The Women Carrying Water—and the World

The Women Carrying Water—and the World

The complicated life of women struggling with climate change—and cultural change—in Kashmir’s mountains.

Young Indian Gujjar nomads walk with their flock through thick fog on the outskirts of Jammu on December 19, 2013. October 30, 2025, 1:28 AM Comment icon View Comments ( )

PEER KI GALI, Jammu and Kashmir—It was a breezy, sunny noon at Peer Ki Gali, a mountain pass in the Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas, connecting the Poonch and Shopian districts of Jammu and Kashmir. As the sun and clouds played hide and seek, 20-year-old Asima Chaudhary, a Gujjar-Bakarwal herder, a nomadic community known for rearing sheep and goats across the mountains, watched her flock grazing on the slope. Her dhoka, a stone-and-mud shelter, was a 20-minute wal