by Barkat Hussain Follow Us On G -N e w s | Whatsapp

According to the 2011 Census, 69.35 per cent of Gujjars remain illiterate.

In March 2025, while conducting ethnographic fieldwork, I arrived in the Pir Panjal, where spring was just breaking through the cold. This multilingual and multiethnic mountain range separates the plains of Jammu from the Valley of Kashmir.

At a government office in Rajouri, on my way to Koteranka, an elderly Gujjar with a henna-stained beard approached me. He carried a worn file of papers and asked me to check what might be missing. For three months, he had been trying, without success, to submit the file. I examined the papers. Everything was complete. I told him so.

With a weary sigh, he looked at me and said: Allah Gujjar na Gujj

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