The journey of Kutch's Fakirani Jat pastoralist community as they grapple with existence

Gujarat's Kutch is akin to a mirage. On the one hand, there are miles and miles of deserts, and on the other, rivers like Luni, Bhuki and Nara flow at their own pace. Then there is greenery, followed by dry foliage. The people dressed in colourful attire and jewellery, all handmade, dancing and singing in front of tourists to display their culture and heritage, is a perfect slice of exotic India.

Beyond the novelty lies the reality of the pastoralists, the nomads of Kutch, who are continuously losing access to grazing land for their livestock, like camels and goats. It is hurting their ancestral way of earning a livelihood, and all these existential crises are pushing these communities to lose their very identity.

Ahmed Jat is one among thousands of nomads of Kutch. He dearly loves his wife and their five children. He equally loves his camels and goats. Together, they move from one area to another, without a stable home, often without a roof over their head, to find some green pasture for animals to graze.

A child in the middle of the arid land in Kutch.

Ahmed belongs to the Fakirani Jat pastoralist community. The Jats are divided into four main sub-castes — Fakirani Jats, Dhaneta Jats, Hajiyani Jats and Garasiya Jats. It’s Fakirani Jats and Hajiyani Jats who are camel breeders. The forefathers of Jats migrated to Kutch from Balochistan (a province in Pakistan) almost 500 years ago.

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Kutch (also spelt as Kachchh) is a district in the western state. It is surrounded by the Gulf of Kutch and the Arabian Sea to the south and west, while the northern and eastern parts are surrounded by the Great and Little Rann (seasonal wetlands) of Kutch. It forms the border with Pakistan, especially the Great Rann of Kutch, a large area of salt marshes.

The struggle to find grazing land has become so acute that Ahmed and many like him have changed their profession. Ahmed had worked as a daily wage earner, loading and transporting carts of sand to brick factories. After working in the factories for some time, Ahmed, 52, is once again herding his camels. He has around 10 camels with him. As a camel herder, he earns around Rs 12,000 a month.

A child watches as a backhoe excavates a piece of land in Kutch.

Ahmed said Kutch was a pastoral land, then the farmers came in and then the industries. “There is no land left.” As he calmly expressed his view, a deep sadness washed over the middle-aged man's face, marked by wrinkles. The sky above him was filled with dark clouds, ominous of Ahmed's fate.

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All these details of human and animal lives, and the beautiful landscape of Kutch, were captured by filmmaker Sonum Sumaria in her recently released documentary, Under the Open Sky, as the camera kept its gaze on Ahmed and his family for five years. In March, the 100-minute film was screened in Kolkata.

People like Ahmed have been photographed and filmed numerous times to reveal the stark reality behind their colourful attire, jewellery, and songs. Despite this attention, nothing much has changed on the ground. According to official estimates, the four Jat groups of Kutch together are 30,000 people. The nomadic desert communities face multiple threats, including rapid industrialisation, diminishing grazing land, environmental degradation, droughts, and poverty.

“The Fakirani Jats are facing a perfect storm of challenges that threaten both their identity and the future of camel herding. Lack of grazing land is a major issue. The government is increasingly selling land to industrialists, particularly for wind and solar farms. While these are touted as green solutions, their construction often destroys native vegetation and ecological balance. One wind turbine alone requires a hectare of land,” said Sumaria.

The filmmaker’s insight is based on her spending five years with the community members while filming and another two years editing the documentary.

The British-Gujarati filmmaker added that restricting the local communities’ access to the forest lands by government agencies under the guise of conservation was a failure to recognise the symbiotic relationship pastoralists have with the land.

"These communities have lived in harmony with nature for generations. The very land they depend on — grasslands, deserts, and shrublands — was historically labelled 'wasteland' by British colonisers, and that label persists, leading to a lack of recognition and protection. There’s also the scarcity of water, and destruction of mangroves, which further disrupts the fragile ecosystem they depend on."

The other obstacles faced by the nomads include a lack of access to healthcare facilities (both for humans and animals), a lack of educational institutions for children, corruption, and non-enforcement of laws meant to protect pastoralists.

"The pressure to abandon their way of life is real, and with that comes the risk of losing a rich cultural identity, and a centuries-old relationship between people, animals, and land," said the filmmaker. Her previous works include In the Shadows of Moscow, Goppi, The Cuban Indian, and Even The Crows: A Divided Gujarat.

Official statistics indicate that there are approximately 150 de-notified tribes and 500 nomadic communities in India. It is mostly two breeds of camels, Kharai and Kachchhi, that Ahmed and members of his community raise. Although life is getting tougher for Ahmed, Kachchh Unt Ucherak Maldhari Sangathan (KUUMS) is one organisation trying to provide some solace to the camel herders. Formed in 2011, the union has 350 camel pastoralists as its members.

Camels, known as the ship of the desert, face existential crises like their human friends.

Speaking to The Federal over the phone, Bhikhabhai Rabari, former president of KUUMS, said that the lives of camel herders were hard. “It is not an easy job to walk miles and miles under hostile climatic conditions to find grazing land for camels. But this is what we have been doing for generations. Salt factories are pushing camel herders away from the land where they once grazed their livestock. Most of our earning comes from selling camel milk.” Rabari is from Jangi village in Kutch’s Bhachau taluk. Rabari added that a camel herder earns around Rs 10,000 a month or less.

Some of the works done by the KUUMS are, “conservation, protection, and restoration of grazing areas which are traditionally being used by camel pastoralists, establish linkages for marketing of camel milk and other camel products, recognisation and conservation of Kharai camel as distinct breed, ensure healthcare facilities for camel, conservation and improvement of camel breeds and showcase their pastoral lifestyle.”

For Zain Jaffer, one of the funders of Under the Open Sky, the documentary was like going back to his roots. The family of the United States-based tech entrepreneur originally hails from the Kutch region. Jaffer, 37, said, “Both sides of my family come from a line of Indians who were brought to East Africa in the 1890s to work on the British Railroad during British occupation. My mother was raised in Uganda, and my father in Tanzania. During the dictatorship of Idi Amin, many families of Indian and Pakistani descent, like mine, were forced to flee and eventually settled in the United Kingdom.” He later moved to the US to start his business.

“My support for the documentary comes from a personal place. While I didn’t grow up in Kutch, my family’s history is rooted there. For generations, we carried stories and fragments of our origins across continents. Supporting this documentary was a way for me to reconnect with that lineage. It was also an opportunity to honour a community whose way of life holds deep cultural value and is increasingly under threat. I hope the film sparks reflection on what it means to preserve heritage, even as we live in a fast-changing world.”

Filmmaker Sumaria listed out some of the most striking aspects of the lives of the Fakirani Jat community. “So many aspects of their lives struck me. For one, they are incredibly open-minded. Both men and women herd animals. Their resilience is extraordinary. They are very generous, always offering guests and strangers camel-milk tea (delicious).”

As Ahmed watches his livestock graze, he contemplates his future.

Ahmed's family lived entirely under the open sky, without even a tent, moving every few days to find new grazing land. “They are physically strong. They walk long distances daily, and their diet is simple but sustaining: mainly camel milk and roti. What also stood out to me was the strong interfaith harmony between the Fakirani Jats, who are Muslim, and the neighbouring Rabari community, who are Hindu. They support one another, and this kind of peaceful coexistence is something we don't hear about enough in today’s India," the filmmaker added.