India's Crazy Bear

[stripes]

India's Crazy Bear

[mehulkamdar]

Nick,

Thank you very much for another magnificent article. I love Hyderabad - it is one of India's cities that still has a relaxed, Nawabi charm to it and the cuisine is among the finest available in India, especially at the Nizam Club where my club offers an affiliate membership. These days, Warangal is a very dangerous place with Naxalite gangs almost fully in control of the countryside and it would be dangerous even for Indians to go there. I wonder, though, if the Naxalite insurrection has preserved any of the wildlife in the forests by keeping poachers etc out - maybe Vikram, ANil or other members from Hyderabad would step in and tell us how things are in that part of India.

Thank you very much again,

Mehul

[Vikram]

Thanks Nick for the nice reading, though bears will never be on my "to shoot" list.

During a few nightly vigils over paternal crops against porcine marauders, I did encounter sloth bears a few times.They would stand at around 50-yards, swaying and looking at you.My peasant companions would often come up with requests to deal with them that were promptly turned down.

The Maoist guerrillas called Naxals do prowl those forests but I do doubt if it helped curb poaching.May be the city slickers may avoid them but not the poacher who kills for the pot or for the market. In fact, at one time, the Naxalites started shooting Tigers because the Forest Department was "placing people's needs below that of tigers and forbidding people to use forests". WWF was one of the few Non governmental organisations that tried their best to change that. Now in that entire region, very precious few tigers are left.

Frankly speaking, it's not the ban of hunting in 1971 or the subsequent poaching that started to spell the doom of the Tiger. Ever since the mass shootings started during the Raj and the Rajahs took it up, the Tiger's days were numbered. Ironically, reviving selective hunting may be the only salvation.

[mehulkamdar]

Vikram,

During the Raj the tiger "preserves" that were formed were actually a very sensible conservation measure. It was not hunting that wiped the tiger out in India but habitat destruction. When something like 40% of a country's forests are destroyed in 60 years, there is little hope for wildlife.

The bogey of hunting wiping tigers out is a PETA fraud that needs to be properly refuted.

As far as the Naxalites are concerned, there should be an open season on the scum. I would not be sorry if the last of themw as hunted down and killed. That is an extinction that would be worth it.

Mehul

[Vikram]

Let me start with a disclaimer. I see that controlled hunting can be a viable means of conservation instead of total ban and I would hunt if I could do it legally. And this is not an apology for the government.

Having said that, the calamitous situation that persists now is not entirely a result of the incompetence of successive governments of Independent India alone, though they did contribute to it greatly and continue to do so. To blame Independent Indian governments solely responsible is to ignore the historical progression of events that kick started the ball. A simple arithmetic of estimated Tiger population in the 19th century and at the time of Independence gives an idea of the toll taken on them. If conservation of wildlife was alone the driving force of colonial forest policies, who would account for the so many extinct or critically endangered species of wildlife by the time of Independence? Cheetah? And what of the wildlife in Ceylon? What happened to the Bison there?

Conservation on modern lines even in US was unheard until Teddy Roosevelt took it up. If it wasn?t, the American Bison, the Passenger Pigeon wouldn?t have driven to the state they were by the start of 20th century. Same in Africa. India was not an exception. The British did introduce reserve forests, for entirely different reasons apart from ?conservation?. But, this cannot absolve them of the slaughter of mammoth scales. But, more than the British, who at least introduced these forest laws, it?s the prodigal Princes of yore who were largely responsible, for the devastation unleashed by them utterly outweighs the piddly little conservation efforts. The destruction of wild life by them was uncontrolled and that was the reason why many British would go to Princely states to hunt than in the colonial forests where at least a pretence of seasons were to be observed. One of the Scindias of Gwalior was known as the Rajah of 1000 tigers, foetuses included, and I have a photograph of him with the skins behind him. I am not blaming them or anything. They lived in different times and they thought the resources were endless. What the successive governments did with what was left is altogether a different matter. There exists a huge literature about the history of wildlife conservation in India. I agree that a lot of ecologists take an anti-hunting line. I feel, however, authors like Mahesh Ranga Rajan are slightly more balanced than the rest. I did read his books and find them well researched.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/2001/01/21/st ... 21067g.htm

And about the Col Kesri Singh, he mentions at the end of the passage, I have his (the Col) book with me and the passage about nameless graves for transgressors does exist.
The Oxford Anthology of Indian Wildlife Vol 1&2 make some very interesting readings.
One hunter sagely observes the dark stains in a temple of Krishna as ?blood stains from human sacrifices by the natives?.

The constraints this type of a forum imposes make it slightly difficult to deal with all the aspects of the issue being debated.

Bottom line, I will not accept that the previous rulers were any wiser than the present rulers.

Re the naxalites, I take a different view. They did degenerate into mindless criminality and, now, have little relevance in terms of a political movement and to the civil society. They have only two options now. Give up arms and fight democratically or perish. I always wanted to get into the IPS and when I was preparing for the civil services, it was the IPS and not the IAS that was my first option. But, the conditions that started them all still continue and I know quite a few people who continue to hold onto thousands of acres of land individually still and the caste suppressions at village level. I can safely say that I am in touch with both ends of the spectrum (this is not to say that others don?t). I come from an ancient feudal family and I have friends who come from the lowest rungs of society with whom I lived together, studied together etc. A junior of mine in MA, a very decent boy from a very poor family, was picked up and shot by the police in an encounter. I have friends and cousins who are police officers, IPSs those who give the orders and Station level officers who carry out the encounters and who in turn are targeted by the Naxals. We all come from very privileged backgrounds that we don?t need to look for where the next meal is coming from and yet, we face innumerable troubles from the bureaucratic rigmaroles of the state. These people neither have the skills (education) nor opportunity to acquire them to survive the corruption that surrounds us. A fertile base to make picking up the gun the only option. After all, doesn?t it feel good to make the people tremble before you who so far have terrorised you? This is not to condone any of the violence they indulge in. I wish to submit humbly that, before we shoot them, let?s simultaneously deal with the real problem that breed them.

I know that this is way too off-topic, but since this also involves conservation, elimination of poverty is the best guard against extinction of wildlife.

Things are so distorted and complicated that, the sheer difficulty of breaking the cycle is mind numbing.

The past few days, I have been in a state of mental turmoil and am getting increasingly desperate with the state of affairs around us. I am just venting here and request you all to pardon that with a big heart. Sigh??????.. (all directed against myself).

Best- Vikram

[mehulkamdar]

Vikram,

Just check the history of the various reserves where tigers can be found today, especially in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Sariska, Bandhavgarh etc were all hunting grounds in the past. Properties of maharajas who hunted there. And some of them still have tigers despite the worst efforts of the neta-babu class. AT least, for fifty years or more after Independence there were still some tigers in Sariska - now, under the fantastic (I would prefer another word that also starts with "f") care of the Government of India, there are no tigers there.

The last cheetah in India was shot in 1956 in Chittoor in AP, not in the pre Independence era - the fact is that with urbanisation, huge swathes of forests were cut down. That contributred more to the loss of wildlife than hunting per se. I remember in the 1970s and early 80s we could see many GAur herds at Kodaikanal, Top Slip etc. At Berijam, there was always some wildlife to see - if it was not Gaur, it was a leopard, elephants etc. These days you would be lucky to see anything. The Gaur were wiped out by a rinderpest epidemic in the 1980s and have never recovered. Where did they get it from? Domestic cattle allowed to graze in the forests by corrupt forest department officials.

I have seen the wildlife and huge swathes of forest wiped out from the 1960s to date especially in the South. I will never go to Kodaikanal again - not because we don't own property there any more but because I have seen the place go to seed.

As far as the Naxalites are concerned, I personally know some of their mouthpieces - Dr Charu Mazumdar, Kanu Sanyal and recent supporters like the lawyer Kannabiran. The less I say about them the better - suffice it to say that the babu neta class that I despise is head and shoulders above these murdering thugs.

Mehul

[Vikram]

Mehul,

I for a second do not discount what you said. I never ever said the government is managing our forests well. Botswana does better than us on this account.My only submission is that the annihilation was started in the colonial era, not just in the post-independent India, and the Prodigal princes must also take the blame for it if they can lay claim towards conservation. Re hunting, Mowing down hundreds of animals or thousands of birds in one day is never hunting in my books.

Re Cheetah, why was the last one shot in 1956? If the last one is shot in 2006, ....

Kannabiran is one of the saner elements of the left leaning groups and he was muscled out of APCLC, because he wanted the other civil liberties groups to condemn naxalite violence,too.

Back to hunting.. I still advocate professionally managed legalised hunting is a better form of conservation. Whole sale uncontrolled, no way.

Best- Vikram

[mehulkamdar]

Re Cheetah, why was the last one shot in 1956? If the last one is shot in 2006, ....

Best- Vikram

The last cheetah was shot in 1956 only because it's habitat had been steadily wiped out. Had it been an animal that inhabited the many preserves that the maharajas set up, it would most likely have survived.

I don't want to post information on a public forum about some of the people I mentioned, but suffice it to say that what I know from personal interaction is vastly less than complimentary.

Best wishes,

Mehul