There has been a spate of leopard attacks in Pune’s neighbouring district, Ahmednagar …oops, Ahilyanagar. The victims of these brutal attacks are invariably the subaltern. They are impoverished Dalits and Adivasi tribals who live in remote villages, far away from cities. Tigers and leopards mean very different things to them from what they mean to bourgeois urban men and women, and their clones, who, dressed in shorts, go to tiger reserves in their off-roader Thars and Jimnys with their expensive cameras. So disrespectful are they of the environment that on a recent visit to the Tadoba reserve, I even saw them smoking in their safari Gypsies, in blatant violation of the rules.
Often, as I’m driving on highways out of Pune, I see illustrated road signs that say ‘Wild Animal Crossing’. Motorists are supposed to be extra careful at such signs, lest they run over a wild animal, usually a leopard, as has frequently happened, the last such incident taking place only a few days ago. When I read these signs, I ask myself, isn’t man the wildest animal of them all?
One can’t imagine how excruciatingly painful a tiger or leopard attack can be until one reads a graphic description of it in Dane Huckelbridge’s book No Beast So Fierce. He says, “…in the first milliseconds of a full-speed tiger attack, a human body must not only cope with a bone-fracturing impact…but also absorb fourteen simultaneous stiletto-deep stab wounds—four of which are usually inflicted on the back of the head or the nape of the neck.”
Now, to think that in the two less-than-a-week-old leopard attacks that happened in Ahmednagar…oops, Ahilyanagar, the victims were little girls (somehow, it’s always girls), one three years old, the other five; we must realise that these could well be our own children! Except, of course, that they’re not.
Conservationists, environmentalists, naturalists; there are a whole host of lofty-sounding names by which animal-lovers describe themselves. But they live in ivory towers, at least figuratively, if not literally. They don’t live in ramshackle dwellings bordering fields and forests that make them especially vulnerable to predator attacks. Jim Corbett records instances where leopards have broken down house doors to get to the people inside.
Those who call themselves conservationists are quick to lambast human beings whom they say are responsible for destroying wild animal habitat and wild animal prey. So, it’s only logical that the animals will turn to human beings to fill their bellies. While this is partially true, the blame always falls on the Other, never on the Self. It’s they who have ravaged forests, never we. This standing on high moral ground does nothing to alleviate the grief of, say, the parents of the little girls who became the food of leopards. (In the case of the five-year-old girl, quite literally, as the carnivore managed to escape with her body in its jaws. One can only hope that her death was instantaneous).
In truth, there are no easy solutions. Our wild animals are in grave danger of extinction, and so we must do everything in our power to protect them. At the same time, human numbers are on the increase. We say with pride, rather than with a sense of alarm, that we are a country with the world’s largest population. So where do the people go? In the beginning, everything was forest. Then came farms, for food had to be grown to feed the people. Then came mines and factories, and finally cities where people had to earn a living. In the end, everything got people-centric.
I said at the beginning of this column that I went to Tadoba. But not just to see tigers, though that coincidentally happened. I was there to meet the family of a 38-year-old man who was killed by a tiger. They even shared a picture of his decapitated body. Over the years, I have met such families in rural Yavatmal, Chandrapur and Solapur. The man was killed on an agricultural field that borders the forest. He went there to hand over pesticide to his ageing father. That’s when the tiger pounced on him and attempted to drag him away, in full view of the father. But I also learnt that the man was distracted as he approached his field. And what distracted him was that wretched 21st-century contraption that plagues our lives—his smartphone, on which he was talking. Ironically, the man was a safari driver who for years had been driving tourists through the core and buffer areas of the reserve to catch a glimpse of tigers.
The Forest Department compensated the man’s family with money. But the bereaved father also said something that will stay with me for long. If a tiger is killed, he said, the entire Forest Department is at the village. But when my son was killed by a tiger, none except the lowest functionaries visited us.
(The writer is a well-known author and former head of the English Department at Savitribai Phule Pune University)