Ten lessons of the fortnight that was

Kafila.org, 30 August, 2010

The 13-day blockbuster— peddled as the second freedom struggle, panned as irresponsible blackmailing, and a lot in between — is over. Anna Hazare accepted honeyed coconut water from two little girls, introduced to the crowd as a dalit and a Muslim, and went on to recuperate in one of India’s most expensive hospitals, one branded after Hindu spiritual literature at that.

News TV is still fighting the vacuum by flogging the debate – so much so that seasoned correspondents are chasing a rather dismissive Dr Naresh Trehan to unravel the mystery of Anna’s endurance. Biker gangs have gone into a sulk and roads at India Gate are looking safer for traffic and women (which is not saying much in Delhi). What is more, India has started taking note that too many Indians have meanwhile drowned in floods.

The show is over; at least for now. There is suddenly time (with deadlines no more literal) and space (the grounds again look big) for holding a thought or a few (though the calls to action, and only action, still haunt). Post mortem is perhaps a sensitive term in the context – Anna has survived some of his more obdurate team members, his movement is obviously alive, and some of the Protest TV still aching to go live. Yet, the torrent of emotion has somewhat ebbed and it is possible now to read the alluvial fan for signs of both hope and anguish.

THE GAINS

THE BIGGEST GAIN of the Anna show is the emergence of a section of people on India’s streets and in its political equation. The Anna supporters are not quite the aam aadmi, they mostly come from different layers of the urban middle class with a few not-so-poor (by rural standards) from villages. Not all of them are new to agitation. For example, lawyers agitate so frequently that it does not even make news every time and Gujjars have mastered the art of crippling the economy by blocking road and railway arteries across north India.

The difference this time is the significant presence of the tax paying middle class (TPMC) in a popular, street movement. Yes, many of them formed picnic groups seeking novelty and some younger ones enjoyed a wild spin on the wheels daddy bought. But undoubtedly, a large number of the TPMC Indians were out there to simply register their protest.

This is a huge plus because so far, the power equations of our political class factored in only the so-called upper class, both urban and rural. Big corporate interests are always protected, just like landed farmers are guaranteed subsidy. The rest did not really matter. The majority of Indians -- from the landless farmer to the marginalised tribal, the real aam aadmi – are still taken for granted just because it is possible to deal that way with the utterly disempowered. Yes, the poor do have the numbers and the politicians know how to tap them before every election with diktats (muscle/caste/religion) and ingenious promises.

While this aam aadmi remained far removed, physically and otherwise, from the Anna show, it has been fascinating to see the other taken-for-granted section of the Indians shed the very characteristic that often makes them fall off the political radar. Till now, the TPMC talked about their grievances among themselves but rarely got any political traction. They remained a resigned lot – too inconsequential to lobby and too inhibited to rally. The Mandal agitation was an exception, and largely a youth movement.

At the Anna show, however, the retired walked alongside the employed, the between-jobs, the unemployed and the student. As a rallying point, the figure of a largely apolitical Anna with an assortment of Gandhian symbols finally offered the TPMC a comfortable platform to vent their long-nourished frustration. They might still not be the majority in Anna’s rainbow crowd; but the fact that they have finally ventured out of their “status-quoist” bubble to hit the roads (with many others they instinctively hold in suspicion), may eventually help them emerge as a political interest group to reckon with.

THE ANNA MOVEMENT has shown Palaniappan Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal – arguably India’s two most insufferably arrogant politicians – their place. As the union Home Minister, Chidambaram was supposed to bring all that Shivraj Patil could not to this key office. Since the Maoists still ambush almost at will and terrorists remain fascinated as always about Mumbai, perhaps the only way our Home Minister can stamp his authority is by shooting his mouth.

Sibal’s perpetual smugness, however, is harder to understand than RP Singh’s smiles in the Oval test. No wonder that even the apex court found his dismissal of the CAG report on the 2G Scam objectionable. One can only hope it will be a while before the ministers recover their voice, and style.

The Anna movement also jolted our MPs who determine what Parliament is on any given day. If the callous waste of public money and, more importantly, delay in legislation is not enough, the honourable members have long conducted themselves in a manner that even pushed a succession of well-meaning Speakers to occasional profanity.

Institutions are abstracts that manifest themselves through the mundane. Not without reason has the impression of Parliament in the public psyche been reduced to a stage where even Kiran Bedi’s scarf act, or a certain Sreesanth’s antics, might not be quite out of place. The “challenge” from the Anna movement did not come a day sooner for our legislators. It was certainly reassuring to witness how the political class fought its divisive inertia to get a mature, sincere show of statesmanship going.

FOR MANY, THE civil society has been a villain this fortnight. What probably went unnoticed was that a large segment of the same civil society provided the necessary dissent to a discourse that often threatened to plummet in the realm of a dictatorial with-us-or-without-us. These dissenting voices from the civil society also refused to cross the lines of decency even as their counterparts undauntedly did so.

Even more heartening was the unusual courage and generosity displayed by some of these dissenters in the face of popular hostility. Aruna Roy, for one, was dubbed a “traitor”. It did not stop her from climbing Anna’s stage to lend her support to those clauses of his Bill that she agreed with or to the fundamentals of Anna’s movement.

AT A TIME when two of the country’s most senior politicians appear to have lost much moral authority even within their parties, Anna Hazare, a plebeian of limited education and worldview and hardly a leader of masses till a fortnight back, has set a rare example.

Why is LK Advani a spent force? He appears to have lost his presence in the party and Parliament ever since he practically gave up on his ambition for the PM’s office. Dr Manmohan Singh is an honest politician but the biggest of scams happen on his watch. Why does a man, who could be a monk, repeatedly claim ignorance as a defence?

At 74, Anna is younger than both Advani and Dr Singh. Tutored or not, Anna’s belief in the Jan Lokpal’s panacea-like utility maybe naïve. His method of fasting may be questionable. But once the man was convinced of the purpose, nothing, not even fear of death, seemed to move him.

This ability to stand up for one’s conviction is altogether missing in politics today. What it says is that our leaders have much more at stake than their principles. That is why Dr Singh carries around A Raja like an albatross and Advani refuses to come clean on B S Yeddyurappa. Ministers like Jairam Ramesh even make a virtue (“mature flexibility”) of the compromise involved in clearing “ill-advised” projects “under pressure”.

In an uneasy prospect for our political class, Anna has restored the lost standards: one is not a worthy leader of people if his or her professed stand (not necessarily on Bills but on principles) is negotiable.

THE WORRIES

THE ANNA MOVEMENT is too much about Anna. This has drawn sections of the hitherto absentee TPMC to roads but such reliance on individual appeal puts a movement on shaky ground.

For the record, the Team Anna -- Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and Prashant Bhushan -- were already a team when they approached Anna because they needed an icon to sell their cause to the media and the people. Once convinced, Anna inspired a popular movement (with ample help from eager TV channels and a fumbling government) in a matter of months.

But busy hardselling Brand Anna, Team Anna, by its own reckoning, has stuck to playing Hanuman to Anna’s Ram. They have not shared Anna’s grace, his sense of proportion or the moral authority (none of them even broached the idea of going on a fast). Take Anna away and this movement will disintegrate or spiral out of control.

TENS OF LAKHS of Indians support Anna’s movement. But India is a country of thousands of lakhs. So when Team Anna wanted to force the Parliament’s hand on behalf of the country, it was a case of dangerous misrepresentation. Movements against a dam, a factory or a nuclear plant either oppose misuse of certain laws or demand that certain laws be upheld. Moreover, these movements draw on large-scale participation of local populations who have every right to force local issues that affect them more than anyone else.

Yes, Irom Sharmila’s fast is to demand the repeal -- just like Anna’s for enactment – of a law. But an overwhelming majority in the North-East is against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) which is not a pan-Indian law and applies only in the region (and later Jammu and Kashmir). So Sharmila’s fast or the anti-Posco movement derive “legitimacy” from their specific, limited context. But when a handful of activists from Team Anna want 1.2 billion Indians to accept a law that they have drafted and a few lakhs (or crores) support, they violate the fundamentals of a democracy.

TEAM ANNA HAD more than a million ears over a fortnight for at least 12 hours a day. For a movement built on values and morality, the Anna show wasted this enormous opportunity to build an informed constituency and mostly engaged in harangues. Yes, they called it Anna ki pathshala but very little education or debate happened on the Ramlila stage. Educators-cum-entertainers sang eulogies of the 21st century mahatma or incited crowds in a language very much identifiable with the political class they were lambasting.

This is particularly worrying because most of Anna supporters have the convenient holier-than-thou approach. Anna’s high moral ground that calls for introspection and purification of the self found little echo with his colleagues and supporters who simply played victims of bribery. What Anna clearly envisions as a movement for a better society has so far failed to aspire for anything more than changes in laws and institutions.

TO GARNER PUBLIC support, Team Anna has promised the moon. While peddling their miracle Bill, they even quantified the impact of the Lokpal in percentage terms. In this necessarily simplistic and often vague euphoria, unreasonably huge expectations have been created among the Anna supporters. If the Lokpal does not deliver a miracle, and we know it will not, natural cynicism may relapse. It took roughly 35 years from JP to Anna. If this wave peters out, we maybe in for another long wait.

TESTS AHEAD

FROM THE RAMLILA stage, Anna and his team have spoken of taking up the fight on electoral reform, farmers’ rights, land acquisition etc. The first leg of the movement has capitalised on a largely urban concern for corruption that is limited to bribery. Now the movement has its choices. For example, it is not difficult to sell the idea of “right to recall” that instantly appeals to the middle class. But garnering popular support for non-middle class causes, such as displacement of tribals, is not easy. It is still more difficult to bring the two Indias – aam and still more aam – together in this movement. These choices will test the intent, strength and pull of Anna’s movement.

For all its saffron undertones, this movement has fiercely defended its apolitical credentials till now. Though the key Anna lieutenants have so far dismissed calls by the critics who wanted them to fight elections and directly join the legislation process, the growing clout of the movement may eventually embolden them to test the electoral waters, either by jumping into the fray themselves or throwing their weight behind candidates or political formations. At all such times, they will have two choices: remain true to the movement or get co-opted in partisan politics.

TEAM ANNA HAS repeatedly acknowledged how the movement was as much the media’s as it was theirs. News TV, in particular, has been credited for a “social revolution”. While cynics and politicians have pointed fingers, alleging that the movement and live TV were tailormade for each other, channel heads have defended their editorial prerogative to play up what they felt was a genuine people’s cause.

They have not, however, bothered to explain why the same news TV rarely turns to the far corners of India (or makes do with hit-and-run coverage) where people fight gruesome battles to defend their livelihood and lives. Are those movements less genuine because they do not clear the TRP-vs-expenses tests?

The only way the media can put such doubts to rest is by being a little less choosy. If the media is indeed keen on social justice, as it should be, the cameras should now, like Anna’s movement itself, travel outside the bribe-stricken cities and towns to the much larger India out there and address issues far more complex. Journalism is not about convenience. Neither is revolution.

Everybody Loves a Good Protest

Dissent is a casualty at the Anna show where his rainbow coalition of supporters eats, drinks and makes protest before the camera

OPEN, 27 August, 2011

Retired Director General of Maharashtra Police SS Virk, who knows something about dealing with Anna Hazare and his fasts, has this story to tell. “In 2009, he was on fast, demanding an inquiry in a criminal case. I called him up and said, ‘Anna, everyone on your stage is not a saint and you should not put your life at risk for people who don’t really care if you die.’ He agreed. I quickly ordered an inquiry at my level and he called off his fast.”

The former top cop pauses for effect. “I told him his life was precious and he must live to fight for bigger causes. A simple, reasonable man, he responded graciously. But this time he has big support. This Ramlila protest… how is the mood there?”

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It’s carnivalesque, at first glance, with nearly everyone in sight clicking away—a few with DSLRs, many with point-and-shoot variants, the rest with mobile cams. The crowd is only occasionally in focus. Mostly it forms the backdrop as they shoot themselves, posing with the tricolour or with the more colourful characters around. Three boys and a girl from Sultanpur video-recorded themselves “being interviewed” by this lowly reporter. Being here, a part of this grand spectacle, is like being in the movies they’ve watched.

But isn’t it about anger, about righteous indignation, about protesting against corruption? You might spot them too, if you look past these hormonally charged youth with their frozen wide grins — there are enough scowls on grim faces. It is easier, though, to spot the signs of a ‘popular protest’ around the dozen or so platforms occupied by the news channels. Handheld cameras for vox pops or crane-mounted for panorama, the TV cams are everywhere. So many of them and so eager that after a point people actually get choosy.

Cameras and anger (canned and real) are not the only, or even the most defining, elements of the rally. A couple of protestors who on Friday complained that they were not being allowed to fast alongside Anna assured me on Sunday that the free meals were “good for a rally”. Biscuits and bananas are plentiful. And, true to the spirit of Anna’s cause, strict volunteers threw some school students out of the queues on Saturday for collecting and “hoarding” more than they could possibly eat.

Some Class XI students of a government school from Sangam Vihar were more interested in the ice candies that were not going free. So a vendor did bulk business. Candies put away, a few of them spoke to me reluctantly: they supported Anna; this was their first visit to the Ramlila ground; they had saved on bus fare by travelling without tickets.

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Print journalists are cynical by training, just like their TV counterparts are hysterical. I was trying hard to suspend instinct. Particularly because I hadn’t met the girl who, asked if she had read the Jan Lokpal Bill, apparently said she was a science student and did not know much about civics, or even the young MNC worker who blamed corruption for high tax rates.

Late Sunday night, a news channel was beaming yet another corruption special. Citing an example of the corruption he’d faced, one young man said he’d had to pay to get a building plan sanctioned since he or his father could not have possibly visited the government office over and over to fulfil all the requirements. The next one spoke of a cop who hid behind a tree to catch people jumping a traffic light. Why was the cop hiding, asked this ‘victim of corruption’; he’d jumped the signal only because he couldn’t see the cop.

I try to find some answers in the Ramlila throng. Asked why A Raja was in jail, four young men from Yamuna Vihar said it was because the minister had stashed away money in Italy. I also drew three blanks and nine correct answers. Then a young girl claimed that Raja had bribed the Prime Minister.

It must be a reflection on my reporting skill that I did not find a single person in the crowd below 35 who had heard of the JP movement, which drew the biggest crowds by far to these grounds in 1975. A dapper Gurgaon youth, who wouldn’t divulge his profession, thought I was referring to JP Morgan. “Jaypee group? Constructionwala?” shot back another protestor, who had brought his six-year-old boy along.

Few had heard of Posco or Vedanta or Jaitapur either. And fewer said they would stand by their fellow citizens in the villages in their fights. Only one, a spare parts dealer in East Delhi’s Laxminagar, was candid: “It is the media that brings people. We watched Anna on TV and we are here. How can I rally against Posco if I don’t know about it?”

People here don’t like being asked if they’ve read the Jan Lokpal Bill. Till Team Anna started educating the crowd from the stage on Monday, few had any idea of the Bill, except that it will “police the PM, the Judiciary and will end corruption”. Asked who will choose the Jan Lokpal, people either name Anna or say the janata will decide.

But didn’t the same Parliament and political parties and NAC (National Advisory Council) pass the people-friendly RTI Act two years ago? A lively group of young musicians jamming at the site were venturing some answers when the crowds intervened. Soon, a few exchanges like “Kaun hain yeh jo sab poochh rahe hain” (Who are these inquisitors?) and “Congress ne agent bheje hain” (the Congress has sent agents) ended the debate. A lot of wagging fingers and a little shoving around settled it—Anna’s Jan Lokpal Bill was the only means to end corruption. I was told to write it down. I did.

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There is strength in numbers and numbers add easily at the Ramlila ground. A sizeable anti-Congress, pro-BJP crowd is conspicuous. There are school students in uniform and the youth have come prepared with face paint and flags, much like they would for an IPL match at the Ferozeshah Kotla stadium not far away.

And there are the others. I sit down with a group of five friends and they smell of alcohol in the afternoon. All smiles, they tell me they do nothing and were getting bored whiling away time in their Shastri Park bylanes. “Idhar music hai, masti hai. Bas hit gana suno, aur ladki dekho” (It’s fun here. Just sit back, listen to the music and check out girls). On cue, the loudspeakers blare yet another Rang De Basanti number.

Many young couples have walked in too; one can tell because they avoid the cameras. Families are regulars in the evening and also after dinner. The police should take credit: it’s their host-like graciousness that has made this middle-class family entertainment possible. With so many of them deployed here, mob aggression is naturally under check, though one constable did get slapped around (nobody was really sure why) till his colleagues rescued him.

Then there are the rally and trade fair regulars—pickpockets among them, for whom this must be a bonanza. Also, there has been the usual spike in business in the red light quarters on GB road; a 25 per cent increase, reported a daily, is standard every time there is a big rally at the Ramlila maidan.

Yet, this crowd is unlike any other that gathers at the Ramlila. Lanky Shahnawaz stands in his tattered kurta and watches proceedings intently. At a distance, an over-enthusiastic protestor accidentally steps on the tricolour while posing with it. Shahnawaz springs into action, pulls out the flag, wipes it clean, and gives the man a stare. And then returns to his watch behind the swelling crowd.

Shahnawaz does not talk, but many say they trooped in simply because an arrogant government refused them space for dissent. Kapil Sibal is villain No. 1. An autodriver from Shahdara says he felt humiliated by the way the minister spoke on TV: “Woh kya kya bolte hain aur kis tareeke se bolte hain TV pe? Woh hamare malik hain kya?” (See what he says on TV and how. Does he own us?)

For the majority, the methods of Team Anna do not matter. Musicians Bhavesh, Akansha and Ram are protesting for Anna from the day he was arrested. They do not know if Anna’s prescription will work. But they will take anything if that means “a shift, a change from the present system”.

Many also admit that they would not be here if it weren’t for Anna. Sweta Kumar and Basanti Sharma have come from Chhatarpur with their husbands and children. “What will he (Anna) get out of it? It is rare to find a selfless man,” says Basanti’s husband Devender, who works at Customs clearance and knows “how bad corruption can get”.

For the less privileged, though, corruption is an abstract and the real issue is runaway inflation. While paying Rs 5 for a cup of tea, an elderly protestor from Faridabad said he could get one for Rs 2 not so long ago. Stay-at-home women in particular rue how their household budgets have gone for a toss.

The Gandhian angle of Anna’s protest has also drawn thousands of senior citizens to Ramlila. Yet, some like Vaje Singh from Haryana never need much prodding. “I have been protesting since 1965 when the movement for a separate Haryana state was launched. I protested during the JP movement, during the Emergency, with Bansi Lal, with Vajpayee and I was here when Baba Ramdev held his dharna,” gushes the 69-year-old.

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Kiran Bedi can add drama to routine health bulletins. “Anna’s BP is 80-130. Aap aur humse achhe hain (Better than you and me),” she roars from the stage on Sunday. The crowd roars back. “Heartbeat is 78. Better than you and me.” Another roar from the crowd. Dr Naresh Trehan, arguably India’s most expensive doctor, appears in the evening to check all’s well with the mascot.

On Monday, though, it seems even Anna’s stage has some room for dissent. Bedi tells the crowd that Anna’s BP is fine but his kidney is infected. Soon, Arvind Kejriwal denies any infection. But much as a few SMS jokes describe Anna as Kejriwal’s Nathha (remember Peepli Live?), the veteran faster, Virk recalls, knows his body and is no puppet.

On Sunday again, Bedi lauds the PM in the morning. “He has done such a commendable job with the Nuclear Bill. I appeal to him to support the Jan Lokpal Bill.” In the evening, activist Akhil Gogoi from Assam blasts the PM, calling him a fraud and accuses him of selling the country to the US.

Away from the stage, I meet two disgruntled Anna associates, who shared the stage with him during his fast at Jantar Mantar. The movement’s growing popularity and clout has drawn many new faces and apparently sidelined the duo. “A few people sharing the stage with Anna are so corrupt that I fear for him,” alleges one. So why did they not warn Anna? “You think it’s easy to reach him these days?” snaps another. So will they spill it to the media? “The media is in no mood for anything anti-Anna now.”

Walking out, I found Shahnawaz outside the ground. This time, he talks. “I am from the LNJP colony across the road. I work at a butcher’s shop. Yesterday, I was at the protest. Today I managed Rs 500 and brought these flags to make some money.” He hopes to finish off his stock if the crowds keep pouring in.

Shahnawaz takes out a bidi and asks for a light. As I search in my pouch, he warns me of pickpockets. I tell him that, according to a daily, crime rates have dropped since Anna began his fast . He laughs, “Police darr gaye, chor nahin (the police have got scared, not the thieves).”

I recall that the cop who came home this morning for passport verification didn’t ask for a bribe. Could it be the Anna effect? Or was I just being cynical as usual and doubting an honest cop? I may never find out.

Act Responsible At the Top

Much of human-carnivore conflict is supposed to be either accidental or caused by old/injured animals, but how do we explain deliberate attacks on people by healthy, mature carnivores?

Current Conservation, Vol 4, Issue 4

Big carnivores scare many of us. They are nature’s most efficient killers. But the “threat perception” seems disproportionate to the threat. A very conservative estimate of the big five—tigers, lions, leopards, wolves and crocodiles—will put their collective population at 10,000.

Each of them makes a kill every week. There are about 15 crore people living in 1,70,000 villages around India’s forests, offering the biggest prey base to pick and choose five lakh kills from every year. Yet, how many people are killed by carnivores? Even accounting for those that go unreported, the numbers do not add up to the 200 mark.

Indeed, the numbers tell interesting stories. In India, more than 30,000 people die of rabies due to dog bite each year. Venomous snakes claim about 50,000 victims. No less than 80,000 die of injuries caused by road accidents. And yet carnivores are considered a far, far greater threat to human safety. On one hand, people are known to overestimate rare and dramatic events. On the other, maybe it is because carnivores consider us food.

So, are we wrong? The etymology -- carne (flesh) vorare (devour) -- is a giveaway. Obligate carnivores live exclusively on meat. They prefer herbivores but are not fussy about other meat. Technically, that makes us, omnivore humans, carnivore food; just like all omnivore primates are in the wild. Surely, whatever be the numbers, quite a few people still do get devoured by carnivores across the world.

But contemporary science tells us that carnivores do not consider us food. The figures cited above support the claim. Almost three-quarters of a century back, Jim Corbett was quite unequivocal in his Man-eaters of Kumaon: “A maneating tiger is a tiger that has been compelled, through stress of circumstances beyond its control, to adopt a diet alien to it. The stress of circumstances is, in nine cases out of ten, wounds, and in the tenth case old age-human beings are not the natural prey of tigers, and it is only when tigers have been incapacitated through wounds or old age that, in order to live, they are compelled to take to a diet of human flesh.”

To the list of old and injured carnivores, wildlife biologists add inexperienced or alarmed animals as potential mankillers (not man-eaters). A chance encounter with a carnivore, particularly a young one, may result in accidental attacks but such kills are not usually consumed. Some attacks are blamed on mistaken identity when a squatting person is taken for a four-legged prey. Experts have identified another condition—significant loss of wild prey or habitat or both — as a trigger to conflict.

Some biologists, pioneer among them Vidya Athreya in India, have recently pointed out another manmade aspect of conflict. Their research shows that the policy of capturing and trans- locating so-called problem animals exacerbates, and even creates, conflict because such displaced carnivores, traumatised after prolonged captivity, try to find their way home and encounter people on their way.

Clearly, the consensus is that carnivore attacks on humans are not natural and happen only under a set of exceptional circumstances. Otherwise, given that so many of us are around, the human casualties would surely have been many times higher. But do these arguments settle the issue?

Not quite. Records show that on many occasions, perfectly healthy, undisturbed carnivores in their prime have been killing and feeding on people. So if a few individual carnivores are eating human flesh, and since potentially all of them can, what keeps the rest of them away?

Also, the contemporary assertion — that carnivores, under normal circumstances, do not consider us food — is, well, contemporary. The great apes were very much part of carnivore menu. So were the early humans. Carnivores continued to attack and kill scores of people throughout recorded history. The contemporary assertion gains ground only because few such cases occur in recent times. Of course, the trend is unmistakable. The frequency of attacks on people by carnivores has been reducing steadily with time. Could it be because large carnivores are getting fewer by the day? Or is it because they have been undergoing a behavioural change?

Loss of population does not quite explain it. If we go by the notional number of 40,000 tigers at the turn of the last century (plus easily 100,000 leopards, wolves etc) and the corresponding scale of reported conflict (up to 10,000 in the 18th century), it becomes clear that even 200 years back, carnivores had limited dietary interest in us.

Can we, therefore, attribute the historical trend of consistently reducing conflict to a changing attitude in carnivores that had considered early men as natural a prey as anthropoids but slowly learned to drop modern man from the list? If we can, it is important to understand the factors that triggered this change in carnivore behaviour over so many thousand years. It is even more important to explore if such factors can get locally or temporally reversed. Because such reversal may explain why certain individual carnivores that do not fit in the exceptional category (old, injured, alarmed, prey-less or translocated) still go for human prey today. Or why certain areas (eg Sunderbans) record consistently higher casualties or certain pockets (eg Tadoba) suddenly become conflict-prone.

In most human societies, carnivores are not considered food. Early man hunted carnivores mostly to protect himself. From human fossils and cave paintings to scriptures and folklore, there is evidence that carnivores were one of the prime threats to human life. The mighty animals’ larger-than-life presence frequently transformed them into gods and demons alike—entities considered almost as powerful as other great natural forces.

Things were probably slightly more complicated on the other side. As hunter-gatherer humans emerged as a predator species in their own right, it was not easy for carnivores to negotiate with them as just another competitor. Three factors that made (and still make) carnivores wary of us are numbers, tools and motive. Humans hunted in groups. They also used tools. The first factor is traditionally respected in the wild. A solitary large cat, for instance, rarely takes on a pack of wild dogs or an elephant herd. Tools turned the balance of power upside down. Initially, tools substituted for canines and claws. Then tools became technology. From slingshots to catapults, bows-and-arrows to guns, better guns and the arms race was over soon. We all know that story.

In any human society, a carnivore hunter was always a hero. The pride and thrill involved in hunting soon turned it into a popular sport. Game hunting upturned the fundamental laws of the wild where animals kill either for food or for protection. Over time, the carnivores had to learn how to deal with a species that often killed arbitrarily. This learning process continues and it has not been particularly kind.

As humans became increasingly organised and technologically evolved over centuries, these factors probably made carnivores adopt a “no risk” policy vis-à-vis people over time, so much so that it became normal for most to walk the other way when humans were in sight. Many shikar accounts relate how tigers or leopards did not risk charging people unless disturbed or threatened.

But a lonely, unarmed human is still the easiest prey for any large carnivore. To stretch the elephant analogy, we know that tigers, otherwise wary and respectful of elephant herds, do occasionally kill isolated calves. I have known instances of tigers successfully defending kills against smaller wild dog packs, something they will not usually attempt against bigger packs.So, is it possible that even healthy, mature carnivores may seek out lonely, unarmed persons for food? If it is, given that there is still no dearth of lonely, unarmed persons in and around our forests, why are such attempts so few? Probably because a wary carnivore never attempts a human kill unless a meticulous risk assessment assures it of a certain safety threshold.

So what factors determine this safety threshold? Do carnivores balance the risk of attacking humans against the availability and their own ability to get other prey? On one hand, hunger (due to injury, inexperience or lack of wild prey) can push carnivores to target high-risk prey. There are instances of desperate carnivores targeting people in broad daylight in crowded places. But this rule is likely to apply only to certain individual animals in distress and not to a population as a whole. There is no example of a large number of carnivores turning on people even in the most degraded, prey-deficient forests. On the other hand, it is possible that even healthy carnivores will prey on people when they can assess the risk itself to be particularly low. This may explain occasional, deliberate attacks on people by carnivores that are not hungry or injured.

Most instances of sporadic conflict seem to have a few factors in common. First, the victims ventured inside or very close to a forest. Second, they were alone. But many others do so every day and some carnivores, like leopards, even share space with people. Perhaps, a third factor decides the tipping point. Perhaps, the careless victims “unmindfully” allowed the predators enough undisturbed time to stalk, observe and be sure.

But what explains the high conflict zones like Sunderbans or Tadoba? Perhaps, numbers do. Compared to other forests in India, more people venture into Sunderbans (fishing, honey collection etc) and Tadoba (for bamboo). In both places, they also spend a long time inside the forests. Most fishing, honey-collecting or felling expeditions inside Sunderbans last more than a week. Thanks to a recent state law that makes bamboo products legal, villagers around Tadoba not only enter the forests in thousands but also spend long hours cutting down the bamboo to thin strips which are then carried out of the forests.

This means more opportunities for carnivores to stalk, observe and be sure. With more practice, comes more experience. Corbett’s Champawat maneater reportedly killed more than 400 people (a random assessment only indicative of the long killing spree) and in the process learnt to single out victims in groups. Probably for the same reason, tigers have been reported to have attacked the last persons in groups walking single file in Sunderbans —a strategy that defeats the security of numbers.

Moreover, while there is little scientific evidence of so-called maneaters developing a taste for human flesh, it may be possible that they learn to appreciate the relative ease with which a human can be hunted down if the risk (numbers and arms) is low. This may explain those cycles of attacks in crowded forests (many potential targets) as very few villagers stay closeted in groups or carry guns (minimal risk) while making forays.

Of course, other manmade factors have created what Jim Corbett called “stress of circumstances” at both Sunderbans and Tadoba and may partially explain such high conflict. Poaching leaves behind orphaned, inexperienced or, injured carnivores. In the past year, five Tadoba tigresses have disappeared—feared poached. A number of faulty interventions like capture-release are rampant in Sunderbans. But, such interventions do not happen on the Bangladesh side where conflict is acute. But then, too many tigers are poached (both for revenge and profit) in Sunderbans which might have created a highly disturbed population.

Ultimately, each local conflict demands to be understood in terms of local factors. We have little data to draw any sound conclusion anywhere and thorough ground research is long overdue. Human-carnivore conflict has always evoked strong emotions. There are greater pressures at play today but we had better act responsibly. We have our right to safety, but that is not secured through exterminating other apex species. It is certainly not safe being alone. Not while walking in the wild. Not at the top of the food chain.

Why the Anna ‘movement’ leaves the aam aadmi cold

FIRSTPOST, 19 August, 2011

It does not matter if the NDA was as corrupt as the UPA or less. This shameless government sucks. It does not matter if Team Anna is a bunch of right-wing and/or foreign-funded megalomaniacs. They want to end corruption. It does not matter if thousands of Anna supporters are out on the streets to earn their few moments on TV or a righteous high. They support the cause.

Yet, Anna’s “second freedom struggle” leaves the real aam aadmi feeling cheated. They are much more aam than you or me, and they are not both victims of corruption and potential victimisers. For example, they are not your regular three-wheeler guy who fleeces you and is in turn fleeced by cops. The more aam the Indian— the vast majority — the less he is in a position to offer or demand a bribe. So why does he feel cheated?

Is it because the aam aadmi has been offered a Hobson’s choice: suffer corrupt politicians who handpick corrupt bureaucrats to loot the country on behalf of corrupt business interests; or back a group of self-appointed, ham-handed dictators who blackmail democracy with a fast-unto-death to force us to accept their panacea of a law?

Is it because some (not-so-aam) people want the rest to believe that the end justifies the means? Ironically, this approach is the first sign of the corruption that Team Anna’s fascist “means” so dramatically aim to “end”. When a few men want Parliament to accept a law they drew up in their drawing (or conference) rooms, it corrupts democracy itself. If successful, it will be a dangerous precedent since most Indians have some experience in fasting and many are far bigger crowd-pullers (read mobilisers) than Anna. And few of them even pretend to be Gandhians.

Does the aam aadmi feel cheated because Anna and his team refuse to contest polls? The aam aadmi can rarely fight elections successfully, but he can and does swing results. But to swing in real change, the aam aadmi needs better options to choose from. Voters have not been able to make Kerala God’s own country or a heaven of any kind; they could not have, irrespective of the regularity with which they shuffle governments, as they have only two options to deal with.

Voters braved political corruption of the worst magnitude in West Bengal to end Left rule, but with only one available alternative, they may not be adequately rewarded. Since Anna’s team claims popular support, they should have offered options, however small, to voters. Instead, Anna preferred to idolise Narendra Modi, whose Gujarat is high up there on the list of Indian states based on sundry development indices and corruption.

The aam aadmi cannot connect because the media showcases a few thousand largely middle class supporters in a few cities to brand the Anna appeal as a “mass movement”? Step out of the comfort zones of news studios and Jantar Mantar, and you will find millions of aam aadmi who just cannot afford to appreciate this urban concern for corruption that is limited to bribery. Just like the not-so-aam supporters of Anna cannot grasp the fact that corruption in fact means total disempowerment – socio-political and economic, including loss of livelihood and lives — for the majority of Indians.

Does the aam aadmi feel cheated because Team Anna’s crusade against corruption limits itself to politicians and bureaucrats? All over the world, politics and governance are dictated by big money. We know all political parties are backed largely by the same set of business interests. That is why the level of corruption does not fluctuate dramatically with changes in government.

So what does the aam aadmi make of an anti-corruption movement that keeps mum on big money, publicly praises a political ideology (RSS-BJP) and launches its campaign when the rival political coalition is at the centre? I am not sure. I suspect the aam aadmi is too busy just surviving to care for all these nuances.

In a country obsessed with Bollywood and cricket, it is rarely that the media sustains interest in a cause. When the media does, it often calculates the coverage cost involved against the potential gain such as TRPs. Let’s not presume that media houses lapped up Anna’s “mass movement” because it was “home delivered” to them in the Capital and in other cities. Let’s not also presume that all of those thousands who turned out in different cities in support of Anna were inspired by the hungry presence of hundreds of news cameras.

But it is one thing for the media to brand an urban picnic campaign against bribery as a “mass movement” (or for the people to walk down a couple of blocks flanked by cameras), quite another to play blind and deaf when the aam aadmi fights for survival in different corners of the country after being denied basic dues by the government and the judiciary.

Of course, it is a small triumph for democracy when thousands walk the city streets, not necessarily to support Team Anna’s dictatorial demands but to protest against the government’s ever-swelling arrogance that does not allow any room for dissent. But shameless administrations have been quashing protests in far more undemocratic, often barbaric, ways across the country. The aam aadmi is getting arrested, thrashed and killed not only for opposing or demanding new laws but merely demanding that the laws of the land be followed.

Where were the cameras when children and 80-year-olds braved the forces by lying down on scorching sand, every day for weeks, to protect their land that cannot be touched, as per the laws of the land, without their consent?

How many of those who are now fawning over the “second freedom struggle” joined the aam aadmi’s battle for livelihood and survival against Posco in Orissa’s Jagatsinghpur? Or “gathered spontaneously” at any of those numerous sites where India’s land, forests, minerals and rivers were doled out to big money — desi or foreign — and entire communities were forced to destitution?

The Orissa sell out to Posco could end up in the region of Rs 3-4 lakh crore: A much bigger loot than even the 2G spectrum mega scam that apparently triggered the protests on our city streets in support of Anna. The aam aadmi cannot cite figures and tabulate the cost of lost lives and livelihood to demand prime-time attention. But he feels cheated when his not-so-aam fellow citizens in the cities and the media finally wake up to fight corruption and yet do not stand by him in his battles.

Yes, the aam aadmi feels cheated because the not-so-aam refuse to leave their comfort zones even while claiming to fight an aam cause. But then, it sounds cool on broad Delhi roads when you ask the corrupt to quit India. In goddamn places like Jagatsinghpur, it is more like do or die.

Cat Among The People

Snow leopards share a particularly punishing habitat with people in the higher reaches of the Himalayas, with resources scarce and vegetation sparse. The conventional conservation model of separating wild animals and people simply does not work here. India’s green establishment is showing signs of accepting this reality, if only grudgingly

Open, 30 July, 2011

So you know they are called ‘ghosts of the mountain’. Rarely spotted (they are as good as camouflage artists ever get), never heard (the only one that ever roared was Tai Lung in Kung Fu Panda, but then he was also nasty) and barely understood (few behavioural studies have been attempted), they exist in smaller numbers in India than even tigers.

But this is really not just about the most mysterious if not charismatic of all big cats—snow leopards.

What you probably do not know is that the cat’s natural habitat in India is a 180,000 sq km expanse—nearly the size of Karnataka—of Himalayan desert that spans the above-the-treeline reaches of five states: Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. Cold and arid, this region is the source of most north Indian rivers.

And yet, such a vast and critical expanse has rarely drawn the attention of India’s conservation establishment. On paper, there exist more than two dozen Protected Areas (PAs)—sanctuaries and national parks—in this region, covering 32,000 sq km, a figure that equals the combined area of all tiger reserves put together. But in terms of funds, staff and management, these high-altitude PAs are mere markings on a map.

Things were worse in the early 1990s, when, as a young student of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Yash Veer Bhatnagar began studying snow leopards and their species of prey. With sundry forest departments struggling to fill up field staff vacancies in the best of India’s tiger reserves, snow leopards had little hope of being watched over in places far less hospitable to humans. But as Bhatnagar kept tracing the animal’s tracks along Spiti’s snow ridges, he grew increasingly restless thinking up a workable conservation strategy that was proving to be as elusive as the big cat itself.

Nearly two decades on, Dr Bhatnagar and his associates would help shape Project Snow Leopard, a species recovery programme with an innovative plan drafted in 2008 that could, with luck, save the species from extinction.

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Dr Bhatnagar was not alone. His senior at the WII, Dr Raghu Chundawat, having studied wildlife in the cold deserts of J&K since the late 1980s, had already reported a startling fact: more than half his subjects in Ladakh, including snow leopards, were found outside the PAs. “There are a number of ecological factors behind this,” explains Dr Chundawat, “sparse resources, extreme climatic conditions, seasonal migration of prey species, etcetera, make the cat very mobile across large ranges.”

As for other efforts, in 1996, Dr Charudutt Mishra, another WII alumnus and a snow leopard expert himself, had set up the Mysore-based Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) with a group of young biologists. It had some valuable field experience to offer, too.

It was Dr Chundawat’s work, however, that gave Project Snow Leopard its broad direction. “Raghu’s was a fantastic study and got us thinking: ‘If 80 per cent of Ladakh had wildlife value, how would securing a few PAs help conservation?’” recalls Dr Bhatnagar.

The question still stands. Spiti in Himachal Pradesh is significant in terms of snow leopard presence, for example, but notifying all of Spiti or Ladakh as a PA would not only be a logistical nightmare, given the difficulty in managing the existing PAs, but also defeat the purpose of conservation on at least two counts.

First, the experience in other snow leopard-range countries shows that merely declaring vast areas as PAs does not help. In Central Asia, for example, Tibet’s Changthang Wildlife Preserve extends over 500,000 sq km, but organised hunting remains a serious threat in most parts; the picture is not very different in Mongolia or Afghanistan.

Second, resources are extremely scarce at high altitudes; like the wildlife there, people must use every bit of land they can access at those Himalayan heights. The conventional model of PA-based conservation demands the securing of inviolate spaces for wildlife. But, in a cold desert, displacing people from existing PAs, leave alone notifying larger ones, amounts to threatening their survival. Besides, can anything justify evicting people from PAs if wildlife is seen to coexist with people in non-PA areas?

But ten years ago, coexistence was too radical an idea to explore for much of India’s conservation establishment.

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In the absence of effective protection, what snow leopards once had going for them was a sparse local population in the upper reaches of the Himalayas (less than a person per sq km). In the past two decades or so, however, even those heights have been witness to ‘development’ in the form of roads, dam projects and the like. The most active government agency has been the military, busy defending the country’s borders, and, in the process, slicing and dicing the region with impenetrable fences and encampments. All this has also meant a labour influx, with whom indigenous populations (and their livestock) now compete for natural resources. This has meant overgrazing, and the competition for resources has led to a loss of wild prey for snow leopards. And with the big cats increasingly turning on livestock, they often face human retaliation. Organised poaching has been a reality even here.

Clear that exclusive sanctuaries for snow leopards were not a feasible idea, Bhatnagar and his colleagues focused on understanding the cat and engaging with villagers and the local forest staff to figure out a conservation solution.

In 2001, the NCF’s Mishra had done some groundwork in Spiti’s Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary. Human communities, he found, could be negotiated with to leave wildlife pastures untouched. To look after this area, a few villagers could be hired—picked by locals from among themselves. This model has been in operation in Spiti for several years now, and so far, over 15 sq km has been freed of livestock grazing around Kibber, and the population of bharals (blue sheep), staple prey for snow leopards, has almost trebled since.

Another coexistence success has been Ladakh’s 3,000 sq km Hemis National Park, which is home to around 100 families that live in 17 small villages within it. Their relocation was impossible without subjecting them to destitution, since all the other land of Ladakh was already occupied by either monasteries or local communities. Today, despite the human presence, Hemis has one of the country’s highest snow leopard densities. The park’s villagers, urged by the Snow Leopard Conservancy India Trust (SLC-IT), an NGO, regulate livestock grazing in pastures used by small Tibetan argali (a prime prey species for snow leopards). According to Radhika Kothari of SLC-IT, this was achieved by the NGO in coordination with the forest department. They launched a sustained awareness drive and offered families incentives such as home-stay tourism and improved corrals for the protection of their livestock.

The basic strategy of engaging local communities remains simple: help protect livestock (by ensuring better herding methods, constructing corrals, offering vaccinations and so on), compensate for losses (via insurance, for example), create income opportunities (community tourism, handicrafts, etcetera), restore traditional values of tolerance towards wildlife, and promote ecological awareness. This story repeats itself in other range countries; livestock insurance and micro-credit schemes are big successes in Mongolia, handicraft in Kyrgyzstan, and livestock vaccination in Pakistan.

Encouraged by early success stories in engaging local communities in J&K and Himachal, the NCF backed a conservation model in the context of the three-decade-old Sloss debate (single large or several small, that is). “The idea of wildlife ‘islands’ surrounded by a ‘sea’ of people does not work in high-altitude areas, where wildlife presence is almost continuous,” explains Dr Bhatnagar, “Instead, communities can voluntarily secure many small patches of very high wildlife value—small cores or breeding grounds spanning 10–100 sq km each—if they have the incentive of escaping exclusionary laws across larger areas [big PAs].”

The NCF has identified 15 ‘small cores’ in Spiti, of which three (at Kibber WLS, near Lossar, and near Chichim) have already been secured through the foundation’s efforts with locals. In Ladakh, too, village elders and the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) agreed to stop grazing activities in seven side-valleys seen to be of high wildlife value—in exchange for assured community access to the rest of the Hemis National Park. It’s a win-win deal.

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The experience of other snow leopard range countries supports the conclusion that sparse human presence does not affect this wild cat’s well-being. A soon-to-be published report on Mongolia by the Seattle-based Snow Leopard Trust (SLT) indicates that the presence or absence of nomadic herders around snow leopards inside as well as outside PAs in the South Gobi Desert does not affect the probability of snow leopards using a particular site. Complementarily, there is no record anywhere in the world of a human death due to a snow leopard attack.

So, by the time Project Snow Leopard drew up its plan in 2008, a diverse team of officials and experts from the Union Ministry of Environment & Forests, WII, WWF and NCF-SLT, apart from five snow leopard states, had come to agree that ‘given the widespread occurrence of wildlife on common land, and the continued traditional land use within PAs, wildlife management in the region needs to be made participatory both within and outside PAs’.

More than one-third of the project budget (at least 3 per cent of the Ministry’s total outlay) was earmarked for facilitating a ‘landscape-level approach’, rationalising ‘the existing PA network’ and developing ‘a framework for wildlife conservation outside PAs’.

Each of the five states was supposed to select a Project Snow Leopard site, a combination of PA and non-PA areas, within a year and set up a state-level snow leopard conservation society with community participation. However, given the slow pace at which governments function, not much has moved since, except in Himachal Pradesh, where the state forest department has set up a participatory management plan for over half of Spiti wildlife division.

The red tape apart, two other factors are threatening to thwart this unique conservation project: the reluctance of the Ministry to release funds to non-PAs, and the indifference of some state forest departments towards a management plan for areas outside sanctuaries and national parks (such a plan must be submitted). “Snow leopards are present in many areas outside PAs, and I have asked for proposals from all high-altitude divisions. But there is no response from the non-wildlife divisions yet. It’s probably a mindset issue,” sighs Srikant Chandola, chief wildlife warden, Uttarakhand.

Perhaps the same mindset prompted a 2010 WWF-India report to recommend only PAs in Uttarakhand as potential sites for snow leopard conservation, though the author Aishwarya Maheshwari now agrees that a landscape approach, “as mentioned in Project Snow Leopard”, is necessary.

Jagdish Kishwan, additional director-general (wildlife) at the Ministry, says that the Centre is keen to invest money in non-PAs, but there are “some technical issues”; moreover, the Ministry’s meagre allocation might end up too thinly spread in doing so.

The Ministry has its own grand recovery plan. Announced almost simultaneously with Project Snow Leopard, it has an ambitious Rs 800 crore scheme, Integrated Development of Wildlife Habitats (IDWH), aimed at the recovery of 15 key species including ones found mostly outside PAs, such as: snow leopards, great Indian bustards and vultures. Centrally sponsored, IDWH has earmarked Rs 250 crore for ‘protection of wildlife outside PAs’. The states have been asked to submit their Project Snow Leopard management plans under the IDWH aegis.

If that is the case, what stops the Ministry from releasing money for non-PAs? “India’s 650-odd PAs are our priority. But I agree that certain key species need support outside PAs. We are examining these issues. The Government will find a way to provide funds to non-wildlife divisions under Project Snow Leopard,” assures Kishwan.

Going by the original 2008 document outlining the plan, Project Snow Leopard should have been in its second year of implementation by now.

That it hasn’t yet hit the ground, let’s hope, is not a sign of apathy towards a big cat that has had—for no fault of its own—only a ghostly presence in the consciousness of the establishment.

Relook At Relocation

The environment ministry’s new draft guidelines have corrected some anomalies after Open’s investigation flagged key issues plaguing the relocation of 40,000 families from core tiger forests

Open, 11 July, 2011

Setting out to rehabilitate some 40,000 families from core tiger forests in 2008, the government has finally drawn some sobering ground lessons. The deadline set by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) for public feedback to its draft guidelines for relocation expired this week. While the feedback may alter the final shape of the guidelines, the draft is a welcome step towards vital course correction in the latest round of the relocation process that began in 2008. But there are a few disappointments as well.

An investigation by Open (Relocation Rumpus, 28 May, 2010) flagged the key issues that were plaguing the process of relocation on the ground. The new draft guidelines have corrected a few of those anomalies. For example, the one-compensation-fits-all approach has been corrected and a key gender issue has been looked into.

The Centre had increased the relocation budget from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 10 lakh per family in February 2008, either payable fully in cash or as a cash-and-rehab option. But neither option took into account the actual assets owned by a family. Even in forest villages, where relative landholding may not be a major issue, assets of individual families vary. Some may own more trees, or a well, or just bigger hutments.

In revenue villages, the Rs 10-lakh package may appeal to small landholders (whose plots are worth much less) but not to big landholders. Also, a blanket provision of providing 2 hectare of agricultural land to every family after relocation (in the cash-and-rehab option) did not factor in how much land a family actually surrendered. As a result, with big asset/landholders refusing to budge, villages were being only partially relocated, defeating the very purpose of the scheme.

To fix these irrationalities, the draft guidelines are open to compensating villagers in proportion to their assets as per valuation done by the district Collector. If funds are left over after compensating all eligible beneficiaries, it will be distributed equally among them (in all-cash option) or be utilized for building community facilities (in cash-and-rehab option). If there is a shortfall, as is likely under the cash-and-rehab option that earmarks only 30 per cent of the Rs 10 lakh/per family budget for cash component, the state government will bear the additional cost.

However, the draft does not specify who will pick up the tab in case of a similar shortfall under the cash-only option. Also, there is no benchmark for a basic minimum compensation payable to landless families who live and work on other’s plots.

Relocation also has serious gender implications. Till now, the impact of handing out lakhs of rupees to poor villagers was proving to be destructive. In many cases, it led to abandonment of the spouse or even family, including minor children and unmarried daughters or sisters. In some cases, they were simply rendered homeless as the men surrendered their property for cash and rode away in new motorbikes, looking for young brides and a new life in nearby townships. So the proposal now is to deposit the compensation in joint accounts held by both spouses. Moreover, the money earmarked for buying alternative land will be paid directly to the seller, ensuring that the sum is not squandered.

However, the draft guidelines forget the unmarried women. A ministry note on 21 February 2008 said that “unmarried daughter/sister more than 18 years of age” was eligible for compensation. Within a month, it issued another order (apparently at the instruction of the Finance ministry), defining ‘the family’ as per the National Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy, 2007.

But a policy meant for project-affected people may not apply to those who are forfeiting their right over property through an MoU, a voluntary deal. Since sons and daughters have equal inheritance rights, the consent (and, therefore, eligibility for compensation) of only the men in the family may not be legally tenable.

Then, there is the issue of forest rights. On a legally sound note, the draft says that no relocation will be carried out before the rights of villagers inside forests have been settled under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006. On paper, it is in sync with the demand of many rights activists. But on ground, it may pose two challenges.

The process of settlement of rights under the FRA has been very slow in most states and its implementation does not depend solely on the forest department. In many places, the forest administration may have to wait indefinitely for the FRA process to get over while critical forest stretches will continue to suffer.

Moreover, to be eligible for the FRA, the non-tribal must furnish proof of residency over 75 years prior to 2005. Since very few have such records, the process of settling the non-tribal’s rights is either a non-starter or plain hostile (if they are denied rights). In many forests, such as Buxa tiger reserve, non-tribal communities do not want settlement under the FRA (fearing exclusion) and are keen to move out immediately under the voluntary relocation scheme.

Room for procedural flexibility in such cases can accelerate the relocation process and benefit both conservation and the people.