Sher Khan Needs His Share

Valmik Thapar’s Tiger: The Ultimate Guide is clearly a labour of love. The first part of this coffee-tabler is about the biology of the tiger, and is bolstered by essays by well-known biologists such as Raghunandan Chundawat and Ullas Karanth. Remarkable as these photographs are, and excellent though the essays, the latter half really makes this book unique. Starting with an essay by Romila Thapar on ‘The Cult of the Tiger: In Times Past’, the section covers tigers in the ancient world, in art and literature. Whether as a symbol of power or evil in Mughal miniatures or as an ‘emblem of energy, sexuality and imagination’ in Western literature, the tiger has clearly been part of our psyche for centuries. The book contains numerous reproductions of paintings (including a typically memorable Dali) and miniatures, sculptures and excerpts from literature on tigers. Every picture captures the imagination and reflects our deep cultural fascination with tigers.

Unfortunately, Thapar’s other book, The Last Tiger, is almost a refutation of this entire construct. The age-old human-tiger ‘relationship’ seems negated by the attempt to prevent any further ‘real’ contact, by removing people from places where tigers are found. This book is largely Thapar’s account of his attempts to convince those in high places to implement his exclusionary model of conservation, including a disconcertingly large set of annexures of his correspondence with prime ministers and other dignitaries. There is respect for those who did as he suggested, such as Indira Gandhi, and his derision of all others who did not. As an account of state efforts to protect wildlife, this book will be valuable, but the thick feudal lens through which its author views this world will render it a somewhat simplistic account of a layered history.

The third book, Ullas Karanth’s A View from the Machan provides an account of Karanth’s attempts to use science for the conservation of the tiger. Based on a number of previous essays, this book contains many fine sketches of the author’s encounters with tigers, both racy anecdotes and serious research. There are chapters on the biology of tigers, its abundance and that of its prey, and on its relationship with other predators such as wild dogs and leopards. He also covers techniques used to study these animals including radio telemetry and camera trapping, with special attention to the controversial issue of counting tigers. Karanth’s writing is sharp and his arguments incisive, making the book eminently readable. Karanth also believes that protected areas must exclude people, and he argues his case in his essay ‘Sacred Groves for the Twenty First Century’. Karanth puts forth a framework of sustainable landscapes, where certain areas remain inviolate for wildlife.

Despite their hostility to the presence of people in protected areas, both Karanth and Thapar see a role for local communities. Where they critically differ from the ‘social activists’ is with regard to the location of power and decision-making. Thapar seems to argue for a state-centred oligarchy of experts and bureaucrats, while Karanth leaves the question more open. In finding a consensual answer to this question perhaps lies a route to rapprochement between these poles, and a way to save the tiger.

Perhaps the question should be: who wants to save the tiger, and why? If the Thapars of the conservation world devote their unquestionable passion and their redoubtable talent for persuasion to creating a wider environmental ethic, we might all be better served. Put another way, if everyone could love tigers the way they do, conservation will be better served. Regardless, these books will stand outstanding testimony to the efforts to save the tiger from halls of academia to the corridors of power, and most importantly in the forests themselves, where both Ullas Karanth and Valmik Thapar have done their best work.

(Kartik Shanker is Fellow, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bangalore)