The spiritual ecology of Indian Himalayan women: Ritual, resistance, and relationality
By Gurmeet Kaur
Himalayan region is known for its untouched lands, difficult terrains and limited access. While these features have attracted many (Sages, travellers and traders) for eons, the region is now actively acknowledged as living repository of ecological knowledge, spirituality, and memory. The role of women to pass on the lived memory to next generation is high. Women have been performing rituals, caring for ecosystems, and passing down oral traditions that connect life and land. Their epistemic authority however has been subject to colonial and developmental efforts. Colonial administration and missionary education labelled them as backward and their practices as superstitious or archaic. In India, even post-independence, the legitimacy of women’s ecological leadership and community land rights were not acknowledged under the new development paradigms because it challenged the narrow idea of scientific temper. In this essay, I focus on women in the Indian Himalayan Region, particularly Hindu and Buddhist women as well as women who follow locally specific indigenous deities and cosmologies.
Today, when we are in the middle of climate crisis, scholars from environmental humanities, religious studies and social sciences are acknowledging that mountains, rivers, woods, and soils all have agency and sacred meaning in a variety of Himalayan cosmologies. Women frequently serve as ceremonial bridges between human societies and non-humans. Their relational perspective, which promotes interdependence and spiritual duty, is ingrained in their day-to-day work in agriculture, seed preservation, internal and external healing. In what follows, I highlight how native Indian Himalayan women’s eco-spiritual practices function as forms of feminist ecological knowledge and healing, while also noting how these practices are increasingly pressured by commercialization and spiritual tourism.
My ethnographic fieldwork in the western belt of Indian Himalayan region (Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh) between 2024 and 2025 shows that it is possible to develop feminist healing practices that serve as models for spiritual ecofeminism by comprehending the suffering of humans, animals, and the land while acknowledging and including the epistemic voice of native women.
For instance, women in Uttarakhand perform jagar rituals, which are night time ceremonies that call upon heavenly spirits. Indigenous Lepcha and Bhutia women in Sikkim honour mountain deities and preserve seed biodiversity, which is essential to regional food systems, by performing seasonal rituals in holy forests . These rituals are being challenged by extractivist development which prefers short-term gain over sustainable development.
In 21st century, spiritual authority is combining with feminist and environmental struggle. Rather than being only motivated by political ideology, acts of ecological protection are stemming from spiritual obligations. The seed of this can be traced in Chipko movement where rural women physically defended trees from logging by embracing them in the forest. Their awareness of woods as sacred places that are vital to village life and their respect for trees as living things served as the foundation for these actions.
Buddhist nuns have started to take the lead in environmental education and adaptation initiatives in Ladakh and Himachal Pradesh. In addition to teaching Buddhist ideals of compassion for all beings and implementing waste reduction and water conservation measures, several nunneries also operate solar-powered facilities. In related but distinct context in North-east India, matrilineal systems are used by the Khasi and Garo groups to pass on land to women. They carry out ceremonies to safeguard regional ecosystems and serve as clan-level guardians of holy springs and woods. Khasi women have prevented mining and land dispossession in recent decades by using both legal and ceremonial authority. Their spiritual rites also function as tools for group healing. Women perform communal blessings, fasts, and rites after natural disasters like floods or landslides, which help to rebuild social ties as well as the lands. These are collective corporeal reactions to trauma and displacement rather than private or symbolic behaviour’s.
These feminist spiritual practices can draw from centuries of history while adapting to the urgent demands of climate change and biodiversity loss. At the same time, these eco-spiritual practices are under pressure: multinational wellness companies and spiritual tourism are stealing away the cultural and ritual knowledge of Himalayan communities, often without their consent or knowledge. The commercialization of traditional medicines and ways of healing (from Amchi’s) has enabled a form of “knowledge extractivism” that privileges outsiders while stifling indigenous voices.
In sum, the eco-spirituality of native women in IHR provides important insights for feminist and ecological movements around the world. Their efforts are centred around ritual rooted in the ethical duty, honouring multiple forms of knowledge, and practicing interdependence between humans and more-than-human worlds, even as these practices are increasingly threatened by extractive and commercial forces. In order to move towards just and sustainable societies, these forms of knowledge from the margins must enter centre (urban and peri-urban spaces) through native women, who are more than just cultural informants.
Dr. Gurmeet Kaur is a specialist in Himalayan women’s studies and holds a PhD from Panjab University, India. She currently serves as Chair of the postdoctoral residency at Iméra – Institute of Advanced Studies, Aix-Marseille Université, and as a postdoctoral fellow at Panjab University. Her scholarly work examines gender relations within Tibetan communities and critically engages with environmental challenges in northern India.