The right story behind our photograph - Jay writes

Clarity lies in the eyes of the beholder

A photograph may tell a thousand stories but let us be cautious while spinning them around maneaters, encroachers or co-existence

__by Jay Mazoomdaar

This Sunday, I woke up to a rare photograph. A friend of mine from Kolkata clicked it in Ranthambhore and posted on a social networking site. It frames a tiger walking within a few metres of a group of labourers, mostly women, who were being herded away by a forest guard to let the big cat pass by. The tiger looks unconcerned and the labourers are all smiles. My friend has graciously shared it for the readers.

A fine documentation of a not-so-rare phenomenon in most of our tiger forests where people spend long hours repairing roads etc without getting harmed, the photograph tells a reassuring story. Social network sites allow comments on posts and such a rare post deserved all the appreciation. But soon all hell broke loose.

In the last four days, almost 200 people have commented on the photo. Quite a few sensible or innocuous ones apart, the rest seem to be surprisingly polarised. One group blasted humans (or labourers, in this case) for encroaching upon the tiger’s territory. The other hailed the tiger as an apostle of non-violence. Then, somewhere around the 165^th mark in the comment queue, came this poser: “WOW! But still all news papers (sic) are full of Men N (sic) Animal Conflicts (sic) don’t understand why?”

Allowing the question some benefit of doubt (could it possibly be sarcastic?), I felt it brought out the duality inherent in most truths.

Yes, tigers, or other carnivores for that matter, do not consider us food. Our great, great forefathers were very much on their menu just like the primates still are in the wild. But carnivores have learnt to respect (and fear) us over time as able adversaries. So they generally follow a no-risk policy and maintain a respectable distance from groups of people, like they do from, say, an elephant herd or a pack of dholes.

But carnivores do defend themselves aggressively if they feel disturbed or threatened. They are nature’s most efficient killers. A defensive slap from a tiger can kill; it is hardly any consolation that the tiger is unlikely to eat its victim in such cases.

Moreover, I (and many others) have records of tigers that usually avoid elephants or dholes but opportunistically kill lonely calves or defend kills against a smaller pack. So, nothing prevents an otherwise respectful carnivore from making an occasional human kill if the victim seems suitably lonely and defenceless. The fact that they usually do not should not be taken as an underwriting of sorts.

Within this limited scope, let me not get into the more complex issues of chronic conflict situations that we witness in places like Sunderbans and Tadoba. Suffice to say that a solitary, unarmed human is still the easiest prey for any large carnivore and they can anyway kill people in self-defence.

So it is dangerous to create an impression of the tiger (or any large carnivore) that may induce a false sense of safety. All wild creatures are gentlemanly but they are still wild. We take them for granted only at our own peril.

Now, were those people in the photograph taking the tiger for granted, or encroaching upon its territory? Probably not. The group was there to do necessary forest work. They were being watched over by a forest guard. In the photograph, they do not seem to be in panic and are rather orderly. My friend, the photographer, confirmed that the face-off did not last long. The workers kept walking away quietly, the tiger smelt their lunch boxes wrapped in clothes, urinated to emphasize its territory and disappeared. The smiles in the frame also convey a not-so-unpleasant, minor surprise. That is how life is and should be inside a forest.

But what about the larger issue of encroachment? Of course, tigers prefer inviolate breeding areas. But even after all core forests are freed of human settlements, tigers will keep moving in the peripheral forests where they will have to share space with people. In fact, large carnivores have been historically sharing space with people all over India and the quantum of recorded conflict does not really seem to be proportionate to the numbers on both sides.

We must remove the remaining people from core areas but no conservation effort can succeed anywhere unless large carnivores and people can share space without major conflict in fringe forests, buffers and corridors. With forests shrinking and our population booming, the scenario does not look too good these days. There are so many reports of conflict because people are no longer ready to do their bit for a possible, largely event-free co-existence.

Yes, the odd accident will still happen but adequate precaution can bring down the count significantly. We do not cross highways blindfolded or let infants venture out on their own. We do not grudge these precautions because we benefit from the road and it is part of our life. Similarly, if and when we agree that conservation benefits us, we will have to accept the presence of carnivores as a way of life in fringe forests around our reserves where we have no choice but to share space.

This frame does not tell us that tigers are “friends of men”. No wild tiger ever made that claim. No, this frame does not tell us that only “private space” can secure the tiger. Conservation demands that tigers roam free and we may need to claim land from the seas to settle people if we want to make all the places tigers may roam “private”.

If tigers breed happily in inviolate forests, we will have to share space with some tigers around those forests where we are not encroachers or the tigers stray. This frame tells us that mutual respect (and precautions) can make that co-existence possible.