, having been admitted to the service in lieu of his father — also a Forest Guard, also posted at Dachigam — who passed away in 1990. (There is a faded photograph from Ghulam’s childhood that presages this passing of the torch. His father, of whom he is the spitting image, stands next to his seven-year-old son and the boy, a shy smile on his face, is wearing his father’s forest guard beret.)

Ghulam has spent thirty-one years walking these forests, fording these streams, climbing these mountains. He has kept poachers at bay, rescued lost hikers, fought fires, literal and figurative. For three decades, he has protected Dachigam through the force of his will and the strength of his legs. It isn’t surprising that he doesn’t need a torch to find his way in the dark; this is, after all, his bageecha.

I tag along on his rounds for a few days in early December. We start at the oak patch at Nagpora one morning, where he hangs up a fresh salt block to the delight of the resident grey langurs. A hangul issues a keening, echoing roar as we move towards the Drapoma gate, which demarcates the beginning of the Core Area, but though we scan the adjacent slopes we cannot seen it. On to the abandoned staff quarter at Kavnar and the bridge over the Dachigam nullah at Pahlipora, where a startled red fox, skitters off into the undergrowth. Through riverine forests to Grupal, the trees dark and bare, the ground russet, the sky winter-grey and rufescent. A large rock-carved pestle is all that remains of a village here, one of ten relocated when Dachigam was declared a Game Rakh (Reserve) in 1910. We ford the Grupal nullah, cross the Nagser maidan, and close the loop at Pahlipora. From here, we ascend one of the gentler slopes, climbing-stooping-crawling through biting thorn scrub to dry temperate grasslands the colour of burnt gold. To the Munnew Watchtower, then the new tower at Rishvudar, then back to Nagpora where Ghulam’s motorcycle is parked. “Just about seventeen kilometres”, he says straight-faced; “it was an easy round today.”

The Old Order

Another day, we walk through the Nambal area along the edge of the national park, where a government-run sheep breeding centre once occupied 100 hectares of pasture land. With the centre relocated in late 2017, it is hoped that the hangul will gradually return to these prime pastures. We climb to the watchtower at Khanpar, then up again through mixed coniferous forests to the ridge at Harikani. Along the seam of a hill, through tall golden grass to the waterhole at Pachha Dob where hangul hoofprints abound and a lammergeier rides the thermals high above. We snack on apples and apricots, and Ghulam talks of his six-year-old daughter, Azmat Jaan, who is fascinated with his photographs of wild animals and has been asking to come on patrol with him. His son, Mumin, is studying biology in the 11th standard: “I will make sure he is well educated so he has choices in life. He will be whatever he chooses to be.”

Mumin will not, however, be able to walk in Ghulam’s footsteps even if he chooses to: there has been a recruitment freeze in the wildlife department for a very long time. The last rationalisation of posts happened in the 1990s; since then, across Kashmir, even as land-use change has inflamed conflict between people and wildlife, the number of permanent frontline staff in service has shrunk. “People grow old and retire, but no one is admitted in their place. In Dachigam, there are just a handful of permanent protection staff left now”, Ghulam says. So, in the Pahlipora block where he is posted, there are just three permanent staff (including a 57-year-old gardener) where there were once 23. Across Dachigam’s 141-sq-km expanse, there are less than 10. 

“Managing a large landscape like this in a scientific manner, with a resource crunch, a manpower crunch, isn’t everyone’s cup of tea”, says Rashid Naqash, (then) Regional Wildlife Warden of Kashmir, when I meet him at the DoWP office a few days later. “We are making do with the resources available to us, but there must be a rationalisation of posts overall. The government could see whether surplus manpower elsewhere could be redistributed (to the DoWP). We must be able to provide manpower and protection in keeping with the areas that are being managed; we have fallen far behind in this regard.”

I meet some of the frontline staff as I walk different areas of the national park. Men like Forest Guard Mohammad Yasin Bhat, a three-decade veteran of the service, who says that while some of Dachigam’s chronic problems (poaching, encroachment, theft of wood for construction) have subsided as fringe communities have been sensitised, the lack of protection staff looms large. “There are too few of us to patrol such a big area... and we are growing old”, he says. Instead, others like Mohammad Younis Khatana, one of the daily wage workers brought into the wildlife department in the early 2000s to make up for the impending staff shortfall.

Daily wage workers are the backbone of wildlife protection across Kashmir. They are emergency first responders in human-wildlife conflict situations, provide patrolling support to forest guards, establish fire lines, assist researchers in the field. They may be ”unskilled” on paper but, as Altaf Hussain, (then) Wildlife Warden of Dachigam, points out, are actually a highly skilled workforce, adept at tasks like GPS tracking and even chemical immobilisation: “Some of them have been involved with our management processes for 15-20 years; they have had various trainings, workshops, capacity building sessions and are capable of doing things very scientifically.”

Yet, though they are vital to wildlife management, they have been given short shrift by successive governments. As “casual” workers, they have no job security, and they receive what are supposed to be monthly wages just once or twice a year, “Eid-ke-Eid”!

Paradise in Paradise

The stream at Kathhpathri is crisp and clear, gurgling with the sweetness of nascent snow-melt. A yellow-throated marten raises its head from a hollow, then vanishes, leaving just a trail of pawprints in the snow. I would say that the landscape is breathtaking, but I haven’t quite caught my breath since I began the 13-km trek to get here: from Pahlipora to the Chhalur grassland, across the Phannar nullah, to Vaskar and then Chanda Khari from where a heart-pumping 3-km ascent began.

About half an hour from Kathhpathri, we reach Dagwan Valley, its alpine pastures covered in fresh snow. No one, I am told, comes up here in winter — no one except the ‘Energiser Bunny’ with me, the custodian of this area: Ghulam. The pastures of Upper Dachigam were traditionally the hangul’s summer hangout, but no longer, not for many years now. There is too much biotic interference, with nomadic herders bringing in their sheep and establishing their deras (camps) as the snow melts. These pastures are vital for the remaining 275 hangul in Dachigam (2023 census), and there is some hope, with grazing areas in Mattan, Drass, Kargil, Ladakh and Gurez, which were out of bounds for Gujjars and Bakarwals, having recently been opened up. But it will take political will for Upper Dachigam to be kept free of human interference, and even then, it will take time; the animal will not return to its traditional areas overnight.

One hopes the hangul has enough time.

I feel the press of time too, standing here, in this bowl surrounded by magnificent peaks. Soon, Ghulam and I will begin our descent to the Core gate at Drapoma; I will be lost and found along the way and know the blind fear of walking this forest after dark. We will say our farewells and promise to stay in touch; I will remember him for a while and forget. (Unfortunately, Ghulam was transferred outside the national park soon after my visit in December 2023.) Summer will melt these snows, and the nomadic herders will bring in their sheep en masse. The native wildlife, the hangul, will stay away another year.

All that will happen, but not yet. Not yet. For now, in this paradise within paradise, there is this snow, these mountains, this peace.