Viradhanur, Madurai: Before he steps out of his home, Sithrika forms a mental map of the vast landscape of Southern Tamil Nadu. During the monsoon season, he heads towards Sevakaadu in the South where he knows fields and grazing lands will not be waterlogged. During the dry seasons, he heads towards the Western Ghats where the fields are irrigated with cool waters from Vaigai River.
“Everyone just knows where they should take their kidai (cattle),” said Sithrika, the 37-year-old pastoralist who lives at Viradhanur near Madurai city. He has nearly 500 head of cattle. Like many in the pastoral Keedharigal community, he goes only by one name. “If one kidai moves north, the other naturally shifts south. That is how you prevent overgrazing,” he added.
But, the landscape is rapidly changing: large parts of the common lands are being encroached or diverted; while, the invasive tree, Neltuma juliflora (old name, Prosopis Juliflora) has spread in the region at the cost of native species that sustain cattle. At Viradhanur, the delicate centuries-old symbiosis of pastoralists, cattle and mosaic of grasslands and forests that form their commons were under threat.
Guardians of the open land
As the spectre of these threats increase, pastoralists have banded together for collective action. They have coalesced into a pastoral rights’ group, Tamil Nadu Federation of Pastoral People’s Sangam, a collective that acts like a pressure group to stop the shrinking of common lands. This Sangam is enlisting pastoralists and in the process mapping grazing lands, and forming a network that keeps vigil of fresh encroachments and diversion. The collective voice of the Sangam is playing a key role in increasing awareness among pastoralists, representing their grievances before authorities and to provide a sustained push for customary rights over these lands.
Commons—shared lands such as forests, pastures, water bodies and mangroves— cover 205 million acres or one fourth of India and form the lifeline for over 350 million people, including marginalised groups like Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and women.
Communities across India have traditionally protected, restored and managed these commons through customary self-governance practices. These customary rights and practices, however, haven’t been formally recognised in many parts of the country.
Section 3(1)(d) of the Scheduled Tribe and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 - or, commonly, the Forest Rights Act - recognised rights of pastoral communities over pastures and traditional common lands. But, most pastoralists, including the Keedharigal of Viradhanur, have not been accorded rights over lands they have depended on for centuries.
“Pastoralists can claim land as a Community Forest Resource under the Forest Rights Act, but the implementation on the ground remains deeply uneven. Though they have depended on forests for seasonal grazing and migration, translating these customary practices into legally recognised rights has been a challenge,” says Tushar Dash, an independent researcher working on forest rights and governance issues in India. “Despite mandates for district-level committees to proactively support claims, very few pastoralist groups have secured titles. Limited awareness, administrative gaps, and pending policy guidelines continue to hinder meaningful realisation of these rights,” he adds.
However, undeterred, the Keedharigal have found ways to protect their commons despite contesting demands over resources, lack of formal aid or policy recognition, environmental degradation and climate vulnerabilities.
Land Conflict Watch, a Delhi-based research group, in collaboration with Common Ground Initiative, a collaborative working on the commons, is documenting stories of successful collective action. These stories show that communities across India are reclaiming, restoring and managing commons through customary self-governance practices that can play a crucial role in their ecological, social and economic upliftment.
The Keedharigal and their Kidai
Viradhanur, in Madurai District of Tamil Nadu, is home to 19 Keedharigal families, who are part of the larger pastoral community who herd cattle and sheep across the Vaigai delta region, spanning the districts of Sivagangai, Madurai, and Ramanathapuram. They are largely the caretakers of the cattle breed, Pulikulam, a hardy breed that thrives in rain and intense heat.
Their grazing lands extend across revenue poramboke (which refer to lands such as tanks, pathways, riverbeds, roads), Meikkal poramboke (commons designated specifically for livestock grazing), and Tharisu nilangal (fallow agriculture lands) that flank the village. These grasslands were once dotted with kanmaigal, small water tanks that sustained pastoral life.
They move along with their herds, largely resting in kidai (large, open grounds) where both herders and cattle rest.
“When we leave the house, we don’t know if we’ll be grazing for 10 days or 20 days. It all depends on the state of the grazing lands,” said Selvam. Selvam and others rely on the collective wisdom of the community to determine grazing routes. This knowledge can pinpoint where the freshest grass grows with the season; and which waterbody may still have freshwater.
This wisdom benefits the cattle and helps maintain the grasslands. “Our cattle feed on overgrowth and invasive weeds and grasses. Wherever we graze, we find more native grasses,” said Selvam.
Pastoralists believe that moderate, planned grazing helps preserve soil stability. Unmanaged vegetation leads to drier, looser soil which is washed away in rains and accumulates in tanks as silt.
In return, the grasslands sustain their cattle. The community used to milk cattle, but now largely rely on exporting cow dung as a natural fertilizer. Each day, the herders collect around 15 bags of cow dung, which are sent to markets in Kerala. This provides an income of Rs. 15,000 per month to the herders. The local economy revolves around this: with many others employed to dry and package dung.
Shrinking grazing spaces, rising conflicts
What was once a near-contiguous open land has now become fragmented. The puramboke nilangal (as the commons are called) have been fenced off, turned into housing plots, or built to make sprawling suburbs and apartment complexes.
“Nearly 80% of the land we used to graze on has been allotted to someone or encroached or built upon. Nowadays, it has become a norm for these landowners to charge us if we want to graze our cattle within their lands. They charge up to Rs. 500 per day,” said Murugan, a 40-year-old pastoralist.
This shrinking of grazing is disturbing the very system of cooperation that forms the basis of communal grazing. “We usually call each other up and give updates about our routes. This is so that there is no overlaps or overgrazing. But now, there is very little land. We call each other to ensure that we have access to the land first. We end up fighting amongst ourselves for even this little access,” he said.
Exasperating the concerns is erratic rainfall, linked to climate change. This has shifted grazing patterns. Water bodies are being polluted by either chemical or pesticide use at farms or through effluents from the industries that have sprung up on common lands (Tamil Nadu, like other state governments, have freely allocated common lands which are considered “wastelands” in revenue records to private agriculturalists, industries, to build government structures or for private residences). Additionally, invasive species have taken deep roots in native ecosystems, further shrinking grazing space.
Forming a People’s Sangam
“There is an urgent need for a national grazing land policy," said Rajiv Gandhi, a Keedharigal pastoralist who once grazed sheep and goats along the Vaigai delta. The 35-year-old began his activism with a focus on organic farming, but had soon realised the inherent organic nature of pastoralism.
He believes the loss of common lands is the biggest existential threat to the community. And it was this belief that pushed him to found the Tamil Nadu Federation of Pastoral People’s Sangam in 2023. Currently, their work spans 15 districts and includes volunteers and members from Konar, Todar, Lingayat, Keedharigal and other pastoral communities.
Among the first steps was to map the pastures and the communities using them. “Many communities depend on cattle and on pastoralism. Identifying these communities helps us understand their role in sustaining biodiversity and improving soil health,” said Rajiv.
He and a group of volunteers visited pastoral communities in several villages and mapped out migration routes. The Sangam noted down threats to the common lands and pursued district authorities for solutions. At the nearby Maruthanganallur village in Sivaganga district, for instance, threats included eucalyptus plantations that were destroying grasslands, siphoning of water from tanks for private use, lack of access to government veterinary schemes, among others. Meanwhile, communities are roped in to be the eyes and ears for the Sangam.
“We start by identifying the commons. If we find that common land has been encroached or converted to private lands, we immediately inform the concerned departments. We ensure spot visits are done and surveys are conducted to prevent further encroachment,” said Rajiv.
However, even keeping a vigil remains a challenge. Accessing land records and other information on common lands remains difficult. “If commons are to be protected, it can’t be done by communities alone. It has to be a procedural intervention led by the government,” said Rajiv.
This realisation forms the core of the Sangam’s objectives: to be the collective voice for the pastoral community.
In 2026, the Sangam is carrying out multiple programmes as part of the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists. The UN-backed programme recognised pastoralism as a “dynamic and transformative” livelihood linked to the ecosystem, “historical experience of coexisting with nature” and recognised the importance of national policies that “enabled ecosystem management by pastoralists”.
The Sangam has been knocking on the doors of local political leaders with translations of Karnataka’s pastoral law (The Karnataka traditional Migratory Shepherd (Welfare Measures and Protection against Atrocities) Bill, 2025) which, for the first time in the country, protects access to grazing lands for pastoralists as well as the creation of an economic development board to protect livelihoods. Rajiv and other pastoralists are pressing for a similar law to be implemented in Tamil Nadu.
Demanding their rights
The Sangam is in its infancy, but its impact has begun sprouting at Viradhanur. At the end of 2025, they identified a seven-acre parcel of common lands which had been allegedly encroached. Field surveys have been conducted, while pastoralists are following up with government officers on the status of recovery of these lands.
This is a marked change for the cattle herders of Viradhanur. For decades, they were mute spectators for the changing landscape. “Fear had kept us quiet,” said Subburasu Kannan, a 52-year-old pastoralist who has been herding cattle since the age of nine. “We had seen some encroachments, but they were by powerful people. If we raised our voice, we thought we’ll be targeted and may lose rights to graze in the area,” he said.
Now, with a collective voice behind him, his resolve to protect his commons has strengthened. “For us, cows are not just livestock, we worship them as our god. And so this land becomes our temple.”