November 2,1998
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HUNTING Savage Harvest A new breed of city-slick, trigger-happy is ravaging the forests, killing wildlife at will, aided by an ineffective patrolling system. By Vijay Jung Thapa and Rohit Parihar This is the hour of pride and power, The old laws of hunting are dead and gone. As night spreads a malevolent silence in the forests of Rajaji National Park, Uttar Pradesh, a new kind of hunt is on. One that takes place in the dark, is surreptitious and clandestine -- giving no chance to the animal. An open camouflaged Gypsy, on four-wheel drive, powers along twisty jungle trails driving deeper into the bowels of the jungle. One of the hunters has night-vision glasses -- that help him pick out silent herds in a sea of darkness. Another wields a spotlight (powerful enough to blind a tiger) like a gun, switching it on occasionally, the sharp beam bouncing about in the foliage. Behind him stands a third man, face scrunched up in concentration, the barrel of his sports rifle intently following the spotlight's beam. Suddenly, the night-vision glasses pick up something. Everything happens all at once -- the brakes are slammed, the spotlight swivels and there in the beam cutting through the darkness are two pairs of luminous eyes. Two shots shatter the October night stillness and in a clearing lie two dead sambhars -- both female. The men backslap each other. "We've got enough meat to gorge on for a week," says one. "Yeah," drawls the man with the gun, "but that's not going to stop me from coming back tomorrow for more."
Poor Salman Khan. He was just the wrong man, wielding a gun, at the wrong place. The jungles today are teeming with a new breed of rich, influential hunters, men who casually take the lives of beautiful animals and think nothing of it. The list includes top industrialists, politicians, bureaucrats, foreign diplomats, senior defence officials, wealthy farmers and the odd bored Bollywood actor. Yes, it is against the law of the land, but for all of them the Wildlife (Protection) Act is merely an aberration. And because of their position in society, cases aren't registered and most forest officials look the other way. Many forest rest houses are booked for them where the staff bends over backwards to prepare their hunted meat. Tips are even shared: "Have you heard, the cook in Chilla makes great masala venison." It took a Salman Khan to bring the savage harvest of India's wildlife to light. States started banning hunting in the '80s, but wildlife experts point out, it's just as common today as it was in the '60s, when it was legal. This isn't simple poaching: of villagers using traps or muzzle loaders. This is a brash breed that uses latest gizmos like souped-up four-wheel-drive jeeps with special seats for shooting, racks to ferry dead animals, night-vision telescopes, Italian sports rifles costing over Rs 2 lakh, jamming devices that leave forest guards incommunicado and cell phones that warn of approaching authorities. In areas around large national parks there are even hints of a fledgling tourism industry that revolves around game hunting -- all very hush hush. Around Corbett National Park in Uttar Pradesh, for instance, a well-known hotel is said to organise deer shoots. In Rajasthan, after the Salman Khan case, Chief Minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat hinted that local guides organise hunting safaris. In Delhi, an embassy circuit of ambassadors and counsellors are regularly taken out by the city's elite for hunting expeditions. Most hunts take place in areas adjoining protected forests where the wildlife spills over, but the more brazen even venture into protected parks. As Union Minister for Environment and Forests Suresh Prabhu admits: "Yes, we know that a lot of hunting, most of it in unprotected areas, is still going on."
One reason why the old shikari is going the way of the dodo is the Wildlife Act. An entire way of life was suddenly banned. Some of the old shikaris continued to hunt but fines and threat of imprisonment meant they couldn't do it with the same flamboyance -- it was illegal so it had to be covert. So, many of these gentlemen shikaris hung up their rifles. Their place has been taken by today's trigger-happy city-slickers for whom the code of hunting seems as puzzling as particle physics. Says Ashok Kumar, a former hunter who runs the Wildlife Protection Society of India: "These guys just enter the forest and shoot as they please." He recalls a particular incident where one such neo-hunter couldn't fathom the old shikari maxim: "Sun down means gun down." Bewildered, he told Kumar: "Arre bhai, I do not understand this. Shikar has to be done at night."
This new breed of hunters has power and enjoys misusing it. In Punjab, the Wildlife Department identifies police officials and bureaucrats as the new shikaris. Says Gurmeet Singh, chief wildlife warden of the state: "They (the VIP hunters) don't consider it an offence." Nobody in the staff dare try to arrest them. A few who did attempt recently were instead implicated by the police in a dacoity case. In Uttar Pradesh, Wildlife Department officials are alarmed at how farmhouses and "specialty hotels" have sprung up around the Corbett National Park. Says R.L. Singh, chief wildlife conservator of Uttar Pradesh: "We are helpless since there is no law to restrict sale of land around the park." What is worse is that some hotels conduct night safaris, which forest officials contend are often merely a disguise for hunting expeditions. Corbett, despite being considered one of the best guarded parks in the country, has had its share of violations. A few years ago, members of the Thapar family, a well-known industrialist group, were caught red-handed when they landed a helicopter in the sanctuary. Before this, a team of IAS and IPS officers had been nabbed for hunting cheetal inside the park. They would have got away but for the fact that a Union minister was present in the park at that time. He mounted enough pressure and the officials were booked. But as usual the case lies pending somewhere in the labyrinth of the judicial system. In Bengal, wildlife officials tell horrifying tales of how hunters with the right connections managed to wangle permits to shoot rogue elephants. Being bad shots, most of them ended up shooting and wounding the wrong elephants. |
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The reasons for this are simple: for one, hunting has changed hands. The age
of the old-world shikari is gone. "Gentlemen hunters", as they preferred to be
called, came from elite families. They were like an old boys' club, a sporting tribe that
followed a strict set of hunting rules. They shot only what their hunting licence
specified. They never shot female animals or their young ones. For these men, hunting had
an ethic. Placing bait in the forest and sitting on a machan (perch) was dishonourable.
Stalking an animal on foot, outwitting it on its territory and then killing it fetched far
more glory. Says Vijay Soni, a former hunter who now preaches conservation: "It was
the thrill, the sport, the fact that you were outdoors that made one hunt. We were totally
different from these punks of today." 
