The Forest Cover-Up

Preening over plantations and weeds, green statistics conceal the alarming loss of natural, old-growth forests 

TEHELKA, 25 Feb, 2012 

 ONE OF the many miracles of India is that it has maintained one-fifth of its area under forest cover since Independence. The population has jumped three-and-a-half times since 1947 and with it the demand for agricultural land. During 1951-80, India diverted 42,380 sq km forest land, 62 percent of it for farming. The demand of development has only increased since. Yet, our forests simply refuse to shrink. 

The government started coming up with biennial State of the Forest reports since 1987. The latest volume shows that our forest cover has actually gone up by 49,986 sq km (7.78 percent) in those 25 years. In the same period, however, the forests of undivided Madhya Pradesh have shrunk by 63,183 sq km. The miracle just keeps getting bigger. 

Or does it? The reports claim that Delhi has increased its forest cover 12-fold since 1987. Potholes are perhaps the only water bodies left in the city but, we are told, 56 sq km of the capital is, in fact, dense (high or medium) forest. We are also told that Rajasthan’s forest cover has jumped by 29 percent and the dense bit of it by 49 percent. Forest area has trebled in Haryana with the dense cover up by 11 times. Punjab has also gained around 1,000 sq km of forests in these 25 years. 

If you think you have missed something, it is not the forest but the forest cover- up.

In 1987, satellite imagery mapped forests at a 1:1 million scale, missing details of land units smaller than 4 sq km. Now, the 1:50,000 scale can scan patches even smaller than 0.1 sq km. Naturally, smaller green patches of 1 hectare or above, ones that earlier went unnoticed, are now being accounted for. But does green mean forest? 

The so-called forests of Delhi are primarily thickets of Prosopis juliflora, an exotic invasive species that also accounts for much of the greenery, and hence ‘dense forests’, of Rajasthan. The sudden greening of Punjab and Haryana, where Forest Departments protect highway trees as reserve forests, is due to plantations. Even the remarkable gain in forest cover in the Western Ghats hides the contribution of numerous coffee plantations in the southern states. 

The so-called non-forest states can do with any green cover, even eucalyptus or kikar that has little ecological or biodiversity value. But the celebration over these not-so- consequential gains hides something ominous. For the 1,000-odd sq km Punjab gained, Andaman and Nicobar islands lost 670 sq km of ancient forest that no plantation can recover. In the same period, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh lost 18,000 sq km of dense forest, perhaps more. 

Plantation of fast-growing, mostly commercial species such as teak, rubber, coffee, eucalyptus or poplar is important for the economy. It can also meet the demand for fuel wood. But it cannot substitute for natural forests. Unfortunately, target-oriented government policies are making forest staff clear degraded natural forests, where root stocks would rebound given protection, to plant saplings. In any case, even the Rs 11,000 crore CAMPA funds cannot green (at Rs 40 a sapling and 2.5 lakh saplings per sq km) more than 11,000 sq km or 0.33 percent of the country. 

Non-government researchers such as Jean- Philippe Puyravaud and Priya Davidar of Pondicherry University, and William Laurance from James Cook University, have found that plantations are expanding by 6,000-18,000 sq km per year in India. The native forests, on the other hand, are declining rapidly, at a rate higher than that of either Brazil or Malaysia. The government does not agree. To avoid debates, the Forest Survey of India can simply make the GPS locations of each designated forest unit, of say 2 sq km, public so that forest field staff, researchers, NGOs, for that matter anyone interested, can walk down and check what really goes in the name of forests.

A Time To Cull

Foraging wild animals in cropland are threatening livelihoods, turning the farmer against conservation efforts

TEHELKA,18 Feb, 2012

The damage to the national economy due to crop depredation by wild animals has never been computed. But for lakhs of farmers around India’s many protected forests, it is the biggest challenge to livelihood. In Maharashtra alone, 17,725 cases of crop damage, a 300 percent jump since the previous year, were registered between April 2010 and February 2011.

From 1990 to 2008, wild boars caused 309 cases of human death and injury in the five states of Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. In north Bengal, gaurs (Indian bison) are routinely causing fatal road accidents, and may soon march on Jalpaiguri town.

Yet, we hate to consider the option of culling wild animals even where pocket populations are over-abundant. The wild boar, in particular, being a resilient and fast-breeding animal, is rapidly expanding its population in new areas. The nilgai is doubly protected because of its religious association. The elegance of the blackbuck or the spotted deer wins over public sentiment though the animals are often a nuisance.

The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, empowers a chief wildlife warden (CWLW) to allow killing of wild animals in exceptional circumstances. Kerala cleared a proposal for culling of wild boars in five districts last year. Madhya Pradesh courageously allowed shooting of nilgais.

Explains former CWLW of Himachal Pradesh Vinay Tandon: “Instead of a blanket policy, we need site-specific approaches. Activists need to understand that saving a few animals risks the lives of many more. It is easy to be righteous but angry farmers do not help conservation.” Tandon’s permission for culling wild boars and monkeys was withdrawn once animal welfare and rights activists moved court.

The popular sentiment is that culling is unnecessary when we can prevent crop-raiding by fencing or by changing the crop pattern. But such measures often do not work, and certainly not overnight. Besides, the end result of such apparently harmless measures and culling is just the same.


Why do wild animals raid crop? Either because there is not enough food inside forests or non-forest food seems more attractive. In the first scenario, if we cut off their access to crop, the animals will starve, eventually bringing down the population. So it is really a choice between death by starvation and culling.

Also, if used locally, contraptions such as electric fencing divert animals to the next village and merely shift conflict. Used extensively, it creates a fenced-in natural zoo. Thankfully, most often, it is not any forest famine but a better buffet outside that draws animals to cropland. Foraging inside forests cannot offer tastier and more nutrient alternatives like sugarcane or maize.

We can create buffer zones so that crops do not stand at the edge of the forest and also promote non-edible crops. Such measures will minimise but still not stop conflict. Effective compensation schemes work where the damage is reasonable. Elsewhere, the only option is to reduce the number of the crop-raiders.

Says National Board for Wildlife member Biswajit Mohanty: “The absence of a legal option has not stopped farmers from secretly hunting the crop-raiders. They do it on a mass scale in Odisha and all over the country.” Such unregulated culling is dangerously random and encourages a practice that often extends to poaching of non-pest species, including big cats.

For best results, each overabundant population must be monitored before culling it to a certain sex ratio so that the numbers stabilise at a low level. Says wildlife biologist Ajay Desai: “We need to bridge the gap between what is on paper and what happens on the ground. If forest officers can neither compensate for the crop damage nor cull the damaging animals, how can they conserve anything among hostile villagers?”

Project Spotty

Cleared in a hurry amid much fanfare, Project Cheetah now waits for funds to fly in the first consignment from Africa. But the once-lost cat stands even less of a chance in a crowded 21st century India, and its reintroduction will pose fresh challenges for other species on the brink of extinction. There may still be just enough time to scrap this dangerous experiment

OPEN, 4-11 Feb, 2012

The cheetah was officially declared extinct in India in 1952. Six decades on, the country has come a long way. The GDP has increased by 66,400 per cent. The human population has grown from 350 million to 1.2 billion. The forest cover remains the same on paper, but more than 40 per cent of it is degraded beyond recognition. Poachers have replaced hunters. Man-animal conflict has become news staple. Even tiger numbers have slipped below the 1972 level when Project Tiger was launched.

And yet, certain experts feel the cheetah could get second time lucky.

Six decades after Independence, 0.40 per cent of India’s budget is spent on environment and forests (including wildlife). So there is just Rs 800 crore to conserve 15 key species and around 650 Protected Areas. The endangered rhinos of West Bengal, their only significant population outside Assam, are not considered worthy of more than Rs 44 lakh. And the remaining 275-odd great Indian bustards await, well, a Project Bustard.

Instead, we get Project Cheetah, with a bill of more than Rs 300 crore, almost overnight.

Floated by a group of former bureaucrats and practising biologists, it was a fascinating idea. To have the charismatic cat back, watch its slender frame coiling at the precipice of motion, its spots blurring into a chase to run down an antelope in a matter of seconds, and panting ever so delicately before biting into the kill.

People loved the thought and Jairam Ramesh loved the thought of people loving it. So in 2009, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) cleared a proposal from Dr MK Ranjitsinh, India’s first director of wildlife during the 1970s and chairman of Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), and Dr YV Jhala, wildlife biologist with Wildlife Institute of India (WII), to bring cheetahs back.

To allay fears that the project would eat into the limited government funds available for conservation, Dr Ranjitsinh gave an assurance right at the outset, in July 2009, that the proposed reintroduction of cheetahs “does not entail diverting any funds allocated by the Government for conservation of existing endangered species and habitats. No fund support is sought from the Government”.

The MoEF, however, sanctioned Rs 25 lakh for a feasibility study conducted by the proponents themselves. Three sites—Nauradehi and Kuno-Palpur in Madhya Pradesh and Jaisalmer’s Shahgarh landscape in Rajasthan—were selected as the proposed new home for the cheetahs. The Project Cheetah document was ready in September 2010.

In August 2011, the Union Cabinet approved Rs 50 crore for the cheetah programme under Project Tiger. In November, Dr HS Pabla, principal chief conservator of forests, Madhya Pradesh, sought Rs 42 crore to relocate two villages from Kuno and fly in a few cheetahs. But since Project Tiger is facing a current shortfall of Rs 281 crore for existing schemes, no funds have been released yet for the cheetah programme.

For once, few conservationists are complaining. “The viability of this project is suspect. More importantly, it is plain unnecessary. We should focus on saving what we still have and not what we have already lost,” says conservationist Valmik Thapar. Wildlife biologists Dr Faiyaz Khudsar and Dr Ullas Karanth are equally unenthused.

Cheetahs prefer grasslands and need small prey. But what the project calls grasslands in Kuno are in fact areas cleared during the past decade through the resettlement of 24 villages to create a second home for Gujarat’s Asiatic lions.

Explains Dr Khudsar: “Over time, these open patches are naturally being converted into woodland. Kuno’s chinkara (the cheetah’s primary prey) population once thrived in the pasture and agricultural land around forest villages, but is diminishing every year with the growth of woodlands. This natural ecological succession jeopardises a long- term future for cheetahs in terms of habitat and prey.”

Also, does introducing cheetahs in Kuno mean curtains for the Government’s longstanding plan to create a second home for the lions of Gir? Dr Ranjitsinh says lions can still be introduced once the cheetahs have settled down, “but not the other way round because a bigger cat will not allow a smaller one in its territory”. By the same logic, cheetahs may not be welcome at all in Kuno, which, being a part of the vibrant Ranthambhore tiger landscape, already has two resident tigers.

PCCF Dr Pabla, however, does not see any reason why all four big cats—cheetah, tiger, lion and leopard—cannot share space since “conflict is natural in the wild”. On concerns over suitable cheetah habitats, he argues that “cheetahs do live in areas other than grasslands” in Africa.

Experts also point out the absence of adequate wild prey base and presence of small livestock in all three areas marked for cheetah reintroduction. “We are looking at a high probability of conflict due to livestock depredation. Cheetahs will stand little chance against angry villagers,” warns Dr Karanth. Even packs of aggressive village dogs will be a major threat to this docile cat.

The most vocal argument in favour of Project Cheetah is that the reintroduction will help save India’s neglected arid ecology, grasslands in particular. It is inexplicable, though, why the Government needs to plant a new species when it is already mandated (and has done precious little) to protect the most fascinating occupant of the same grassland: the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard.

While examining potential sites for cheetahs, the WII-WTI team had rejected Desert National Park (DNP) because it holds “the last surviving great Indian bustard population of Jaisalmer” and “putting the cheetah in with the bustard cannot be contemplated at all, because of the threat to this most gravely endangered bird”.

By the same logic, bustards will have no chance of recovery in any of the potential cheetah reintroduction sites—all are potential bustard habitats, which were once part of the bird’s range.

But Dr Ranjitsinh is not worried: “We are not putting cheetahs in DNP where bustards now survive. If the bustard population recovers and birds disperse to other areas, well, they will have to deal with cheetahs.”

A member of India’s National Board for Wildlife warns against this “couldn’t- care-less” approach: “We have an ex- bureaucrat of former Gujarat royalty, who is seen on YouTube talking about his childhood dreams to bring back cheetahs. Another former Gujarat royal, a top biologist, is desperate for the project, perhaps because he was left out of the Sariska [tiger] reintroduction due to WII politics. But personal ambitions can’t justify random introduction of a species.”

Counters a senior Madhya Pradesh forest official: “The resistance is mainly from India’s many tiger experts, who hog all the limelight in our tiger-centric conservation milieu. Once cheetahs are in, the media focus will shift, even if partially and temporarily. The project is already making big news.”

Media hype apart, Project Cheetah is losing support outside Madhya Pradesh, with an increasing number of experts and organisations recognising the dangers of the programme. The Rajasthan forest establishment was sceptical from the beginning and is yet to submit any plan for the Jaisalmer leg of the project. Even Dr Ranjitsinh’s WTI has developed cold feet. Confirms the NGO’s senior director Dr Rahul Kaul: “Dr Ranjitsinh is in the project in his personal capacity; the WTI has nothing to do with it anymore.”

The message is clear. With funds yet to be released, the MoEF still has an opportunity to rethink and scrap the cheetah project. It is one thing to reintroduce a lost species and lose it all over again, quite another to risk other barely surviving species in that experiment.

BOX:CAT RECALL

The word cheetah is apparently derived from Sanskrit chitrakaya(speckled). Emperor Akbar, it is said, maintained a pack of 1,000 hunting cheetahs at all times and trained 9,000 during his tenure. The last three Indian cheetahs in the wild were gunned down by Maharaja of Surguja (Bastar) in 1948. Officially, the species was declared extinct in 1952.
The last of India’s captive cheetahs died soon after. Since then, seven Indian zoos have sourced 45 animals of the African sub-species from Canada, Germany and other countries. Only 11, including three cubs born in Mysore zoo last year, survive. A project to clone the Indian cheetah at Hyderabad’s Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species (LaCONES) has been hanging fire for more than a decade due to unavailability of the Asiatic breed to source necessary genetic material.
The idea of reintroducing the charismatic animal in the wild gained ground in the new millennium and got the official nod in July 2009. But Iran refused to part with any of its remaining 80-odd wild cheetahs, the only surviving population of the Asiatic sub-species, and the focus shifted to importing African cheetahs.
At a meeting attended by international experts in September 2009, wildlife geneticist Stephen O’Brien said the Asian and African cheetahs were genetically very similar since the two subspecies were separated by just 5,000 years (unlike the lion subspecies that split 100,000 years ago); and Dr Laurie Marker, head of Namibia-based Cheetah Conservation Fund, offered to help reintroduce the cheetah “in stages over the next decade, possibly starting in early 2012”.
Don’t hold your breath.

Don't ban wildlife tourism, customise it

The case against wildlife tourism in core forests is up for hearing soon. But the interests of industry and conservation are not irreconcilable

Tehelka, 11 Feb, 2012

MORE THAN 50 lakh tourists visit India’s forests every year. They and lakhs of others who make a living out of those visits started worrying when a 2006 amendment of the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972 necessitated that India’s core critical tiger habitats be left ‘inviolate’.

The government strengthened its scheme for voluntary relocation of villages and issued directives to phase out tourism from core forests. While the relocation drive is achieving mixed results, nothing really has changed on the tourism front. Therefore, conservation activists moved court.

The debate outside the courtroom is raging. Protribal groups blasted the hypocrisy of shunting poor villagers out and entertaining rich tourists in the same place. The tourism lobby hit back at the absurdity of comparing the impact of safari tourists, who do not even set foot in the forest, to that of villagers who survive on forest water, land, firewood and even bush meat, and are potential allies of poachers.

Moreover, a whole set of restrictions in and around reserves allows few livelihood options and tourism is the mainstay of such pocket economies. But while mushrooming resorts block wildlife corridors, pump out groundwater and dump garbage indiscriminately, few locals benefit from such enterprises owned by outsiders.

Like any industry, tourism survives on growth. Every tourism enterprise shows off its client base and many destinations are touted for the number of tourists they attract. The equation that determines the carrying capacity of a reserve is a joke among many who know basic ecology and a little maths. But surely, no patch of wilderness can host an unlimited number of tourists without damaging itself.

Anyway, if an operator promotes a pristine forest for what it is and offers the concessions that mass tourism demands, the destination will quickly lose its USP. So the growth imperative of mass tourism demands that thousands of safari tourists be packed, with the popular promise of a tiger, in hundreds of walled resorts choking our forests.


One solution offered is to make wildlife tourism exorbitant. But it is undemocratic and anyway not acceptable to many low-end operators who survive on volumes. The other demand, now before the court, is for pushing tourism away from core forests. But mass tourism is overwhelmingly tiger-centric and confinement to lesser forest areas will further add to the uncertainty of ‘sighting’. It does not make any business sense to the tourism lobby.

What we need to accept is that there are two sets of wildlife tourists. They are not distinguished by spending power but by their expectations. The majority wants to see tigers outside zoos while having a good time. A small minority considers tiger sighting a bonus — often a big bonus — but demand, above all, a true jungle experience. They will sacrifice most creature comforts for that experience. These tourists deserve access to even the best of forests where they will be just fine with a hard bed, a basic toilet, plain meals and lights out after early dinner.

The rest should only be allowed on limited safaris to try their tiger luck. They can, of course, enjoy their swimming pools and DJs at regular resorts a certain distance, say 5 km, away from core forests. As for existing resorts, the properties should be made to create space for animal movement, follow strict garbage disposal norms and limit usage of resources. It should be mandatory for all tourism businesses to hire a certain percentage of locals at equitable salaries.

But mere court directives or new laws will not help. Corrupt forest (and local) officials and greedy players in the industry are equally to blame for the present mess. If the government is serious about conservation and if wildlife tourism really seeks a long-term future, both must come clean.

Little girl behind big sister

Mamata Banerjee’s memoir is a slice of herself: feisty, self-indulgent, with a hint of the absurd

The Economic Times, 4 Feb, 2012

For one busy single-handedly bringing down Bengal’s Left citadel all her political life, Mamata Banerjee has managed to write quite a bit. “Writing,” she writes, “is my way of recording my conscience,” and at times, an attempt “to come face to face with another me, to rediscover my other self”.

By now, her political opponents must have found one Didi quite a handful to really appreciate another. For the rest of us, however, the idea that there may be more to the shrill, headstrong and unpredictable political phenomenon that is Mamata Bannerjee is somewhat comforting. But a few pages into her memoir – My Unforgettable Memories – the first account of ‘duality’ dashes such hope.

Mamata reveals that she has two birthdays. She was underage (not even 15) when she wrote her school final exams and her father “gave a fictitious age and birthday” so that she was not disqualified. As a result, she writes, five years were added to her age. For average readers, this raises two questions.

Why did Mamata’s father add five years to her age when a year, at the most two, would have made her eligible for the exam? Perhaps Banerjee senior was gifted with unusual foresight. But for the five years added to her ‘real age’ of 24, Mamata would not have been even eligible to contest Lok Sabha polls when she was elected from Jadavpur in 1984. In retrospect, could that still be a cognizable offence?

It is, of course, possible that Mamata, who was mature enough to take charge as the state general secretary of Mahila Congress at 16 (or 21), had no inkling that her age was being doctored at school when she was 15 (or 20). So she hopes she will not attract criticism for “disclosing the truth”, though, she writes in another context, “there are some who dismiss anything I do as drama”. Momentarily disarmed, perhaps guilty, most readers will move on. Anyway, India does not need another birthday bashing, not just yet.

The search for the “other Mamata” soon leads to her deep belief in the occult and the supernatural – the rain that preceded her birth and has since kept company “almost like a dear friend” on all significant occasions; the repeated apparition of her father’s spirit before her mother and herself; goddess Kali communicating through her younger brother who suffered a violent seizure, or by appearing in her dreams, even making photo frames fly across her room.

In between pop out curious nuggets about the child who got lost wandering outside her house and was brought back by the local police, a very promising beginning of a complex relationship that would slide steadily downhill during the Left rule before getting turned on its head by the historic regime change; about the debutant MP who felt “both lost and defeated” by “the conspiracy” that made her “seem like an illiterate person who could not even sign her name”; about the reluctant leader “not used to speaking English”, for who travelling abroad is “an ordeal”.

In a country where women politicians must come as amma, behenji or in unquestionable saffron, Didi boldly pens the word ‘boyfriend’ in her memoir. Once she was with her classmates who decided to meet ‘their friends’ on way back from school. They reached a park and met a couple of boys. When Mamata’s friends owned them up as their boyfriends, she was so scared that she ran back home. ”I did not even know what the word ‘boyfriend’ meant and could not ask anyone. What of people misunderstood? What would they think of me?” No, she did not specify how old she was then or if her response to the idea of ‘boyfriend’ did evolve with time.


That is not the only omission in Mamata’s memoir. She joined politics in 1970 when the Naxal movement took root in Bengal. The political turmoil that cost hundreds of lives does not merit any mention in her account. Mamata writes endearingly about her feat of planting a black flag on then Prime Minister Morarji Desai’s car but deftly skirts the issue of the Emergency and its excesses. She was, of course, upset that Indira Gandhi had lost but “back then I was still a novice and I did not understand the larger political world well enough to grasp the reasons for the poll debacle”. The memoir is also conveniently silent about her years in the NDA government (though in another context she slips in that AB Vajpayee “has always been very fond of me”).

But the bold, even brash, Mamata returns in her many scathing references to Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, the “big brother” who “lost the 1991 Lok Sabha elections from Howrah”. Sonia Gandhi (the reluctant “Queen Mother”) and Manmohan Singh (who did “only the CPM’s bidding”) are not spared. Even Indira Gandhi comes in for criticism when, referring to a change of attitude in 1983, she slams the prevalent Congress culture that made the top leadership “immediately censor” any regional faction that got “too active”.

The memoir reserves the most emotional bits for Rajiv Gandhi. The assassination of her biggest mentor shattered Mamata. “I was orphaned all over again, for the second time in my life since my father’s death. I did not speak to anybody for a week. I simply could not eat a morsel. I used to shut myself up in my room and cry. It has been so many years, but even today, I feel his presence in every step I take; he touched a chord that still plays the symphony of my life.”

Left to fend for herself politically, Mamata, who carried a “feeling of not fitting in” since her school days, gradually hardened into a loner. The memoir details each attack on her by Left goons and the police, and the prolonged tale of serial betrayals within the Congress. In the mid-90s, Mamata would frequently lose sleep at night, spend hours looking at her father’s photo and ask him: “Why? Why did I have to get into this dirty game of politics?” Of course, she would return, each time, to “fight injustice”, all by herself.

Today, if a control-freak Mamata barely trusts anyone with responsibility or power, the early signs were obvious. While registering her party secretly in 1998, her idea was that “the right hand should not know what the Left hand does”. During her 26-day fast against Singur land acquisition in Kolkata, she was “terrified that instead of medical help”, the doctors “handpicked by the administration…would actually do something to disable me temporarily or permanently”.

While much of the memoir is penned by Mamata, the rebel, a brief epilogue is written by Mamata, the chief minister. The Left is vanquished but the perennial victim in her still feels easily wronged. So she snubs those ‘friends’ who are critical of her new government and reminds them that they were last-minute entrants in the anti-Left movement that she single-handedly built, “from Canning to Kanchenjunga”, over three decades. Credit appropriated, perhaps duly, she goes on to warn the slanderous “CPM touts, the enemies of the people”: “It is not possible to swim against the flow when a river is in spate.”

At one point of this rant of an epilogue, she suddenly goes on a baffling tangent: “Even small disjointed movements have yielded the Nobel Prize for some people simply because they know how to lobby hard. Yet, Bengal and her grassroots movement for Ma, Mati, Manush remain totally neglected.” The prize committee at Stockholm may not take note, but this salvo is likely to confuse Didi’s supporters who were given to believe so far that the Centre’s reluctance to offer an economic bailout was the biggest snub for Bengal.

But will this memoir help or damage Didi’s political image? Neither, since Mamata is a natural mass leader like no other in Bengal and very few elsewhere. On that August noon in 1997, when she dwarfed the Congress plenary session held at an indoor stadium by filling up Kolkata’s biggest ground with lakhs of supporters, I was among those who managed a foothold on the back of her stage to get a measure of the crowd.

A rookie reporter from Delhi, I remember the awe and bewilderment in the eyes of the national press that was matched only by the reaction of the Congress leadership nervously confabulating just a mile away. That was Mamata’s first step towards Trinamool Congress. Irrespective of her quirks and qualities, she found her way with the masses long before she became the chief minister.

Yes, most Mamata baiters will find this memoir a delicious read. But so will the devout. “For those who believe, no proof is needed,” writes Mamata of the supernatural, “for those who do not, no proof is enough.”

Laxman's future, Dhoni's past

The old guard has the record but not the time to stage a comeback; the skipper’s case is different

Open, 20 Jan, 2012

The clamour for an overhaul of the Indian middle order is rising. But like life, cricket offers many chances. No other sport boasts of so many ‘comeback’ legends. Perhaps it is natural for a game even the shortest version of which plays out longer than any other team sport does. So the greatness of a cricketer is determined as much by talent as by one’s ability to reinvent oneself, time and again, as a top performer.

Honestly, there is nothing unusual about the present predicament of the Indian batsmen except that they have slumped together and it looks embarrassing. But each of them has suffered similar ebbs in his career and come back a better player.

Against England and South Africa (2005-06), Virender Sehwag averaged 19 and 14.8, respectively. He bounced back in Australia (2007-08) with an average of 71.50. In three consecutive series against South Africa, Sri Lanka and Australia (2009-10), Gautam Gambhir averaged 12.66, 1 and 12.50, respectively. He regained form at home against New Zealand (average 41.75) and silenced his critics in South Africa with a 60-plus average last year.

In his third tour to Australia (1999-2000), Rahul Dravid averaged 15.50. Next time he was Down Under (2003-04), he averaged an impossible-to-argue-with 123.80. VVS Laxman averaged above 80 against Australia at home (2000-01) and away (2003-04). In the next home series (2004-05) against the same opponent, his average dwindled to 17.57. When the Aussies landed again in 2008-09, VVS was at the top of his game with an average of 95.25.

Let’s not dig into a certain Sachin Tendulkar’s records. Not his game, but his mind looks crammed. Also, nobody else knows how it feels approaching a hundredth hundred.

But Sachin’s illustrious colleagues have shown in the past that they have it in them to pick themselves up and return stronger. Unfortunately, the process takes not only a rare degree of ability but also time. Gambhir and Sehwag have enough years of cricket ahead and can be trusted to make strong comebacks. But Laxman and Dravid do not have the luxury. When they have returned winners from similar situations in the past, it took them a season or two. Given opportunities, they may regain form by 2013, but their bodies will not hold.


If Dravid and Laxman have all the records but not the time to convince the selectors, Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s case is quite the opposite. Playing abroad, particularly outside Asia, Dhoni’s Test batting record has always been ordinary.

Playing away against Bangladesh, New Zealand and Pakistan, Dhoni averages 96.50, 77.50 and 59.66, respectively. Against opponents such as Sri Lanka, South Africa and England, his away averages are 32, 31.44 and 39, respectively. In 26 away innings against these three teams, Dhoni scored six half-centuries, three ducks and did not cross 20 on nine occasions.

Against West Indies and Australia, Dhoni’s away averages are 22.08 and 18.69. In 26 away innings against these two opponents, he scored three half-centuries, two ducks and did not cross 20 on 17 occasions. Overall, playing away in West Indies, Australia, England, South Africa and Sri Lanka, Dhoni failed to cross 20 in 31 (60 per cent) out of 52 innings.

More recently, Dhoni averaged 31 in England, thanks to two valiant 50s in Birmingham. Together, the other six innings yielded just 69. In the previous away series against West Indies, just one 50-plus score propelled his average to 19. In the remaining four innings, he managed a total of 23. In the current tour, he has so far averaged 20 in six innings. But for the lone half-century at Sydney, he has scored 45 runs in five innings.

Dhoni’s wicket keeping, usually flawless and unnoticed, has also started slipping under pressure. Comparisons with Adam Gilchrist, Alec Stewart or the still-in-action Mark Boucher may not be fair but even Kamran Akmal or Brad Haddin has a better dismissals-per-inning record in Tests than the Indian captain (not to mention former butter fingers Matt Prior who shares Dhoni’s strike rate behind the stumps).

Surely, if Dhoni was not such a phenomenally successful ODI captain and India were not averse to the multiple-captain theory, his place in the Test squad would long have been suspect. Forget the younger lot in domestic cricket, even Parthiv Patel has returned a better keeper and has batting averages playing away of 32 and 65.50, respectively, against Australia and Pakistan. Only last year, playing ODIs away against West Indies and England, Patel averaged 29.40 and 34.40, respectively.

Most followers of the game do not enjoy commentator Sourav Ganguly’s psychic gifts and it is hard to guess if Dhoni really does not enjoy playing Test cricket. It is equally impossible to determine if the Indian captain was thinking aloud about retiring from Test cricket only to deflect the media’s unrelenting glare on his team’s dismal performance or if there was some genuine soul-searching.

But if Laxman and Dravid have run out of time to rediscover their lost touch that made them such formidable performers abroad, Dhoni has never demonstrated the skill that makes a Test batsman dependable on hostile foreign pitches. India does not need to look hard to figure out what is amiss. Playing on familiar tracks against weaker teams, Dhoni himself has shown what an effective number seven can lend to a team’s batting stability.

Perhaps it’s time to try someone for the Test squad who is less of a gamble at the crease, whose consistency is less challenged by quality bowling in tough conditions. That should be by far the most obvious task before the selectors, and much easier than finding necessary replacements for Laxman and Dravid.