India Earns Its Spurs and Loses Its Stripes: The Plight of the Tiger

The year is 2020. India is close to fulfilling the promise of India Vision 2020, the brainchild of India's former president, A.P.J Abdul Kalam. It was an ambitious plan that started 15 years ago with the stated aim of transforming India into a "developed country".

Why the quotes? For starters, the phrase is so subjective that it is impossible to attach a satisfactory definition. But there is another reason that really puts the so-called development into perspective. India's rise into the ranks of industrialized nations has come at a terrible price: the loss of is natural habitat and ecosystems. While there have been many victims (both flora and fauna) of this rapid march towards development, no other story is more tragic than the near-extinction of the Panthera tigris bengalensis, or the Royal Bengal Tiger.

In 1972, the Government of India launched 'Project Tiger', a conservation project aimed at reviving the tiger habitat in India, home to more than half the world's tiger population to this day. While the idea was noble, the story of Project Tiger is an illustration of how bureaucracy stifles new initiatives. A 2004 census of the tiger population across the nation's 28 tiger reserves revealed some startling data. The tiger population had declined in most reserves, and in one case, the Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan, once the hunting ground of the Maharaja of Alwar, the population had been wiped out completely. The number of tigers in India has dwindled to 1,500 odd, down from even 3,000 at the turn of the century, a mere eight years ago.

A combination of poaching and village encroachment in so-called protected areas has had a deadly impact on the habitat of the Royal Bengal Tiger and other endangered species. One of the prime drivers of poaching has been the illegal tiger parts trade for use in traditional Chinese medicine. Caches of tiger skins, rhino horns, bear paws and elephant tusks are openly sold in parts of Asia and are transported across borders with impunity.

To its credit, the Indian Government has been taking steps to prevent poaching, but the efforts have largely been in vain. There is an urgent need to achieve the following:

1. Manage the demand of traditional Chinese medicines by either
a. Banning the tiger parts trade outright, or
b. Legalizing the trade and breed tigers in captivity for this purpose
2. Relocate settlements and villages that are currently situated in protected national wildlife reserves to other areas, and give villagers a sustainable form of living.
3. Cross-breed tigers and other animals in captivity (inbreeding causes problems) and release them into the wild in a scientific manner (environmentalists are divided on this method)
4. Create new habitats for the most endangered species to prevent eradication of the whole population due to localized natural and man-made calamities.

William Blake, the English poet wrote the poem 'Tiger' more than a century ago:

'Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?'

One can almost visualize the aura and glory of the tiger in Blake's immortal words.

Unless we conserve our natural habitat and protect its inhabitants, the development of India, and other developing countries will be incomplete. Indeed, we shall have regressed by losing our most precious treasure.