| Body-builder, reformed hunter,
foster-father to an infamous tiger, or a thorn in the side
of the Uttar Pradesh Forest Department… how would you
like to be remembered?
I want simply to be remembered as Arjan Singh, a man who loved
tigers and fought to keep them alive and safe from humans.
But I recall with great pleasure my days of weightlifting
and body-building, when I was able to meet the American and
Russian Olympic weightlifting teams and managed to lift 220
pounds in the Clean and Press; close to a record for my weight!
You once threatened to wrestle Dr. Sálim Ali during
an Indian Board for Wildlife meeting years ago, if my sources
are right?
He was such a delightful man, with a great sense of fun. When
he and I stood next to each other, we looked quite a sight.
Someone at the IBWL meeting had commented on his frail body
and how it contrasted with my pumped-up muscles, so I caught
Sálim by the neck in a mock grip and he asked if I
would care to fight. Everyone had a good laugh, including
Sálim.
Like Sálim Ali you were also once a shikari.
No. I can't lay claim to be a shikari. At least they had some
rules. I was a bloodthirsty, murderous urchin who shot anything
that moved. Even as I grew older I continued to shoot owlets
and hyaenas and leopards and tigers. I am condemned to live
with my deepest regrets for being part of the slaughter that
maligned the evolutionary processes that created such magnificent
creatures. I finally stopped shooting in 1960 when I was overcome
with remorse for ending the life of a beautiful leopard in
the headlights of my jeep. I had no right whatsoever to destroy
what I could not create.
But you did eventually work to have sport hunting banned
in India?
Yes. I realised when the tiger was slipping away from us that
sport hunting was a sinful, hypocritical act opposed to all
civilised human thought. No one has the right to be entertained
by murder. Sadly the virus of sport killing runs deep in the
human psyche and wild predators like wolves, tigers, leopards
and sharks continue to pay the price for human blood lust
that condones killing with the use of telescopic sights, automatic
weapons and even helicopters. Yes, I took on the outfitters
of the day. They tried every dirty trick in the book to coerce
the Indian government to let them carry on their bloody business
when tiger shikar was banned in 1969-70. They spoke sanctimoniously
then about conservation, but took extra money for guaranteed
kills. I recall that Allwyn Cooper actually set up a dead
leopard for the famous African hunter Robert Ruark to shoot
when they could not deliver a live animal in his line of fire!
They were an unscrupulous lot and India is well rid of them.
Let's talk about Dudhwa. How did this forest become so
entwined with your life?
Well, I had taken to farming in the area soon after Independence
when I left the army. The thunder of barasingha hooves was
commonplace. I had to struggle to establish my farm over the
years, but despite the trials and tribulations I came to love
it all the more for its proximity to the wilderness. Once,
with my brother Balram and a friend called John Withnell,
we shot two barasingha at Bhadi Tal, only to discover that
they were a protected species. We promptly reported ourselves
to the Divisional Forest Officer, who let us off, complimenting
us for our honesty in confessing our mistake. I was a pioneer
settler, but as the years passed, farmers began to migrate
in large numbers from Pakistan. When a large company called
The Collective Farms and Forests Ltd. cleared 10,000 acres,
I could see the writing on the wall and began to seek a halt
to the destruction.
When did Tiger Haven come into your life?
That was in the height of summer in May 1959. I had gone out
into the forest on Bhagwan Piari, the elephant with whom I
spent 25 wonderful years. I could see the Himalayan ranges
across the Dudhwa grasslands. At the confluence of the Soheli
and Neora rivers I discovered a patch of land that was owned
by a politician who had lost all interest in it. I bought
it and turned it into a functioning farm, which was inundated
several times a year when the rivers were in spate, but which
profited greatly from the fertile silt that was left behind.
Here we protected wildlife, even as we managed to share a
functioning farm.
Shooting was still the rage, though you had stopped by
then.
True, but along with several friends we used to reserve the
shooting blocks adjacent to Tiger Haven to stop others from
using them. Sometimes I used to fudge applications in five
or six different names! One way or another we managed to provide
a safe haven for wildlife. I was repaying old debts. Some
old shikaris used to come and drink with me around my campfire
and their loosened tongues would provide me with information
that I would unhesitatingly use against them!
Was this why you were appointed to the U.P. State Wildlife
Board?
Yes, that was in 1964, the same year the U.P. State Wildlife
Board itself was established. I remember George Schaller had
come to visit me at Tiger Haven and together we conducted
a survey in the adjoining Ghola forest, only to discover that
the presumed 1,500 barasingha had dropped to 600. I then submitted
a proposal to protect the endangered barasingha and after
some vacillation, Dudhwa became a sanctuary that shared a
border with Nepal. And best of all, Tiger Haven was right
in the middle of it.
I created grasslands, salt licks and water sources to attract
barasingha, which I also helped drive with help from Bhagwan
Piari, beaters and crackers all the way from Ghola. Had we
not done this, they would have succumbed to guns and land
grabbers operating under the protection of Naxalites. Tiger
Haven's protection plan had worked. I could ask for nothing
better.
And what did your neighbouring farmers have to say about
all this?
They were upset, as was the hunting lobby. But that was their
problem. The tiger and the deer on which they depended were
safe. Nothing else mattered. Years later, in 1972, I also
managed to get the Kishanpur Sanctuary declared. By then the
Wildlife (Protection) Act had also been declared, Project
Tiger was on the anvil and, thanks to the late Mrs. Indira
Gandhi, the tide had begun to turn in favour of India's wildlife.
In India wildlife is the responsibility of the forest
department, yet your own relationship with them has always
been rocky. Why?
They could not tolerate my calling a spade a spade. I was
always against their commercial timber operations. I also
recall when the tigers of Dudhwa were in their deepest crisis
that the forest department lied to the world, stating that
there were 104 tigers in the park. I knew that there were
no more than 20! And when tiger carcasses were turning up
in wells and canals, it was somehow suggested that overcrowding
was driving them to suicide! The forest department doesn't
care about tigers. They are only concerned with absolving
themselves on file of any and all blame for the tiger's desperate
plight.
But surely you cannot hold them solely responsible for
the tiger's decline?
I suppose not solely responsible. But their spine was certainly
conspicuous by its absence when, for instance, they conspired
to allow the Irrigation Department to construct a barrage
along the Soheli river, which formed the boundary of Dudhwa,
which had by then been declared a national park. I had pointed
out that the barasingha for whom the area was protected would
be badly affected. Not one person in the forest department
supported my plea for protection and the barrage, illegal
as it was, was built. Later they compounded the damage by
constructing safety walls. In the Madrahia-Sathiana area,
the barasingha numbers dropped from 1,200-1,600 to just about
150. It was a catastrophe. Of course I hold the forest department
responsible.
What is the problem, the root problem for tigers?
Habitat fragmentation. This is what induced a division of
one species into eight subspecies. In conjunction with poaching,
habitat loss has devastated the tigers and has led to three
subspecies vanishing altogether. Then, of course, is the problem
of people competing with the tiger for survival. As the master
race, we have to resolve this conflict or Armageddon will
overtake our overpopulated and plundered universe. We are
losing our forests and the symbolic presence of the animals
it shelters before our eyes.
And you feel not enough is being done to counter this
decline...?
Look, even the figures presented by the forest departments
of the total number of tigers alive in India are suspect.
The estimation is carried out by untrained personnel, haphazardly
selected from subordinate staff who must perform a host of
other forestry operations. Wildlife staff are transferable
to five different disciplines and two-thirds of all tigers
do not even have this minimal protection. Certainly not enough
is being done to save them.
What would you have the government do?
Stop the fragmentation of tiger habitats immediately. Have
uniform control over tiger habitats, rather than the differentiated
administrative control that is the rule today. The forest
department is trained in commercial forestry, but saving tigers
is a totally different discipline for when a tree is destroyed,
habitat is lost. "A clean forest floor" is the dream
of a forester, but it is the nightmare of a wildlifer. The
same department cannot and should not run the operations for
they are antagonistic. Our government's budgetary allocations
are not only minimal but dishonestly structured. Despite our
reverence for Ganesha and Durga, political and administrative
will to conserve wildlife is infinitesimal. That is what I
would have the government change.
And what about Tara? You would agree that she has been
the root of most of your antagonism with officialdom?
I suppose so. The project that allowed me to reintroduce Tara,
the tigress into Dudhwa was approved by no less than Mrs.
Indira Gandhi. Tara conceived a total of nine off- spring
over a period of 15 years and I believe that they have reinvigorated
the Dudhwa tiger population. European scientists however claimed
that Tara was an Indo-Siberian hybrid and suggested physical
elimination on the grounds of genetic pollution. The attitude
to wildlife protection by officialdom is not only uncaring,
but demeaning.
But almost every expert would advice against the "genetic
pollution" of wild tigers.
Research suggests that subspecific integration may not be
injurious. Hybridisation is revitalising. And the tigers of
Dudhwa continue to breed well. Project Tiger refuses to accept
that genetic depression is the final arbiter of survival.
I find this obsession with purity strange. When the main religion
of the country forbids intergenetic alliances for purposes
of lineal purity we connive at continuous incestuous breeding
of tigers in facilities like Nandankanan. India must accept
heterozygosity for tigers or we cannot save the species. Let's
just say that my differences with the forest department are
irreconcilable.
But even your worst critics respect you and no one questions
your purity of purpose in wanting the tiger saved. As a WWF
gold medal winner, member of IUCN's Cat Specialist Group,
Honorary Wildlife Warden and recipient of the Padmashree,
surely you can mend your fences with people who share common
objectives?
I am too old now to change my spots. I do not trust them and
they do not trust me. I have never claimed to be infallible,
but I know what tigers need to survive and in
India today the right to survival is being denied to them.
I believe that the future of the great cats lies in the creation
of maximised reservations.
But translocation of a large predator in a thickly populated
country does seem unrealistic and your own experiments with
leopards have proven fatal for some unfortunate victims.
People who live near wild animals risk death. Many people
die at the hands of "untranslocated" great cats
each year. Translocation is going to be an inevitable strategy.
When I pass to another world, you must remind people of this
conviction of mine. It was right for rhinos in Dudhwa and
it is right for tigers too.
And how do you suggest this objective be accomplished?
The most workable solution is to translocate animals from
other (overcrowded) areas. We could artificially inseminate
a receptive wild tigress. Or we could reintroduce a captive
born cub as I did.
Has your life been a success or a failure?
Life is a continuum. Success or failure can only be judged
in millennia. Tara's bones lie in some deep ravine somewhere
in Dudhwa. Her cubs are alive and well. That gives me a sense
of fulfillment. But Dudhwa is an island and desperately needs
to be connected to nearby forests. The many poachers, the
timber mafia and the ham-handed officials that operate unfettered,
mock the very thought of "success".
And your last word about the tiger?
The air we breathe and the water we drink stem from the biodiversity
of the universal environment and its economics. The tiger
is at the centre of this truth. If it goes, we go. |
