The Man, the Forest, the Animal

Corbett national park turns 75. A tribute and a critique

Sunday Economic Times, 20 Nov, 2011

June, 2005. Dhikala was abuzz and under evening curfew. A few months ago, a tigress had given birth to four cubs in neighbouring Sarpduli. Mother and cubs had subsequently moved along the Ramganga river to Dhikala and made for easy sightings. Soon, over-enthusiastic tourists started combing the Sambar road with elephants to pin down the family of five.

Dumps of canteen leftovers invited a good number of scavenging herbivores to the tourist complex boundary every night. The mother tigress stalked those easy preys to feed the family. The arrangement worked reasonably well till a sub-adult cub made an error of judgement. In the last week of May, a canteen worker was mauled outside his quarter late in the night.

As the news spread, the tourist tide swelled further. Sambar road was closed to tourists after the mishap. With curfew on, nobody, including the canteen staff, was allowed to venture out after 7.30 in the evening and dinner was served early in the room. But behind windows, people stayed up long hungry nights for that glimpse of a lifetime.

5 TIGERS, 1 BULL ELEPHANT

On the last day of that tourist season, the sky was sulking since afternoon. Soon after the vehicles and elephants returned from the evening safari, the wind gained strength, and a storm snapped the power supply.

Within minutes, the sun vanished like it does in the hills and the sky sent down early warnings of a heavy downpour. The darkness and the pitter-patter was enough to drive the crowd crazy. Then, the clouds thundered. In a split second flashed five tigers, scaling the complex wall from the riverside.

It was mayhem. The clouds continued to roar intermittently, lighting up the lawn and returning it to pitch darkness again. And in those brief moments, the tigers could be seen, each time at different spots, walking among the people. Children and women shrieked, men yelled, many scampered in the dark. Within minutes, the big cats disappeared in the forest. Nobody suffered a scratch. One forest official broke a leg running for his life.

Corbett is full of such surprises, and delicious scares. Few wild experiences compare to the numb thrill of taking a narrow road, flanked by a gorge and a steep slope, at an hour when elephants do the traffic duty. Returning one late afternoon from Khinanauli (with special permission, due to an emergency), I was stared down by a mighty bull at 15 feet, who stood guard for what seemed an eternity while his herd climbed up from the river and walked across. No, this giant did not even mock charge, the chill his cold, composed eyes spread was enough.

THE YOUNG JIM

But Corbett is more than its spirited animals or its splendid collection of birds. Very few places compare with this reserve's ever-changing horizons. The moist terai and rocky, porous bhabars at the margins of the Shivalik in the southern parts, the mixed forests dominated by Sal trees around Bijrani, the amazing savannah of Dhikala, the riverine bounty along Ramganga, the frosty heights of Kanda - there are so many Corbetts to surprise one.

After all, this is the stage of that "small boy armed with an old muzzle-loading gun... kept from falling apart by lashings of brass wire" roaming the jungles, "sleeping anywhere he happened to be when night came on...wakened at intervals by the calling of tigers..."

That boy grew up to kill 33 maneaters, 19 of those tigers. Hunter Edward James Corbett. Then he met Frederick Walter Champion, a forester who would be one of India's first naturalists. The hunter became a conservationist. Together, they ensured this spectacular Kumaon wilderness was protected as Asia's first national park, named after Lord Malcom Hailey in 1936. Post-Independence, the park was renamed after its lifeline, the Ramganga river, in 1954. Next year, Jim Corbett died in Kenya. In his honour, the park was re-renamed in 1956. When India launched Project Tiger, the world's most ambitious conservation programme, in 1973, it was only fitting that Corbett was the chosen venue.

COST OF SUCCESS

Today this reserve is one of the few high points of Project Tiger's success and also one of the world's top wildlife destinations. But the tourism boom has exacted its cost. More than 100 small and big hotels flourishing around Corbett need 20 per cent occupancy to stay in business. That amounts to 2.2 lakh double bed rooms or more than 4 lakh tourists. Even after increasing the park's carrying capacity, it cannot allow entry to more than 2.4 lakh a year.

Clearly, hundreds of thousands of tourists, who apparently do not even enter the reserve, crowd Corbett for extended sessions of corporate unwinding or rowdy weddings. To accommodate them, more and more multi-star hotels come up behind high walls, block wildlife corridors, add to sound and light pollution, drain vital resources like water, and leave behind tonnes of garbage in ecologically fragile areas.

LOCALS VS ANIMALS

At the same time, with little benefit of conservation or tourism being shared with the local communities, the level of intolerance towards animals is rising. In the recent past, a number of Corbett tigers were removed as so-called maneaters; some others died mysteriously. Without benefitting the local stakeholders, no celebration will help secure Corbett's future.

The efforts to save this marvel of Kumaon wilderness began long before Jim Corbett by the likes of Major Ramsay (1870s) or ER Stevans (1900s). But Jim's true legacy lies in understanding the wild, and its most awesome mascot, the tiger. In increasingly conflict-ridden times, we should not forget that little boy, who once crept up a bush while stalking jungle fowl and saw "the bush heaving and a tiger walking out on the far side and, on clearing the bush, turning round and looking at the boy with an expression on its face which said as clearly as any words, 'Hello, kid, what the hell are you doing here?' and, receiving no answer, turning round and walking away very slowly without once looking back."

The Madness in Her Method

A desperate Bengal ousted the Left, seeking ‘poribarton’. Six months on, Mamata Banerjee is as vocal as she was while lavishing poll promises, yet ‘change’ looks elusive as ever. So, what’s holding back poribarton?

OPEN, 19 November, 2011

Popular wisdom often cliché. And Charles Darwin, if not Alphonse Karr, is well known anywhere in the world. But in Bengal, they are still quoted routinely to drive home a point.

Yes, it took three-and-a-half bleak decades. But when eventually Bengal bit the bullet, it was all about poribarton— from a regressive, anachronistic government and an all-encompassing ruling party. So this May, after defying anti-incumbency for 34 years, the longest serving elected Left government fell to the English naturalist’s theory, its failure to adapt finally catching up with it.

Today, it is the turn of the French novelist. West Bengal has become Poshchim Bongo; Tagore songs are adding to the noise at Kolkata’s traffic signals; and former Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya has gone into a permanent sulk. But six months after the momentous regime change, things in Bengal remain much the same.

But a fondness for cliché is hardly something to write home about.


BIG ASK, NO INTENT
It was never going to be easy to turn Bengal around. Even in its rout, the Left secured 41 per cent of the vote. The party is deeply entrenched in the state’s social and administrative systems: from cultural icons to teachers to bureaucrats, the majority was either co-opted by the party or were bona fide Left cadres. They cheerfully toed the party line for personal gain. It is practically impossible to replace this corrupt and defunct system. It is one thing to have defeated the Left, but bringing about change at the grassroots (literal translation of Trinamool) was always going to be a tall order.

The state’s infrastructure is in tatters and rebuilding it will need heavy investment. The Maoist conflict and unrest in Jangalmahal in Purulia district or Lalgarh in West Midnapore were horribly mismanaged by the Left to flashpoints. The hills in the north are suffering from a longstanding conflict. Political control over public affairs, blinkered populism, poor work ethics and the subsequent loss of industry, jobs and capital have reduced Bengal to a socio-economic blackhole.

Given the odds, few would have expected Mamata Banerjee to fulfill her lavish electoral promises. Yet, after handing her a generous mandate for a turnaround, her voters have reason to doubt her very intent. Consider these:

» Admitted, Mamata inherited empty coffers. But the early euphoria over the ouster of the Left would have allowed Mamata to come up with a few tough fiscal measures to raise funds. A former journalist close to the new CM says she has not lost her pre-election populist reflexes—she has even scrapped the water tax Buddhadeb levied under the Centre’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.

Mamata is dealing in symbolism that does not cost money: the law to return Singur land to farmers; the visit to Darjeeling and Sikkim; the tough posturing on Teesta waters; and playing the media on Jangalmahal and Gorkhaland. All this while hoping and looking expectantly at the Centre for a bailout, and embarrassing herself with bargains on the fuel price hike.

» Cashing in on the Left excesses at Lalgarh and Jangalmahal, Mamata had promised to punish the guilty, stop police atrocities, withdraw false cases and open dialogue. But once in power, she did a volte-face, say organisations working in these areas. Nobody was released; in fact, fresh arrests were made; the joint forces simply changed strategy to create an illusion of a ceasefire and focused on targeted operations; those guilty of mass murder and rape walked free.

An activist of the Nari Ijjat Bachao Committee offers an example. At Chanpadoba under Belpahari police station, the village commons had built a health centre in 2008. But the joint forces fighting Maoists soon occupied the building. After the much-anticipated regime change, villagers tried to inaugurate the health centre on 14 August. The new administration and its forces did not allow them.

Instead, Mamata is promising development and 10,000 temporary jobs as special police officers. But there are few takers for “symbolic development without democratic rights” among the locals, who dismiss the job scheme as Mamata’s ploy to trigger a fratricide among tribals. What made matters worse was the involvement of the Bhairav Bahini (an armed gang backed by the TMC) in the operations of the joint forces.

In the run-up to the polls, Mamata rushed to stand by every victim of alleged police/Left atrocity. However, in Jhar- gram to address a rally on 16 October, she refused to visit a woman in a nearby hospital who had consumed poison the day before after being assaulted at her Belpa- hari home by cops on the lookout for her husband. The victim’s husband says the CM turned away the locals who met her, saying “Jangalmahal women lie a lot”.

» The TMC’s command structure is far from robust and too many goons who had earlier served Left interests have simply changed sides, as have some renegade Communists. While some of these new entrants are taking on old-timers in their new party, others are busy settling old scores with the comrades they deserted.

Mamata’s own conduct undermines her promise of restoring the much-politicised state police to a professional, independent force. The Chief Minister made national headlines on 9 November by storming a South Kolkata police station to free a couple of goons from her own city neighbourhood who had been detained for vandalising the police station.

“No Left cadre would have publicly assaulted a police officer. No Left minister or even leader would have gone to a thana to release hooligans. Of course, they would have ensured the same results without getting personally involved,” says a veteran IPS officer.

» With every Mamata loyalist and his uncle turning up for their share of the spoils, former incumbents in key posts (some even deserving) have been summarily removed. Members of the TMC education cell, many of them with a Left history, have been handpicked to head bodies such as the School Service Commission, the Primary Education Board and the West Bengal Board for Secondary Education. Even non-Left factions in different university and college teachers’ unions complain that the new government’s attempts at reform are as arbitrary and unilateral as its predecessor’s. The new government has also redrawn the lawyers’ panels for all its departments.

»The new Chief Minister faces an acute shortage of people she can depend on to get the job done. She got elected many nondescript carpetbaggers who can contribute little as MLAs or ministers. And of the few who can, she doesn’t seem to trust any.

As a result, she takes decisions for all ministries, talks to the media on all issues (often incoherently) and even decides which sofa goes where in the secretariat. Six months into the job, there is no government spokesperson and no second-rung leadership in the party. And there is only so much a one-woman government can do, even if Mamata often puts in 18 hours a day.

TALE OF TWO CMS
Since she entered politics, Mamata’s biggest success has been to stand up against the Left bullies and show that it is possible to do so. But her three-decade-long fight could still not have brought about this regime change but for a metamorphosis she had no role in. The new CM has good reason to learn from her predecessor’s failings. Consider these:

» In 1993, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya resigned from the Jyoti Basu government. Frustrated with the rot in the Left movement, he wrote a candid play—Dussamay (Bad Times)—to record his disapproval. A staunch idealist, he flaunted his anti-capitalism credentials, at times rather naively, by refusing to attend functions hosted by industrialists.

Cut to 2006. Buddhadeb has won his first poll as Chief Minister and the first person he meets after taking oath is Ratan Tata. Eager to resurrect the state economy and create his own legacy, he starts wooing capital, and, recalls a former bureaucrat, makes new friends in a hurry. So dramatic is the switch in loyalties that he unceremoniously dumps one of his most trusted aides, a bureaucrat-turned-friend, for cautioning him about a dubious businessman. Said businessman has already won over the new government by modifying investment plans on the thousands of acres he was promised by Buddhadeb.

Years before she became Chief Minister, Mamata stood by an upright Muslim IPS officer who took on the Left government. She went so far as to put it in writing that she would appoint this officer the Commissioner of Kolkata Police if she came to power. Soon after she became the Union Railway Minister in the second UPA Government, Mamata called him to Delhi to work in her ministry.

Cut to 2011, and the new Chief Minister has appointed as Kolkata’s Commission- er of Police RK Pachnanda, a “Left stooge” whom she accused of tearing her sari and biting her during a protest rally in 1998 and vowed to punish once she became CM. Having in fact superseded the IPS veteran she once backed by appointing Pachnanda, she kept the officer out of the police force and offered him a posting in the CMO that he has since declined.

The U-turn is apparently a fallout of the good cop’s refusal to toe her line in the Railway Ministry, where Mamata sat on his report against a top security officer from the UP cadre. The new CM, claim sources, decided in favour of a more “pliant officer to ensure smooth functioning of the government”.

» Buddhadeb at the helm also did away with the regular line of command. For instance, no top cop could ever approach Jyoti Basu directly in any crisis. He would go to the home secretary (HS), who, if required, would consult the chief secretary (CS), and it was up to the CS to decide if he wanted to refer the matter to the CM. At whatever level a decision was taken, it was communicated down the hierarchy. In effect, a top cop would never know if a decision came from the HS or CS or CM.

While independent judgement at different levels would make for a better decision, the CM could distance himself from any decision gone wrong. But Buddhadeb sat with top bureaucrats and cops in his office and discussed issues like club buddies would. A few candid IAS and IPS officers could still have salvaged these debates, but the CM increasingly handpicked yesmen who rarely interrupted him.

Most of Mamata’s decisions too are unilateral with little input from the bureaucracy, cabinet or party colleagues. It’s not a coincidence either that none of her top ministers—former home secretary Manish Gupta, former Andrew Yule HR executive Partha Chatterjee or former FICCI secretary general Amit Mitra—has a political footing. The only senior Congress leader in the cabinet, Manas Bhunia, handles irrigation. Even Subrata Mukherjee, Mamata’s political mentor who gave her the ticket to contest her first Lok Sabha election in 1984, has been assigned an insignificant portfolio.

She went out of her way to accommodate a few officers from the Union Railway ministry not because of their record, but simply because she prefers, say sources in her own party, officers who will carry out orders.

» Buddhadeb has a tendency to take hasty decisions. In the early 1990s, recalls a senior police officer, the legendary owner-editor of the Amrita Bazar Patrika-Jugantar group, nonagenarian Tushar Kanti Ghosh was admitted to a Kolkata hospital. “I received an arrest warrant against Ghosh for irregularities in the employee provident fund. It was out of the question arresting him in that condition. I informed the Commissioner (of Police), who decided to consult Buddhadeb, the minister in charge of police affairs.”

When Buddhadeb heard the officers, he ordered Ghosh’s immediate arrest. “Alarmed, I pointed out that we might have to arrest the hospital bed as well. But the minister insisted, saying the Ghosh family were traditional Congress supporters. When I requested him to think over his decision, he left in a huff for the CM’s room.” Within minutes he returned and asked the officers to sit on the warrant. Jyoti Basu was apparently furious that Buddhadeb even thought of arresting someone of Ghosh’s age and stature in his condition.

Mamata’s political reflexes smack of the same impulsiveness. Playing the same partisan card the Left favoured, Mamata went to the extent of showing a number of cultural icons—writer Sunil Ganguly, poet Shankho Ghosh, playwright Mohit Chattopadhyay and actor Soumitra Chatterjee—the door in different government committees in favour of juniors such as Arpita Ghosh or Shaoli Mitra from the TMC camp.

POWER RUSH
There is certainly a pattern to Mamata’s recent utterances and action (or lack of it) in crises, ranging from the Maoist standoff to infant deaths in city and district hospitals. Sample these:

» “There are no Maoists-Phaoists in West Bengal.”

» “I’ll give you one last chance. How many jobs do you want? How many roads and hospitals? I will provide everything you want if you drop the gun.”

» “I am concentrating on industry. On infant deaths, if you still have some queries, ask my health secretary. Please don’t disturb me.”

» “Most of the babies who were admitted to the hospital weighed around 300 grams.”

At a recent function in Kolkata, where a road—Sindhu Kanu Dahar—was named after two heroes of the Santhal rebellion, she repeatedly enquired from the stage if Dahar’s descendants had made it to the inauguration. Dahar, in Santhali, means road.

Claiming that 90 per cent of her poll promises to minorities had already been fulfilled, she announced regularisation of 10,000 madrassas. Only, she never bothered to check if there were indeed 10,000 madrassas in the state.

But gaffes and outbursts may yet do little damage beyond headlines the morning after. In any case, Mamata doesn’t seem to care, having reached the seat of power that has been a lifetime’s work.

It was no mean feat for a lower middle class, godfather-less woman, all of 21, to become general secretary of the Mahila Congress in 1976, but her government’s official website, banglarmukh.com, will have you believe that she accomplished the feat as early as in 1970, as a 15-year-old!

Now that she is CM, she will need more than her natural flair for exaggeration to deliver poribarton.

বাঘ বৃত্তান্ত

আনন্দবাজার পত্রিকা, ১২ নভেম্বর, ২০১১

অমাবস্যার সন্ধ্যা । খাটো, রোগা গাছগুলোর ঝাঁকড়া জঙ্গলে পথ করে নিতে রুক্ষ কাঁটাজমি ছেড়ে খোলা জিপ হঠাৎ নেমে পড়ল এক পাথুরে নালায় । বছরের এসময়টা জল থাকার কথা নয়, নেইও । কিন্তু পেল্লাই-সাইজের সব বোল্ডার আর এবড়ো-খেবড়ো চাট্টানের ‘রাস্তায়’ জিপসির পিছনে দাঁড়িয়ে ক্যামেরা হাতে নিজের ব্যালেন্সের আর মারুতির অ্যাক্সলের পরীক্ষা নিতে নিতে একবার মনে হল এর চেয়ে নেমে পড়লে হয়ত হেঁটে-বেয়ে এগুনো সহজ হত।

পাথর কেটে জলের যেমন খুশি বানানো এই পথ বেশ গভীর হলেও তেমন চওড়া নয় । ছাগলছানার মত এলোমেলো লাফাতে থাকা গাড়ি এগোচ্ছে দুপাশের দেওয়ালে ঠোকর খেতে খেতে । ইঞ্জিনের মরীয়া শব্দের কারনেই কিনা জানি না, জঙ্গলটা কেমন যেন অদ্ভুত নিঃসাড় । ততক্ষনে সূর্য ডুবেছে । নালার ভেতর থেকে দেখছি মাথার দুধারে গাছতলায়, বেড়িয়ে থাকা শেকড়ে জমছে অন্ধকার । অনেকটা ওপরে কালো ডালপালার ফাঁকে আকাশটা দ্রুত বদলাচ্ছে ঘন বেগুনী থেকে আরও ঘন বেগুনীতে ।

হঠাৎ কানের পাশে বাঁদিকের জঙ্গলটা খানখান হয়ে গেল একটা প্রায় অশরীরী চিল-চিৎকারে । ভালুকের ঘোঁত-ঘোঁত আগে অনেক শুনেছি, কিন্তু গলা ছেড়ে তার এমন আর্ত ডাক-এর অভিজ্ঞতা সেই প্রথম । কি কারনে ভালুকভায়া এত বিচলিত সেটা ঠাউরে ওঠার আগেই ওই তারস্বর চমকে দিল আরেকবার । আমাদের উপস্থিতি নিরাপদ কিনা ভাবছি, ডানদিকের জঙ্গল থেকে, যেন প্রত্যুত্তরেই, হেঁকে উঠলো এক গমগমে বাঘ । ক’মুহূর্তের নীরবতার পর আবার সেই স্নায়ু পঙ্গু করে দেওয়া হা-লু-ম, এবার আরও কাছে ।

বাঘ-ভালুকের এমন কানফাটানো যুগলবন্দিতে ফ্রন্ট-রো সিট পেয়ে যাবো কে জানত । দুই মেজাজি ওস্তাদের মাঝখানে এভাবে কতক্ষন কেটেছে খেয়াল নেই (পরে হিসেব করেছিলাম মাত্র মিনিট পনের) ।

একসময় সওয়াল-জবাবের একটু বিরতিতে খানিক সম্বিত ফিরতে দেখি গাড়ির হেডলাইটের চৌহদ্দির বাইরে সব মুছে দেওয়া ঘুরঘুট্টি রাত ।


অন্ধকারে শুখা নালার বোল্ডার ডিঙিয়ে জিপ্‌সি তখনও এগোবার ভণিতা করছিল। হঠাৎ পাথরে জবর ঠোক্কর খেয়ে ইঞ্জিনে একটা করুন গোঙানির শব্দ আর গাড়ি বেমক্কা পিছলে সামনের দুচাকা আকাশে । একহাতে আঁকড়ে ধরা খোলা জিপ্‌সির হুড-বাঁধার রড-এর জোড়-ঝালাই খুলে এল গোটা শরীরের ভারে ।

প্রায় পঁয়তাল্লিশ ডিগ্রী-তে খাড়া হয়ে যাওয়া জিপ্‌সির হেডলাইটের আলো নালা ছেড়ে উঠে গিয়েছিল মাথার ওপরের জঙ্গলে । চিত হয়ে পড়তে পড়তে আমার চোখ-ও স্বভাবত ছিল আকাশে । জানি না কোন কোরিওগ্রাফার-এর পক্ষে এতগুলি ভিন্ন মুহূর্তের এমন অলৌকিক সমন্বয় সম্ভব । অসহায় চিৎপটাং হতে হতে মাথার ওপরে দেখলাম লাফিয়ে নালা পার হয়ে যাচ্ছে বাঘ, গাড়ির আলো ঠিকরে পড়ছে তার দুধ-সাদা জোয়ান পেটে, গাঢ় অন্ধকারের প্রেক্ষাপটে ঝলসে উঠছে সোনালি-কালো ডোরা-র ইঙ্গিত । ওই একটি-দুটি মুহূর্তই, কিন্তু স্মৃতিতে রয়ে গ্যাছে স্লো-মোশানে, যেন নালার এপার থেকে ওপারে হাওয়ায় ভেসে পার হচ্ছেন জঙ্গলের রাজা ।

এ গল্পের বাকিটা না-বলা থেকে যাওয়াই ভাল । ঘাড়ের ওপর বাঘ আর কাছেপিঠেই ভালুক নিয়েও আমরা ওই পাথরে লটকানো জিপ্‌সিটিকে শেষমেশ নালাছাড়া করতে পেরেছিলাম । বেঁচে যে ফিরেছিলাম সেটা তো বোঝাই যাচ্ছে । কপালজোর বলে কথা! না হলে অমন বাঘদর্শন লেখা থাকে?

তা বলে ভাববেন না যেন নিয়মিত জঙ্গলে যাই বলে বাঘেরা পক্ষপাতদুষ্ট বা তাদের খুঁজে পাওয়ার কোনও মোক্ষম ফর্মুলা আয়ত্ত করেছি । অনেক ছোটবড়, দেশি-বিদেশি ওস্তাদ-কে জানি যারা বছরের বেশির ভাগটাই বনে-বাদারে কাটান । তাদের কাউকেই কখনও আজ-বাঘের-দেখা-পাবই এই গ্যারান্টি দিতে শুনিনি । আমার নিজের রেকর্ডও কিছু আহামরি নয়, পাঁচবার বাঘবনে গেলে হয়ত একবার দর্শন জোটে ।

অবশ্য বুঝি, বাঙালির এ ব্যাপারে একটু অভিমান স্বাভাবিক । যে বাঘকে তামাম দুনিয়া বাংলার নামে চেনে, তার ওপর বাঙালির এতটুকু অধিকার থাকতে নেই ? বাংলায় দু-দুটো টাইগার রিসার্ভ, তবু বাঙালিকে কিনা রয়্যাল বেঙ্গল টাইগার দেখতে ভিন্‌রাজ্যে যেতে হয়?

বিশ্বায়নের যুগে ঘরের-বাঘ-ঘরেই-দেখব এই গোঁ ধরা যায় না। তবে ঘর ছেড়ে বেরোলেই যে দর্শন মিলবে, তারই বা গ্যারান্টি কি? নইলে সরিস্কা থেকে কাজিরাঙ্গা আর রাজাজি থেকে পেরিয়ার –- অবাধগতি বাঙ্গালী ভ্রমণার্থীর অযুত ক্যামেরায় ওই গাইড-প্রতিশ্রুত সোনালি-কালো ডোরা কি করে বছর-বছর অধরা থেকে যায়?

আবার এর উলটো দিকটাও ভেবে দেখুন । তেনার মর্জি হলে, আপনাকে সম্পূর্ণ অগ্রাহ্য করে তিনি হেঁটে যেতে পারেন একেবারে নাকের ডগায় । এমনকি টাইগার রিসার্ভের বাইরেও ।

এবছরই মে মাসের কথা । কলকাতার এক পুরনো বন্ধু সপরিবারে দঃক্ষিন ভারত ঘুরতে যাবার আগে বি আর হিলস আর বান্দিপুরে বাঘ দেখার অনেক সুলুকসন্ধান জেনে নিয়ে গেল । কিন্তু দু-দুটি নামজাদা টাইগার রিসার্ভে হপ্তাখানেক অনেক সাফারি হাঁকিয়েও যখন শিকে ছিঁড়ল না, দার্শনিক-গোছের মুখ নিয়ে বাক্স-প্যাটরা গুছিয়ে তারা গুটিগুটি রওনা হয়েছিল বান্দিপুর থেকে কুর্গের পথে। পথে নাগারহোলে ন্যাশনাল পার্কের কাবিনিতে খাওয়া । লেট লাঞ্চের পর একটু ঝিমুনি মত এসেছিল বোধহয় । তন্দ্রা ছুটে গেল ড্রাইভারের উত্তেজিত গলায় । চোখ খুলতেই গোধূলি আলোয় রাস্তা পার হয়ে অলস হেঁটে যাওয়া বাঘ ।

আমার বন্ধুজনের মধ্যে এমনও দেখেছি যারা কুড়ি-পঁচিশ বছর নিয়মিত জঙ্গল ঢুঁড়ে ফেলেও বাঘের ন্যাজটি অবধি স্পট করতে পারে নি। আবার এমনও ক্ষণজন্মাদের জানি যারা কপালে যেন বাঘ লিখিয়ে এসেছিল, না হলে জীবনের প্রথম সাফারি-তেই দশ মিনিটের মধ্যে বাঘের ক্লোজ-আপ ফটো ? তাও আবার করবেটের ঝোপঝাড়ে চোখ চলে না এমন জঙ্গলে?

এই অনিশ্চয়তাই আপনার বাঘের খোঁজের আসল রোমাঞ্চ । এ যে শুধু চোখের দেখায় সীমাবদ্ধ তা-ও নয় । রাজস্থানের রনথম্বর টাইগার রিসার্ভের শুখনো, খোলামেলা পর্ণমোচী বনে বাঘ দেখার সুযোগ অন্যান্য টাইগার রিসার্ভের চেয়ে অনেকটাই বেশি । কিন্তু এই আসাধারন জঙ্গল থেকে শুধু ট্যুরিসম জোনে সকাল-বিকেল সাফারি করে ফিরে এলে, বাঘের দেখা পান বা না পান, জঙ্গলের অভিজ্ঞতা সম্পূর্ণ হবে না।

তার জন্য জিপ্‌সি ভাড়া করে একবেলা চলে যেতে হবে বানাস-এর কুলে । নদীতে বা পাড়-ঘেঁষে দেখতে পেয়ে যেতে পারেন চম্বলের বিখ্যাত মগর কুমীর । না পেলে, অপেক্ষায় বিকেল গড়াবে। বানাস-এর ওইপারে জঙ্গল-মোড়া আরাবল্লীর বুক থেকে খসে পড়বে অবসন্ন দিন, গহন সবুজ ধীরে নিভে যাবে এক স্বর্গচ্যুত, শিরশিরে সন্ধ্যায় । কান পাতুন, হয়ত দূর থেকে ভেসে আসবে ক্রমে আরও দূরে চলে যেতে থাকা কোন নিঃসঙ্গ বাঘিনির অধৈর্য ডাক । জঙ্গলে এমনটা হয়ে থাকে।

Bengal’s New Battle: Didi vs Her Demons

Mamata Banerjee’s feckless response to recent hospital horrors in Bengal and her political threats over oil prices are symptomatic. Her paranoia is affecting her priorities. And the Left’s lying in wait

Sunday Economic Times, 6 Nov, 2011

Change, said Heraclitus, is the only constant. But over 34 long years in West Bengal, the Left proved many wise men wrong. Mind you, Bengal did change under Left rule -- but after the early euphoria of land reforms, mostly for the worse. The May 2011 verdict was as much against lost opportunities of development, job, enterprise, capital, you-name-it, as it was against a systemic takeover of the administration and basic democratic rights by the party. So when Bengal finally voted Mamata Banerjee in, only one emotion overrode relief: hope for a turnaround.

Six months on, sample this. “I am concentrating on industry. Regarding infant death, if you still have some queries, ask my health secretary. Please don’t disturb me,” chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who holds the health portfolio, told reporters on the death of 47 babies in a week in three hospitals in Kolkata, Burdwan and Murshidabad. Two days later, a newborn in Murshidabad died on Wednesday when the doctor used carbolic acid instead of dettol to disinfect. The CM’s response hasn’t changed since a similar crisis in July: the Left is to blame for the pathetic medical infrastructure in the state.

But inertia is no excuse, given the expectations. Last month, my elderly aunt, having seen many a cynical autumn, dismissed my indifference towards ever the same festive crowds with an unusual prod: “Are you sure you want to miss this (Durga) pujo – the first after poribarton?” It struck me that I was in kindergarten when the Left Front came to power; that not much of my memory dates back beyond 1977. Could this be the reason why I, belonging to the first of many so-called Left generations, found pujo and much of Bengal the same ever all these years?


Potholes, Pujo. ‘Liberation’

The potholes, the winding jams, the rickety, smoke-spewing buses were all in place. So were the noisy, tireless, pandal-hoppers. Just when I was wondering if Rabindrasangeet wafting from select traffic signals was the only change I would encounter in Kolkata, Mamatadi held out a few surprises.

The parks in Kolkata have been reclaimed for the bhadrolok (gentry). Families now enjoy evening walks without being intimidated by drug-addicts or hoodlums. Pity, the municipal workers lock the premises soon after sundown; the move, I am assured, has nothing to do with moral policing. There are just too many homeless in the city.

Pujo too was different. It is a multi-crore industry, and the organisers — clubs, big and small — were mostly controlled by the Left. This year, several “Left pujos” had Trinamool challengers. Elsewhere, the control over organising committees changed hands. While scores of pujos organised by Left workers shrunk in scope, those under Trinamool Congress (TMC) patronage saws a 300-700 per cent increase in their budgets.

The pujo backed Mamata’s close aide and Bengal industry minister Partha Chatterjee used to be a modest neighbourhood affair until recently. This time, the idols were brass-and-mahogany, and everything else was as lavish.

Even during the festive season, a highly polarised local media had played up reports of sporadic political violence. But to her credit, Mamata had sent out a message for peace immediately after assuming office. A veteran IPS officer recalls the bloodshed across the state the Left had ended a long, almost uninterrupted Congress rule in the late 1970s. “From that experience, we were prepared for another bloody transition. But by and large, Mamata has succeeded in keeping TMC workers on leash.”

Left leaders play victim in public. In private, many of them sound relieved. “We expected much worse. Whatever (violence) is happening has a pattern. In areas where we did not allow any opposition, our cadres are facing the backlash. Elsewhere, they (TMC) are giving us some space.”

But the command structure of TMC is far from robust across the state and too many musclemen who earlier served the Left interest have simply switched sides. A good number of “renegade” communists have joined in too. While some of these turncoats are taking on the old-timers in their new party, others are clashing with the comrades they deserted.

On the margins of politics, the newly “empowered” are struggling to handle their “liberation”. On the first day of this pujo, the officer-in-charge of south Kolkata’s Garfa Police Station asked a few TMC-affiliated auto-rickshaw drivers to stop drinking in public (actually the reasonable man suggested that they move their party from the main road to a nearby alley). He spent the pujo in hospital with several fractured bones.

But Has the Left Gone?

So is this what turnaround is about? And if indeed the earth did not shake and little blood flew, why did it take Bengal so long to dislodge the red brigade?

During an adda (an informal, often wasteful, discussion), an old acquaintance reminds me of Martin Seligman. In 1967, the American psychologist made a startling observation. When dogs were confined and subjected to random electric shocks, after a while they refused to run away even when not in harness. Seligman called the condition “learned helplessness” – a mental state when making any effort to end misery seems useless.

Over the years, Mamata’s biggest success has been to stand up, often alone, against the Left bullies and demonstrate that it is possible. She even risked physical injury to find acceptance among the bhadrolok voters who sniggered at her lower middle class upbringing, non-ladylike demeanour and shrill theatrics. But as Mamata persisted against all odds, ridicule slowly gave way to admiration, and her antics morphed into courage.

The balance finally tilted with Singur and Nandigram. Mamata stunned the Left in the 2008 Panchayat and the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. The writing was on the wall. The Left government hung on, limp, inactive for two years – a sad waste even by Bengal’s standards. Six months after the inevitable Assembly poll outcome, Mamata’s voters are still so thrilled to have ousted the Left that they refuse to judge their didi yet.

But even in its rout, the Left secured a 41% vote share. The party is still entrenched in the social and administrative systems. From bureaucrats to lawyers, teachers to union leaders, artistes to police, most were either bona fide Left cadres or co-opted by the party. They blatantly benefited theparty for personal gains. It is one thing to defeat the Left but quite another, to quote an MLA who teaches at Jadavpur university, to change “this morally and professionally corrupt way of life” they institutionalised.

Not surprisingly, the so-called Left way of life – of rewarding loyalty over merit – is reflected in a number of Mamata’s early decisions. Everyone who can claim to have helped Mamata’s campaign feels entitled to a share of the spoils. Considering the previous regime packed most key posts with cadres, some purging was inevitable. But her education minister Bratya Basu makes it clear that “one cannot be both Left and deserving”. So the same us-and-them syndrome that divided the intelligentsia under Left rule is being practised by the new regime.

A number of cultural icons of Bengal have been shown the door in different government committees in favour of juniors from the TMC camp. Members of the TMC education cell, many of them with a Left past, have been handpicked to head different education boards. Even non-Left factions in various university and college teachers’ unions are unhappy that the new government’s attempt at education reforms is no less arbitrary and unilateral. The new government has also redrawn the lawyers’ panels for all its departments. The list of such partisan shake-ups is long.

There are other worries: The Left was trying to withdraw outdated, polluting vehicles from Kolkata’s roads. Mamata has allowed these to ply. Before the Assembly polls, Park Street footpaths were freed of hawkers. Now, they are back. Mamata scraped the water tax Buddhadeb had levied under the Centre’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. While she is working late evenings, there has been no visible change in a system where the right political affiliation entitles government staff to “pension-on-the-job”.

Mamata’s HR Problem

So does change have a chance at all?

The CM has inherited empty coffers. If she cannot raise funds due to her populist compulsions, she cannot invest in infrastructure development yet. So looking to the Centre for a bailout -- and now using the fuel price hike issue for a better bargain -- she is mostly dealing in symbolism without the overheads: the law to return Singur land to owners; the visits to Darjeeling and Sikkim; the tough posturing on Teesta; and playing the media on on the issues of Maoists and Gorkhaland. But by setting childlike deadlines for resolving longstanding conflicts, she might have set herself up for early scrutiny.

Mamata also faces an acute shortage of quality human resources in TMC. She got many nondescript carpetbaggers elected; they contribute little as MLAs or ministers. In a cabinet sorely lacking in administrative experience and capability, Mamata has saddled herself, and a few chosen ones, with too many remits. The few bureaucrats she trusts also have their hands too full.

It’s not a coincidence either that none of her top ministers — former home secretary Manish Gupta, former Andrew Yule HR executive Partha Chatterjee, or former FICCI secretary general Amit Mitra — has a political footing. The only senior Congress leader in the cabinet, Manas Bhunia, is irrigation minister. Even Subrata Mukherjee, who gave Mamata the ticket to contest her first Lok Sabha election in 1984, has been assigned the insignificant portfolio of public health engineering.

Call the Mamata a control freak or insecure or both, she decides for all ministries, addresses the press on all issues (often several times a day) and even picks the furniture for the Writers Building (secretariat) corridors. A debilitating trust deficit does not allow her to promote a second rung leadership in TMC or even assign a government spokesperson. She may have been toasted for single-handedly winning 227 seats, but an all-Mamata ruling party and an only-CM government cannot deliver, even if didi frequently clocks 18-hour workdays.

Soviets Vs Bengal

When Soviet communist states crumbled, the party was razed to the ground, making regeneration possible. In a democracy, the defeated survives. The Left now argues that its average vote share has been 49 per cent and it ruled all these years due to divisions in opposition vote. Had Prakash Karat not insisted on withdrawing support on the nuclear deal, paving way for the TMC-Congress alliance, they claim, the Left could still be in power.

Clearly, the red brigade is in no mood for any introspection or change within. They will be back in their elements if voted back any time soon. So Bengal’s hope for a turnaround rests solely on Mamata’s ability to deliver. For that she must first fight her own demons.

To change Bengal, Mamata must change herself.

Playing God

Who are we helping by keeping old tigers alive with regular baits? Or, by releasing hand-raised cubs back to forests? Welfare is often a selfish motive. Practised in the wild, it defeats the interest of the animals and the very purpose of conservation

Sunday Pioneer, 30 Oct, 2011

First, a disclaimer: I am not given to anthropomorphic tendencies. Animals, wild or not, are animals. But still, it is difficult to think of her as it.

Her disregard for crowd and camera can shame any film icon. Over 14 years, she has been spotted by more than 100 million tourists. A few days every year, tens of thousands of pilgrims walk all over her territory on their way to Ranthambhore’s famed Ganesh temple. She hardly cares.

Her composure and confidence can humble the most efficient single mother. Despite being almost always surrounded by crowds, she has deftly raised nine cubs in four (some wrongly claim five) litters to adulthood between 2000 and 2008. She never compromised her little ones’ safety but rarely charged people even when they ventured too close for comfort. She has some nerve.

Her courage and determination make her a remarkable survivor, particularly by her species’ dodgy standards. She repeatedly took on deadly marsh crocodiles bigger than her and overcame them. Even after those mortal combats cost her two canines, she not only continued to hunt and support herself but also fed five cubs in two litters. Physical handicaps starve even dominant tigers to death over weeks. She won most of her battles in the mind.

Her far-reaching contribution can dwarf many game-changers we idolise. With crores of tourists cherishing how they photographed her, she has been the biggest advertisement for tiger conservation. In 2009, when she was awarded for lifetime achievement at the British Ambassador’s residence in New Delhi (no, she was not there), it was rather conservatively estimated that she had already generated $10 million for the local economy through tourism. But that’s not all.

Almost singlehandedly, she has defended India’s fragile westernmost population of tigers through an ominous decade. Including those nine cubs from three males, her bloodline has so far produced at least 38 tigers in Ranthambhore, including two females sent to repopulate Sariska. Of the 38, 31 are alive today and constitute 60 per cent of Rajasthan’s present tiger population.

She is the tiger legend: T16 alias the Lady of the Lake alias Machli.

When I first saw the young tigress at the turn of the century, I did not even know she had a name. Afterwards, I watched, photographed and filmed the reigning queen of the three majestic lakes near the craggy fort at the heart of Ranthambhore many a time. As tigers disappeared from Rajasthan with poachers striking at will in the first half of the last decade and hollow promises crumbled all around, the very sight of Machli — strolling, stalking, ambushing, raising still more cubs or just minding her own business — was one of the few reassuring constants. We sought to spot her every time we passed by her territory, as an omen of sorts.

It was a miracle that Machli raised her fourth litter at a ripe age and without two canines. However spectacular, all things, even George Harrison knew, must pass away. So three years on, now Machli has lost all but half a canine, a little patch of her once vast territory, and some of her indomitable spirit. She still makes occasional kills. But without the baits the forest department has been offering her for two years now, she would have long been dead.

Except in photos clicked every season by tourists on Machli pilgrimage, I have not seen her after 2009. I refuse to watch an amazing wild tiger reduced to a pathetic spectacle.

For generations fed on the 1966 blockbuster based on Joy Adamson’s Born Free, the idea of ‘helping’ wild animals, particularly big cats, is one of the loftiest goals of conservation.

Machli is not the only victim of our compassion. Life support was also offered to her contemporary and partner T2, the ancient Anantpura male. The big daddy fathered many tigers, including three sent to repopulate Sariska. By 2010, he was too weak to kill even chained buffaloes and finally died this year. In April 2009, a young Ranthambhore male (T29) was operated upon for an injury and set on his feet. It is another matter that Ranthambhore’s tiger population is showing a skewed sex ratio, with too many males around and nature must eliminate a few to restore balance.

Yet, across the country, old and injured tigers are being baited and treated, and orphaned cubs are being brought up in “natural enclosures”.

Not to mention the smug celebrations every time a maneater is packed off to a zoo, instead of being put down.

But animal welfare is an ethical and not an ecological concern. At best, these efforts have no bearing on wildlife conservation. At worst, they defeat its very purpose. In nature, the weak and the injured must perish so that the fittest may flourish. So an aged tiger dies of starvation or at the hands of a young adversary.

The reign of Charger, revered as the mightiest ever of all Bandhavgarh tigers, ended in a deadly fight with one of his grandsons in 2002. Of course, the forest staff tried to feed the mauled, half-blind veteran but he did not respond. Had Charger survived thanks to human benevolence, his young grandson would have had to get into another fight to kill him, thereby inviting fresh injuries or jeopardising his own future as a dominant male.

Yet, we treat the wild like pets.

In September 2008, Ranthambhore’s Guda tigress died of suspected poisoning, leaving two sub-adult cubs, about 16 months old. The forest department promptly stepped in and handed out routine baits to the T36 male and his sibling T37 female.

Raised on calves, the brother-sister duo possibly lost, or did not get to acquire, much of wild survival skills. The sister has a better chance since females seldom face deadly challenges from other females. The brother’s luck gave out when he ran into a probing male in October last year. The adversary was just three years old. The natural advantage should have been with T36. But it was an unequal battle between a raised tiger and a wild one.

Once he was orphaned, 16-month-old T36 would have died of starvation. Or, maybe, necessity would have made a wild tiger out of him. But by offering him baits, forest officials consigned him to an inevitable end. Poor T36 was dead the day he became a raised tiger in the wild.

Another brother-sister duo, orphaned when Ranthambhore’s Berdha tigress died in April 2009, enjoyed regular baits from the park officials. In July 2010, Simba, the three-year-old brother, seriously injured himself attempting a wild hunt. He was spotted in a sorry shape during the monsoon, suffering from deep wounds inflicted by porcupine quills. Then, he disappeared.

This blinkered welfare motive is not limited to cubs and the elderly though. For example, sending a “man-eater” to a zoo does save its life but, in terms of wildlife conservation, the effort is no better than shooting the animal dead. In both cases, the result is one animal less in the wild.

Our excitement about saving “man-eaters” shifts the focus from the real problems — absence of buffer forests, faulty land use around forests — that push predators to chance encounters with people and create “man-eaters”. If these root causes are not addressed and if we do not learn to differentiate between accidental and deliberate attacks, we may soon be left with empty forests, once we have happily rescued all the tigers as “maneaters” to zoos.

The more obvious fallout of Born Free is our aspiration to return orphaned cubs to the wild. But cubs raised in captivity have rarely succeeded in the wild. They lack in hunting skills and fail to defend themselves. Also, bereft of any fear of humans, they tend to get into conflict.

Captive females do stand a chance since wild males accept them as mating partners. For a hand-raised lioness, such acceptance even compensates for her lack of hunting skills as she gets to feed with the pride. After rehabilitating Elsa the lioness, Adamson successfully returned two more hand-raised cats to the wild. Not a coincidence that Pippa the cheetah and Penny the leopard were also females.

In India, Billy Arjan Singh experimented with four hand-raised cats. Tigress Tara and leopardesses Harriet and Juliette had cubs in the wild, but the whereabouts of Prince, the male leopard, remained uncertain. The attempts had led to conflict and subsequent poisoning of Harriet and Juliette.

In Karnataka, Gajendra Singh released two leopards near Bandipur in 1999. While the male was killed soon after while attempting to hunt a sambar stag, the female survived. Emboldened, Singh repeated the experiment this year with three orphan leopard cubs. Around the same time, Bangalore-based NGO Vanamitra was allowed to release three hand-raised cubs in Bhadra. Within months, the cats killed two villagers and injured many, forcing the State forest department to remove them from the wild and ban such experiments.

An excellent guideline issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests in 2010 is unambiguous on the issue: “A cub without its mother usually does not need ‘rescue’ as the mother leaves the cubs when she goes hunting. Equally, cubs released without its mother have poor survival probabilities. If cubs are found alone, a watch must be kept for their mother without disturbing them. Cubs are not to be ‘released’, but only require ‘reuniting’ with their mother. Reuniting should be attempted immediately in the night in the same area, from where they were picked up.”

“Cubs that are hand-reared in captivity have a negligible possibility of future release back to the wild. Lifetime care is the only suitable option for such cubs, since their release in the wild even after a long-term rehabilitation process may only worsen the already existing conflict situation.”

Yet, three orphaned Tadoba cubs are being raised in an enclosure in Maharashtra’s Bor sanctuary since September 2009. The forest department and a Nagpur-based NGO, Shrusti, are adamant that they are fit to be released in Pench tiger reserve. While Wildlife Institute of India has deferred a final decision, it will be the worst advertisement for tiger conservation if these cubs are set free and they run into conflict with the villagers.

Our romanticism blinds us to the lessons we should have learnt by now. Even before the sordid Karnataka experience, a hand-raised leopard, Lakshmi, was released on the outskirts of Ranthambhore in 2009. Soon, the people-friendly cat ran after local villagers, spreading panic. Lakshmi is now confined to an enclosure deep inside the reserve, much to the annoyance of the wild resident cats of the area.

A similar welfare drama is playing out in Bandhavgarh. When the Jhurjhura tigress was run over by a vehicle in May last year, the future of her three small cubs in the wild was sealed. One of the cubs was killed by a male. Still, the other two cubs are being raised in an enclosure at the heart of the reserve. In all these cases, instead of taking the cubs to zoos — to quote wildlife photographer Aditya Singh — we are deluding ourselves by bringing zoos to the forests.

Welfare is often a selfish motive.

We want to return the Bor cubs back to the wild or keep Machli alive because it gives us an emotional and moral high. It is not them but merely our perception of them that we want to protect and preserve.

Not many Ranthambhore regulars talk about the Sultanpuri tigress (T14) any more. For many years, Machli’s sister was the prize sighting in Zone 1. Then, she was challenged by T13, one of her three daughters, in 2009. Soon, the mother surrendered her territory. T13 became the new Sultanpuri female and has already raised three cubs of her own.

Machli was lucky to hang on to about one-fifth of her territory after she was dethroned by her dominant daughter, T17. When the forest department begun baiting her under public glare, sister Sultanpuri was stumbling away to Bhaironpura where she took refuge at the edge of the national park. Though she was exactly Machli’s age (from the same litter), nobody lobbied to keep her alive. Away from the tourism zone, Sultanpuri made occasional kills and scavenged some more. Her last known big kill was a buffalo this February. It is already six months since she was last spotted sometime in April.

Sultanpuri’s lonely, helpless end may sadden us. But unlike her sister, she was fortunate to have been left alone. The biggest disservice millions of Machli fans could do to her was to treat the fierce fighter as destitute. If we agree that the wild are born free, we must learn to respect that freedom, in life and death.

The writer is an independent journalist