Srinagar, July 20 -- Srinagar- By late June, the snow retreats from Budgam's Cheskani-Nad, and the meadow opens into a stretch of green folded between the peaks of the Pir Panjal range.

Generations of herders have followed that thaw upward, driving sheep and cattle toward grass their families have grazed since before India's independence.

This summer, as in several before it, some of them say they found the path blocked.

Mohammad Aslam Jahara, a herder from the village of Brenwar, has spent years pressing that claim through the courts.

He and other members of the Gujjar community argue that a group of locally influential residents from Branwar Chadoora have effectively fenced off roughly 10,000 kanals, nearly 1,250 acres, of pasturela...