The Society for the Promotion of Himalayan Indigenous Activities (SOPHIA) is a

non-profit organisation A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

based in the state of

Uttarakhand Uttarakhand ( , or ; , ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; the official name until 2007), is a state in the northern part of India. It is often referred to as the "Devbhumi" (literally 'Land of the Gods') due to its religious significance and ...

in India. SOPHIA's office is located in

Dehradun Dehradun () is the capital and the most populous city of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and is governed by the Dehradun Municipal Corporation, with the Uttarakhand Legislative As ...

, Uttarakhand, while its operational coverage extends through the states of Uttar Pradesh (UP), Uttarakhand (UK), and

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...

(HP). The organisation works for indigenous communities to improve their living conditions and to facilitate the process of claiming forests rights through the 2006

Forest Rights Act The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, is a key piece of forest legislation passed in India on 18 December 2006. It has also been called the Forest Rights Act, the Tribal Rights Act ...

. SOPHIA's director is Praveen Kaushal. Since its founding, SOPHIA has particularly worked with the

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

nomad A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the popu ...

Van Gujjar Gurjar or Gujjar (also transliterated as ''Gujar, Gurjara and Gujjer'') is an ethnic nomadic, agricultural and pastoral community, spread mainly in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, divided internally into various clan groups. They were trad ...

community who dwell in the forest of the Western Himalayas and practice buffalo

pastoralism Pastoralism is a form of animal husbandry where domesticated animals (known as " livestock") are released onto large vegetated outdoor lands (pastures) for grazing, historically by nomadic people who moved around with their herds. The a ...

. The Van Gujjars have since the early 1990s been subject to politics of

forest conservation Sustainable forest management (SFM) is the management of forests according to the principles of sustainable development. Sustainable forest management has to keep the balance between three main pillars: ecological, economic and socio-cultural. ...

where the construction of

Protected Areas Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...

, nobably

Rajaji National Park Rajaji National Park is an Indian national park and tiger reserve that encompasses the Shivaliks, near the foothills of the Himalayas. It is spread over 820 km2 and includes three districts of Uttarakhand: Haridwar, Dehradun and Pauri G ...

and

Govind Wildlife Sanctuary Govind may refer to: *An alternate spelling of Govinda, which is a name in Hinduism given to the god Krishna. It means "cowherd." *The name Govind is commonly used in Sikhism to refer to God. It is derived from "Gobinda" which means Preserver of th ...

, has led to governmental actions for their

forced displacement Forced displacement (also forced migration) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR defines 'forced displacement' as follows: dis ...

. SOPHIA has worked to advocate the claims of Van Gujjars and to help the Gujjar community access information through the

Right to Information Act The Right to Information (RTI) is an act of the Parliament of India which sets out the rules and procedures regarding citizens' right to information. It replaced the former Freedom of Information Act, 2002. Under the provisions of RTI Act, a ...

in this process.

History

SOPHIA was registered as a Society in Uttarakhand in August 1996. The organisation was an offshoot of

Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra (RLEK) is a non-governmental organization with its work base situated in the state of Uttarakhand, India. Its office is located in Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand. It evolved as a result of years of ...

(RLEK), a

nongovernmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

(NGO) that behan working for the Van Gujjar community but increasingly had turned to other issues. Consequently, SOPHIA was founded by staff from RLEK's former Van Gujjar Programme. Since 1996 SOPHIA has run a milk marketing programme with the Van Gujjar community while advocating Van Gujjar issues in media and legal institutions. Between 2001 and 2004 SOPHIA ran a health programme in the Van Gujjar community. Addressing health and family planning issues served as a means for women's empowerment through the formation of women's groups. In these groups Gujjar women could also raise non-health related issues and set aside money for women-only loans. After 2004 SOPHIA's focus has shifted to a rights-based approach focusing on domicile rights (including claiming the rights of Van Gujjars to vote in state and national elections), anti-corruption, and forest rights. SOPHIA's work is based on a Van Gujjar community "self-diagnosis process" in which the Gujjars formulate the priorities to be kept by SOPHIA.

The Milk Programme

The Milk Programme is a market intervention project initiated by RLEK and taken over by SOPHIA in 1996. The programme has set up a collection point in Mohand, UP, where Van Gujjars deliver buffalo milk. The milk is then distributed in a van directly to consumers. The programme was initiated to alleviate a set of economic difficulties emanating from the gradual transformation, beginning in the 1950s, of the milk-based economy of the Van Gujjars. Whereas the Van Gujjar economy had been based on bartering, the milk was increasingly incorporated in a monetised market. In this process, the Van Gujjar community was caught in a vicious circle of debt-induced dependency on milk middlemen who offered only a fraction of the selling price of milk to Van Gujjar producers. By setting up facilities in Mohand, SOPHIA offers substantially lower prices for the milk than that of competing dairy traders. This forced an immediate price hike in the mid-1990s. In 1995, before the programme was initiated, Van Gujjars received

Rs. Rupee is the common name for the currencies of India, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Seychelles, and Sri Lanka, and of former currencies of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (as the Gulf rupee), British East Africa, B ...

6.25 per litre. After the programme's initiation in 1996 prices rose to Rs. 9 per litre. As of 2012, one litre sells for Rs. 38 of which the Van Gujjar producers receive Rs. 36. Prices have steadily stayed ahead of general Indian inflation and all Van Gujjars are today free from debt-induced constraints.

Forest rights claims

Since the enactment of the '' Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act'', commonly referred to as the Forest Rights Act, in 2006 SOPHIA has assisted Himalayan indigenous communities, notably the Van Gujjars, to file forest rights claims. Many tribal community settlements are located on land owned by the Indian Forest Department which puts them under constant threats of eviction. The Forest Rights Act gives an opportunity for forest dwelling communities to hold legal rights to land and minor forest produce if they can prove, through documentation, that they have been residing in the area for at least three generations or 75 years. In this process SOPHIA works to capacitate the Van Gujjar community and settled populations in Saharanpur (UP), Dehradun (UK), and Uttarkashi (UK) districts to negotiate legal and regulatory pathways to securing forest rights.

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{cite journal, last=Gooch, first=Pernille, year=2009, title=Victims of Conservation or Rights as Forest Dwellers: Van Gujjar Pastoralists between Contending Codes of Law, journal=Conservation and Society, volume=7, issue=4, pages=239–248, url=http://www.conservationandsociety.org/text.asp?2009/7/4/239/65171, doi=10.4103/0972-4923.65171, doi-access=free E.g. {{cite news, last=Rastogi, first=Archi, title=Brief Respite. But Van Gujjars Could Be without Home Next Summer, newspaper=Down to Earth, date=31 May 2007, location=New Delhi {{cite news, last=Kazmi, first=S. M. A., title=UP Van Gujjars Can Head for Uttarkashi, newspaper=The Indian Express, date=27 April 2008, location=New Delhi {{cite news, last=Rawat, first=Sandeep, title=Its sheer hogwash, says NGO, newspaper=The Tribune, location=Chandigarh, date=24 May 2009 {{cite journal, last=Bhutani, first=Shalini, title=External Evaluator's Report, journal=SOPHIA External Evaluation 2010, date=January 2011, pages=1–31 {{cite journal, last1=Rangarajan, first1=Mahesh, last2=Shahabuddin, first2=Ghazala, year=2006, title=Displacement and Relocation from Protected Areas: Towards a Biological and Historical Synthesis, journal=Conservation and Society, volume=4, issue=3, pages=359–378, url=http://www.conservationandsociety.org/text.asp?2006/4/3/359/49270 {{cite news, last=Benanav, first=Michael, title=Is there room for India's nomads?, newspaper=The Christian Science Monitor, date=31 July 2009, url=http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2009/0731/p17s07-wosc.html {{cite book, last=Gooch, first=Pernille, year=1998, title=At the Tail of the Buffalo: Van Gujjar Pastoralists between the Forest and the World Arena, publisher=Lund Studies in Social Anthropology 6, location=Lund, isbn=91-89078-53-5 {{cite news, last=SOPHIA , title=Report on Milk Marketing Programme, newspaper=SOPHIA Evaluation, location=Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India

External links

Official website of SOPHIA
Organisations based in Uttarakhand Nature conservation in India 1996 establishments in Uttar Pradesh Organizations established in 1996