Written in 2018, during the public debate around shoot-at-sight orders on Avni, a tigress in central Maharashtra.
Yesterday I saw the photo of a man viciously beheaded, his limbs askew, and skin peeled off his back to reveal a hollowed out trunk. A bloody, gouged head was located a distance away. I waited for the instinctive visceral response to such violence but it was curiously muted, perhaps by familiarity, for such photos are circulated with regularity on these particular WhatsApp groups. The title of this group suggests that it is for those interested in wildlife issues in Maharashtra, but members, as is often their wont, tend to accommodate tangential subjects. This man was attacked by an animal in central Maharashtra while guarding his fields. Rarely a week passes without a death or injury credited to animal attacks — tigers, leopards and most commonly, sloth bears.
Of late, every time I see such photos, I am reminded of the ongoing discourse on wildlife protection and forest rights, intensified in recent weeks by the agitation surrounding shoot-at-sight orders on a rumoured man-eating tigress in central Maharashtra. I sympathize with the conservationists. Habitats have diminished, tigers are endangered: 2,500 tigers versus 7 billion humans doesn’t seem a fair comparison in the least, but there are nuances to the story that I find absent in a lot of what’s being said. I base this on some of my experiences in Harisal, a village located in the buffer zone of the Melghat Tiger Reserve.
A forest officer once told me that sloth bears have been forced into increased nocturnality from their typical habit to escape human activity and encroachment on their habitat. One of the early pieces of advice I was given in Harisal from a villager was never to turn your back on an approaching sloth bear for it gives them opportunity to claw you from behind and that particular position offers more scope for lasting damage. Never had I considered safety from sloth bears a matter of privilege.
While animal encounters in Harisal are not commonplace, they do occur. The mother of a good friend, Jitendra Shanware, related an incident that occurred in the fields she was guarding at night. She woke to barking dogs alerting her to a bear standing mere metres from her. She sets alight the head of a stick and warded off the bear with the flame. Her dog unfortunately died in the encounter. Another, Janrao Mavaskar, told me that he would rather face a tiger than a bear for where the tiger is unlikely to attack unless provoked, a bear feels no such compunction.
And yet, what choice have they but to accept these hazards as a part of their day-to-day existence. For if they don’t guard their fields, their crops will be ravaged by wild pigs, various deer and the occasional carnivore. The government eases this transaction to the extent possible: the Forest Department provides monetary compensation for destruction by wild animals and offers large subsidies on fencing. But for chain-link fencing worth 50,000 rupees, farmers were asked to contribute 7,500 rupees each. After six months and a regular harvest, only twelve of the hundred farmers in the village were able to scrape together that sum. This is what poverty looks like. So what choice have they but to arm themselves with fire, sticks, stones on catapults, and loyal dogs?
As human activity has increased, the forest has been pushed back, encroaching on the territories of wildlife still further. In summers, the forest is reduced to an ashen landscape with little respite and animals roam further afield in search of water. And yet, I know locals to accept and protect this ecosystem. I have witnessed the gentle capture and release into the wild of at least four venomous snakes; deep knowledge they carry of birds and flowers and fruit; their pride in indigenous customs that is being rapidly eroded by the authority of the “mainstream.”
Change petitions and activist groups have widely vilified the Maharashtra State Forest Department. Yet I must ask myself why a forest department which tracks daily on camera and foot the pugmarks of individual animals; which organizes teams to catch poachers late into the night; which permanently stations guards in isolated lookouts in the midst of dense forest; which artificially replenishes waterholes deep into the jungle to keep animals alive in summers — would willfully recommend the shooting of an animal that they are trying their hardest to protect.
Do I recommend man-eating tigers or any other animal be killed? No, for I have neither the expertise nor the conviction to make that statement. I largely abhor the anthropocentric views that we espouse, but can’t help but feel that the narrative on human-wildlife interactions is unidimensional. Even as I reach out to sign petitions asking them to spare the tigress, a little niggle stops me, because I’m aware that we are sitting in the safety of our urban homes, offering vulnerable populations as bait.