Immigration issues and employment
Within the scope of this research, we will analyze the issues of waged-labour employment and immigration in India, looking at specific region as an example. Ladakh is a semi-autonomous region in the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, which shares highly sensitive borders with Pakistan to the north and China to the east. As a result of its geopolitical situation and ongoing border tensions, the Indian armed forces have maintained a strong presence in Ladakh since the 1960s. The associated increase in government spending on infrastructure and in the demand for goods and services has had a significant impact on the local economy. However, the benefits of this ‘development’, which have included construction of transport, health care and educational facilities, have been largely focused in the district capital, Leh. The town, and indeed region, has undergone rapid social and economic transformation during this period (Bhasin 1999).
Throughout the region, there has been a shift away from traditional subsistence agriculture toward the service sector, including tourism, and an increasing reliance on heavily subsidised imports. Migrants are being drawn toward the urban area from villages throughout Ladakh and large settlements have sprung up around the capital. Leh town currently has one of the highest rates of urban growth in India (Goodall 2004). The nomadic pastoralists from Rupshu-Kharnak have not been immune to this trend, and in recent decades increasing numbers of pastoralists have been leaving Rupshu-Kharnak to settle in and around the urban area of Leh.
Rupshu-Kharnak is located in the elevated southeast corner of the Ladakh, bordering the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China. Geographically the region is an extension of the Tibetan plateau and the altitude-induced climatic extremes and resource limitations make these rangelands suitable only for extensive mobile pastoralism. The Changpas of Rupshu-Kharnak number less than 1200 and are comprised of three independent communities, located at Rupshu, Kharnak and Korzok. Each maintains its own pastoral migration cycle and all households move with their herds throughout the year within well defined, communally regulated pastures. Limited cultivation of fields for grain and fodder is, or has been, undertaken in each community, although mobile pastoralism for subsistence and trade has always been the primary activity. The meat and wool produced in Rupshu-Kharnak are sold to traders to supply the urban population in Leh and the weaving industry in Srinagar.
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