China gunning for India’s hunting grounds, pastures

The recent taking into custody of an Arunachali Adi youth by the Chinese army from the higher reaches of Upper Siang district is aimed at discouraging the use of the forested border that is the traditional hunting ground of the tribal communities, writes ETV Bharat's Sanjib Kr Baruah.

New Delhi: People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China may be acting to a plan to discourage indigenous locals from foraying in the remote border stretches thereby negating territorial claims based on tradition. What aids the Chinese effort is the colonial legacy of a largely undemarcated border between the two Asian giants differences over which have led to the 1962 conflict as well as the ongoing one in eastern Ladakh.

Both the India-China border stretches in Ladakh and in Arunachal Pradesh are in very remote and difficult geographies straddling the mighty Himalayas with very less settled populations. Whatever habitation exists is largely seasonal. In Ladakh, it is the cattle grazers while in Arunachal Pradesh it is the local hunters scouring the thick jungles. Ever since time immemorial, both these tribal communities use the border region as pasture land and hunting ground respectively.

In effect, these communities also serve as ‘eyes and ears’ of the Indian security establishment and have usually been the first ones to report Chinese presence. By undertaking measures that will discourage these populations to use the border region, China is negating traditional claims on these pastures and hunting grounds.

In eastern Ladakh, local sources say over the last couple of years, access to border pastures from Depsang in the north to Pangong Tso in the south have been progressively blocked—resulting in inability to graze the Pashmina goats that graze at heights in excess of 13,000 feet. As a result, cattle rearing families, deprived of their livelihood, are forced to shift to ‘depth’ areas, allowing the PLA to have unhindered control over these swaths.

On the other hand, in Arunachal Pradesh, the PLA has been trying to area-dominate the border jungles by catching hold of hunters whose ancestors have hunted in these areas for centuries. In Upper Siang, on January 18, a 17-year-old hunter from the local Adi community, Miram Taron, was taken away by PLA soldiers from the Lungta Jor area and is yet to be handed back to the Indian side while efforts are on to get him back.

It is in these forests that the local Adi tribe undertakes the annual traditional hunting festival called ‘Aran’. On September 3, 2020, a team of five hunters armed with muskets and belonging to the Tagin tribe from Nacho village in the state’s Upper Subansiri district were picked up by a team of PLA soldiers on September 3.

Usually, besides wild animals like deer and bears, the hunters also scour for the famous Himalayan white-bellied musk deer which is prolific in the high altitude areas of Arunachal Pradesh above 8,500 feet. Another rare forest product that hunters look for especially in the western side is the caterpillar fungi locally called ‘yarsa gumba’.

While the deer secretes a substance locally called ‘kasturi’ that is used in very expensive perfumes and medicines, the ‘yarsa gumba’ is famous as an aphrodisiac endowed with many other medicinal properties. These two exotic products fetch a very high market price. Meanwhile, putting up a characteristic obdurate face, China’s foreign ministry tweeted on Friday reiterating territorial sovereignty over ‘Zangnan’ or what China calls Arunachal Pradesh, terming it as an area under India’s “illegal encroachment”.

India terms such picking up of its nationals by the PLA from the remote reaches of Arunachal as ‘kidnapping’ while China sees the presence of these individuals as ‘illegal trespassing’ by possible ‘spies’.