The majority of the Gaddis are now also landowners and practice agriculture as their primary means of livelihood. They are also pastorals and own large flocks of sheep and goats, as the traditional occupation. This has also resulted in their bartandari (customary) rights on forest land which are Government owned. Today, many of them have also taken up jobs as teachers, in government and private organizations and other white collar jobs. Some are also working as unskilled laborers in public works department and forest departments to augment their income.They have agricultural land-holdings where they are growing corn, potatoes, vegetables etc. The women are taking care of the farming, cattle and the households whereas the men are now moving out in to the world to look for ways of earning money.
The community has a total dependence on local market, where at times the people barter their meager surplus cereal produce with the shopkeeper, who acts as middlemen between the people and the market. Horticulture produce is sold to bigger markets through local collecting agents. Barter is rarely resorted to and cash forms the usual medium of exchange. The children below 15 years, both boys and girls, assist their parents in and outside the household activities and also tend the cattle. While working as causal labors in road maintenance they also receive wages in cash. Education and employment have brought them in contact with the wider world. Liberalization of the caste Considerations have been observed in families which have got education and moved to urban centers. The Gaddis are talking part in political activities at the regional level in State Assembly and the cabinet.
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Migration of flocks of sheeps and goats
In Bharmour and Lahaul; at the onset of winter (October/November), flocks of sheep and goat migrate to Kangra valley and Pathankot thereby avoiding fodder scarcity. During early April, folks return to their respective villages so as to manure fields, during the early growing season. Thereafter, malundi or shepherds gather the village stock for summer grazing in trakar/pastures situated on dhars/high mountain peaks. As summer approaches the stock migrates to still higher altitudes. At the end of the growing season, (September/October), when winter returns, sheep and goats are brought back to the lower ranges from the high altitude areas, following traditional routes. The age old practice of manuring fields during October in the lower ranges is still practised. This grazing practice sustains the grazing pressure. It also enhances the nutrient recycling in these areas to a great extent. Fertilization of fields during the to and for movement of livestock enhances crop productivity at low economic cost.
Additionally, sale of crude wool yields substantial economic returns. For shearing, (twice in a year), special scissors are used. Shepherds carry modem drugs with them, and are competent enough to administer drugs through injection to diseased animals. A herd of sheep and goats is always accompanied by one or two gaddi dogs. Cereals and pulses which were earlier imported into the district are now being cultivated in the Kandas(fields on hill top). The obvious advantage of this practice is that sheep and goats constitute pastoral wealth and as such yield economic/remuneration’s. Further, pastoral life is an ecological adaptation in an area where land holdings being small, conventional agriculture is not viable.
It is thought that among their total populace about half of these do not own flocks, and are agriculturalists only. Of those who accompany the flocks of sheep and goats, some take turns months at a time, in shepherding and in cultivation with brothers, uncles or sons. Others are away from home throughout the year except for a couple of weeks in the spring and in the autumn when the flocks pass through their own villages. It is nor the flocks that dictate the annual pattern of the shepherds’ 1ives. The winter pastures are in an approximately horizontal line in the foothills, south of the Dholadhar , from Pathankot/Nurpur in the west to Bilaspur in the east. Here the flocks spend four or five months, moving only locally from a base. The terrain is scrub forest, semi-tropical jungle at 2 to 3,000 ft. Traditionally it has .been the extent of available winter grazing that has controlled numbers and the size of the flocks.
However recent cultivation and the increase in the domestic head of cattle and goats are encroaching on these old pastures. The shepherds at therefore anxious to move north as early as possible, usually towards the end of the month of chaet(about mid-April). But how early depends entirely on how quickly the snow melts on the higher passes and pastures. For during the winter grazing months, as opposed to the summer, some families do accompany the shepherds and flocks Many others, in fact most of the Gaddi population of Bramour , emulating the migratory movement of their flocks, come down in winter to work with relations or live in rented accommodation in Kangra. Babies and young children are carried sideways, across the rest of the luggage on the mother’s or father’s back. It is believed that even Lord Shiva moves from his seat on Mount Kailash to winter at Pujalpur. Some move to high pastures not so very far from home, but still with dangers of avalanches, crevasses, falling stones, and bears. It is a life of discomfort, with the constant necessity of keeping an eye on each sheep and goat. Others must walk Over the 16 to 17,000 ft. passes, and perhaps hundred miles to graze their flocks on the ‘blue’ and nutricious grass of Lahoul and Spiti, even to the borders of Ladakh and Tibet. There to spend two or three months in a treeless land, their food, goat’s milk and parched barley flour that requires no cooking, or sometimes dhal and rice or makke ka Toti, maize chappattis cooked on acrid smelling yak or cattle dung. They have no shelter but their blankets and kilted white homespun cloaks, sometimes a dry stone igloo. The only sounds that relieve the monotonous baa-ing of their flocks, the cold wind and their own flutes. Heaps of manure, accumulated the previous year and matured during the winter lay in the yards or on the path, ready to be carried out to fertilize the maize fields. Bedding quilts, made of old bits of tweed blankets roughly quilted, were spread out in the sun to air. Fields must be ploughed, grain that has been stored all winter cleaned and dried, and flocks must be clipped before they move on away for the summer.