The Bakarwals are a nomadic pastoralist group from Jammu and Kashmir. Every year, they migrate between the high-altitude mountain meadows in summer and the plains in winter with their livestock which mainly consists of sheep and goats. During their migration to the meadows and almost two months of stay there, the Bakarwals work as labourers and do odd jobs for the resident Kashmiris, mainly the fruit orchard owners and farmers. Their lives in the plains mainly revolve around being able to access basic necessities such as pipelined water and owning small pieces of tillable land. In the last two years, the relations of Bakarwals with some of the other groups have become strained. The Pahadis are a group that has been promised the status of Scheduled Tribe (ST), a status that so far was mainly given to the Gujjar-Bakarwal communities in the region. This led to protests from the Bakarwal community to assert their identity as Scheduled Tribes and their need to access government development schemes and facilities. I used in-depth interviews by visiting Bakarwals in their mountain meadows as well as in the plains to understand their lives and interactions with their environment, including other groups. Content analysis of news articles and reports was also used as data. This study shows that in an environment of increasing insecurities, the Bakarwal relations with other groups are continuously reformed. Secondly, it shows that the Bakarwals continue to have relations with the resident Kashmiri population to be able to diversify their livelihood, despite the belief of some of the Bakarwal community leaders that a "true" Bakarwal never works as a labourer.
