by Aline Dobbie
It looked as if the whole of India had decided to travel but, no, this was just a normal morning for Indian Railways, though possibly there might have been a few travellers returning home after spending a family Diwali with relatives in Delhi. I looked around at the station which was shabby and dirty by our western standards, but the sweepers were working, and attempts had been made to encourage people to dispose of their litter in bins. The sheer size of the numbers that use the building and facilities, plus the normal heat and dust must make it a Herculean task to keep clean. I think a bit of good firm management would really help, along with good cleaning materials. As I was to see over and over again, the Indian idea of cleaning seems to have been subsumed by inertia. Merely rubbing a grubby damp cloth around a basin in the toilet compartment will not achieve a thing; whatever happened to the manufacture of Vim that old standby of my childhood, and perhaps a complete re-education in the utilisation thereof!
Naveen and the porter stood with us on the open platform awaiting the train. On the overhead electric cables Graham and I saw a number of large kingfishers. It was a delight, there in a sea of humanity to see such lovely birds quite calmly sunning their wings. It seemed to us a good omen for our forthcoming search for the tiger and other wonderful creatures of the Indian jungle. The train arrived on time and Naveen wished us well. We would not be seeing him again as he would be on his honeymoon. Sensible young man, he and his bride had chosen Corbett National Park for their honeymoon; that too was to be one of our destinations.
As we settled into our first class compartment the huge long train known as The Golden Temple Mail started slowly gliding by the famous sights of Delhi. I like to just sit and watch the daily life of the people all being played out in front of famous buildings like Humayan’s Tomb and other historic relics of the past. The morning mist was lifting and these great buildings looked ghostly whereas near the track the bright sunshine was adding to the vitality of morning bustle. The compartment was comfortable, with air conditioning and reserved for just us. The attendant had brought clean white sheets with which I promptly made up the berths and thus we were able to relax and watch the countryside fly by now that the train was picking up speed. The attendant comes by regularly and asks if one wants breakfast, lunch or whatever. He also has bottles of mineral water for sale and there are metal containers in which to place these for safety. It was calming and fun. We had never stopped since our arrival in Delhi and here was an interlude in which to recharge the batteries.
In 2001, we had visited the York Railway Museum and so enjoyed it. One does not need to be a railway ‘anorak’ to enjoy that wonderful collection of engines, trains and railway memorabilia, but for us it was excellent fun. Now this journey reminded me of some of the trains I had looked at there. This was the modern way, but those in the museum showed what style the people in the fairly recent past had brought to a gentler age. I had taken some photographs of the various royal carriages and thought that really they were just a plusher version of the original Indian railway carriages in which I had travelled as a child. One’s own w.c. compartment complete with sink was such a boon. Queen Victoria was not the only person to have had that privilege, all first class carriages until the 1970s were like that on Indian Railways. Now, however, one had to walk down to a public loo facility, which would have been fine had it been really clean. However, this is a whine that is being sung in our country too so I try not to be judgemental, but in India where there are so many wanting a simple job, however humble or repetitive, I cannot see how these little efficiencies are so difficult to achieve. Constantly one is told that Indian Railways is the world’s largest employer after all!
The countryside looked neat and prosperous with village life going on its daily grind. It is one of the heartening things about travelling in India that once one leaves the big conurbations the countryside looks well ordered and beautiful and in this case there were granaries of cereals all full and fresh from the harvest. On this particular journey there are no great rivers to cross but the land is very attractive with ancient buildings and structures providing interest along with the herdsman and villagers to whom we would wave.
Bharatpur Junction is a clean and attractive station and one soon sees the reason for this. The famous Palace on Wheels train uses Bharatpur as its home. The beautiful train was sitting at a platform smartly painted and maintained in its cream and scarlet livery with intricate painted designs. The carriages are called Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kishangarh, Dungapur, Dholpur, Bundi, etc., named after the various royal fiefdoms that made up Rajputana as it was known, now more famously as Rajasthan. That is definitely a journey I would love to make, travel in style like days of old but with the added convenience of modern innovations.
We arrived at Sawai Madhopur station to be greeted by a car and travel representative. I wanted to visit various hotels and see them for myself. Both the Taj Group and Oberoi Group have very good hotels, the Oberoi hotel is luxurious, but there is a wide choice of standard hotels as well. Having been Diwali, the various places were almost fully booked and each of them has their strengths. However, knowing that Ranthambhore had been experiencing a severe drought for almost three years, I in no way wanted to contribute to that worrying state of affairs. Some five star properties give the impression that nothing is wrong, let’s splash around in pools and jacuzzis having a luxurious hedonistic time – tigers, animals, drought, parched earth, weary villagers, what are these minor distractions! To visit a natural park and, if lucky, see some of the world’s most beautiful animals, that because of the severity of the current climatic conditions are losing their natural habitat and being threatened by human population and then wallow in wall to wall luxury, either in buildings or tents, seemed obscene. We were booked to stay at a resort called Tiger Moon which is situated on the perimeter of the park in a very good setting. Graham and I liked it and found it very similar to those in which we had lived in Africa in the 1970s, again before game viewing became another luxury appointed competitive exercise. Tiger Moon has a rustic appearance with stone cottages, each with a roofed veranda, bedroom with sitting area and adequate shower, basin and w.c. en-suite. There are 32 cottages, a dining hall, which is open like a huge veranda, a bar, conference area and a swimming pool. The latter was empty because of the drought, which was entirely understandable.
Writing as I am now months later, I can thankfully report that Ranthambhore received a good rainfall this monsoon season of 2003, as did the whole of India. This has been a godsend for people and wildlife. I naturally care about both but am only too aware how crucial it was for the survival of the wildlife. In times of drought, the various prey species have a dreadful time. Predators like tiger, leopard and crocodile know that they have to come to the depleted water holes to drink and, being totally desperate and thus not as watchful as they might be, they are easy prey. Tigers and crocodiles have eyeballed each other, and I have seen a film of a tiger actually killing a crocodile. It is so difficult for females to raise cubs in these challenging conditions and they, after all, are the future for the species and the reserve.
Having quickly settled in to our room, we wanted to be out and about as quickly as possible. By now, it was late afternoon, the temperature was lovely and the surroundings looked wonderful in the mellow sunshine. Rakesh the naturalist took us on a walk through the back gate into the buffer zone of the park. This was very enjoyable as otherwise of course everything is done by jeep or canter, a sort of huge open jeep which has seating for quite a large number of people. Almost immediately we saw a small hawk which caught a chipmunk or tree rat. Then we spied a tree pie, a hare, mongoose, parakeets, avocets, ducks, a pipit owl, monkeys, a jungle babbler, and that was before we had walked 200 yards. We climbed on to a mound and looked at the small Jain temple with the setting sun behind it changing colour from gold to orange as it slowly went down behind the western horizon. It was a peaceful silent scene then gently interrupted by the tinkling of the goat bells from behind us. I turned round
and there was the goatherd with his flock of goats with long floppy ears, dappled black and white coats and still bearing the decorations for Diwali. The local villagers were enacting a cow puja and celebrating with their buffaloes which also had painted horns. This being the buffer zone these people and their animals are entitled to be on the land, and we watched as the buffaloes made their way to the depleted water hole to wallow in contentment at the end of the day.
Ranthambhore is a beautiful park, and that was seeing it in appallingly dry conditions as a result of three years of failed monsoon. I have watched documentaries on the tiger filmed at Ranthambhore for the last twenty years and I knew it would be beautiful, but, sadly for us, the water holes and lakes were almost non existent and had a look of parched cracked earth. In the three and a half days we were there, one was almost continually covered in red dust. Driving in jeeps or canters the dust just blew up and over us and one could taste it on the tongue. Well, that was fine for us because we had had a good breakfast and could look forward to as much fluid as we could take at the end of a couple of hours, but consider the plight of all the animals who had to make do and go without. I look forward to visiting the park again in greener times because I am confident its haunting ancient beauty will be enhanced by water and lush vegetation and watching animals in their obvious contentment. The one advantage of the very dry period was being able to see quite clearly in the inches deep dust on the roads the startling fresh pug marks of tiger and other animals – this gave an element of drama to game viewing.
We visited Ranthambhore at the beginning of November 2002, but in September of the same year it had reached crisis point when over 400 villagers invaded Ranthambhore and brought in 4,000 head of cattle. They threatened to kill the tigers and destroy the park because their own cattle had no fodder or water outside of the park. A cry went up nationally and internationally from such distinguished people as Fateh Singh Rathore (the founder of the park and a committed conservationist) to people the world over to bring pressure on the local authorities and politicians. It is alleged that the local husband and wife political team connected to the Congress Party had urged the villagers to act in this manner. They stood to gain politically from this irresponsible and lawless behaviour because elections would be coming and they thought they would be seen in the light of benefactors to the ‘untrained’ minds of the local population. Many of the park invaders were armed and also threatened to use pesticides and indeed it is known that one tigress and two of her cubs were poisoned. Matters took an even greater turn for the worse and within two days 5,000 villagers and 15,000 head of cattle had moved in. The Field Director Mr G V Reddy was threatened and attacked. Mr Reddy is a good man, who was doing a good job and who was kind enough to allow me an interview in November 2002. He has since left the park and that is Ranthambhore’s great loss. At that point, however, an amazing network came to life. Crossing all political parties, people including some of the most empowered businessmen in India, began to telephone the Prime Minister’s Office and that of Sonia Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition, to whose Congress Party the Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Mr Ashok Gehlor, belonged. Press, television and inspection teams including Dr Rajesh Gopal, Director of Project Tiger, all rushed to Ranthambhore. In the meantime, the Supreme Court sent contempt notices to the Chief Secretary of Rajasthan. The combined pressure proved to be too much for a system normally geared to do politicians’ bidding. By September 20th, an armed force of over 200 policemen and forest staff evicted the people. The only Rajasthan politician who condemned the wicked expedient behaviour of the other politicians was Mrs Bina Kak, the Minister for Forests in Rajasthan.
Perhaps, in the last half century, the human race has in some instances mutated into a sub-species that should be called Homo Politicus. The world over it would seem politicians are reviled. In the UK, most young people now no longer want to aspire to be in parliament. In France, there is a similar feeling I discovered, and Italy is well known for its political problems. In India too, most of one’s friends speak disparagingly about huge corruption, but outsiders have no solutions; these are Indian problems for India to solve. I know how depressed I was by the sorry tales I heard and I feel a sense of shame that this great land is letting itself down. Throughout the world at the moment, Indians are proving themselves to be so talented and capable, why do they not use their collective abilities to ensure that India takes its place as a country of efficiency with its democratic government taking responsibility for protection of the environment, wildlife and eco-tourism instead of allowing inertia and corruption to rule?
Expediency is the only word for this sorry tale. It was always going to happen. Year after year, humans abused their own lands, overgrazed it, cut down every last tree and then they wondered why they had so little water, fodder and fuel. What was worse, the powers that be had turned a blind eye when common grazing grounds were converted to industrial, urban or farm use. Ranthambhore Park, however, had been protected zealously and run well and nature had responded by providing grass, trees, water and food for wildlife. Not surprisingly tigers, leopards, deer, wild boar, bear and a huge number of bird species had thrived.
The tiger’s real threat in the words of the conservation zoologist Ullas Karanth is lack of prey, more than poaching. He believes that cattle eating into the pastures of prey species such as deer, wild boar and gaur (the big bison) starves and kills these animals, which in turn starves the tiger. The root of the problem is habitat destruction and conversion of forest land to other uses and overgrazing. This can be summed up in two words: Population Pressure.
Project Tiger was founded in 1973 when wise men such as the late Guy Mountfort and others like Billy Arjan Singh and Fateh Singh Rathore realised that tigers in the sub continent were on the brink of extinction through hunting, poaching and population pressure. This was brought to the attention of Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, who realised the enormity of the threat with about 1,800 tigers left throughout the country. Project Tiger was a central government project to focus on the crisis of the tiger and to provide additional money to various state governments to ensure special protection for the tiger and their varied habitats. In 1973, thirty years ago Project Tiger selected nine areas, which were both national parks and sanctuaries. In most cases, a Project Tiger Reserve is made up of a core central area which is a National Park that is surrounded by or adjacent to other areas that act like a buffer zone and can be Sanctuaries. Now Project Tiger receives 16 crore rupees (approximately 4 million dollars) for disbursal to state governments for use in 27 tiger reserves. The state governments probably spend an equal amount in the administration of these reserves.
When the villagers of Ranthambhore were moved out of the park in the 1970s, altogether 1,000 families involving between 6,000 and 7,000 people were relocated. Fateh Singh, who was then the park director, was brutally beaten and threatened. The solution found eventually was to tell the villagers that Vaghdeo, the Tiger God whom they worshipped as lord of the forest, would die unless they moved. It was an effective way of explaining to simple but devout people the reason for their imposed sacrifice, and it worked.
Some of the important national parks and sanctuaries in India are: Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Ranthambhore, Corbett, Panna, Pench, Gir, Bharatpur, Sariska, Dudhwa, Nagarahole, Bandipur, Periyar, Kaziranga, Sunderbans and a few which are not so well known. On this trip, we were visiting Ranthambhore, Bandhavgarh, Kanha and Corbett. I have visited Bharatpur, Panna, and Bandipur previously. I am also going to include a brief description of Gir, the home of the Asiatic Lion and Nagarahole, home to wild elephants. Billy Arjan Singh and the late Guy Mountfort co-operated on a couple of books
“The tiger is the symbol of power, unbridled, elemental ... and he lives alone, unblemished, unmarred. The more you know about him, the more he gets into your imagination.”
Billy Arjan Singh
in 1972 to 1975 called ‘On the Brink’ and ‘Back from the Brink’. These two books, which I read whils
t living in South Africa inspired me and built on the knowledge of tigers that I had assimilated from infancy from my parents who thought them the king of beasts. In my extreme infancy, the late great Jim Corbett had still been living in North India and was a friend of my parents. Later in this book, I will describe the experience of visiting his little house, which is now a museum near Corbett National Park, which was named after him. So, tigers were in the blood as it were and now I was determined to do what little I could to help spread the word about this wonderful beast of myth and magic and true beauty, to try and help conserve them and their habitat for their future generations and those of mankind.
“A tiger is a large-hearted gentleman with boundless courage, and when he is exterminated – as exterminated he will be unless public opinion rallies to his support – India will be the poorer for having lost the finest of her Fauna.”
Jim Corbett
The park covers more than 500 square miles or 1334 sq. km with a core area of 300 sq. km. The Aravalli Hills meet the Vindhya Hills in the park. There are 300 km of road networks. The normal annual rainfall is 800 mm but this is a dry deciduous and dry thorn forest. The population of Sawai Madhopur, the local town is over 77,690 according to a census of 12 years ago. Ranthambhore was once the shooting estate of the Maharajahs of Jaipur, and the Queen and Prince Philip went there during their official visit to India in 1961. I remember the press accounts of that visit because I was at boarding school and, in those days of loyal interest in the young Queen and her tours, we followed everything avidly. I was asked to create a little exhibition of her first huge trip to India and Pakistan. Even then I disapproved of Prince Philip shooting a tiger. It seemed to fly in the face of what the world was waking up to, that, without careful conservation, the planet’s animals would face extinction through human exploitation, population pressure and obscenities like shooting for trophies. The royal couple would have done so much for the whole wildlife cause if they had declined the invitation to shoot but had enthusiastically taken up an opportunity for wildlife photography. However, thankfully, tiger shooting was banned in 1970 and Ranthambhore became a wildlife park. Along with its lakes and forests and wide open spaces, it has the added intriguing romantic beauty and interest of a great 17th century ruined Rajput fort crowning the great escarpment. This always gives photography in Ranthambhore an exotic allure and a sense of ancient peoples and their histories and dynasties that have come and gone but still the king of beasts thankfully reigns. For me, as a first time visitor, it seemed to be a perfect fusion of human civilisation with the still obvious feats of early engineering and building combining to create a backdrop for the current players: the tiger and all the other animals and beautiful birds that co-exist.