TRACKING INDIA'S HONORARY TIGER

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http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mag/2005/02/20/stories/2005022000130500.htm

Honorary Tiger

The Life of Billy Arjan Singh

Duff Hart-Davis

An affectionate biography of India's renowned 'tiger-man'

 

Having devoted fifty years of his life to animal conservation and now popularly

known as India's latter-day Jim Corbett and 'tiger-man', eighty-seven-year-old

Billy Arjan Singh is by any standards an extraordinary man.

 

Hart-Davies' biography traces Billy's path to conservation from his game

shooting as a boy on the family estate, to his life as a farmer in North Kheri,

where he witnessed first-hand the devastation of wildlife at the hands of

humans.

 

Billy's building of Tiger Haven - a magical spot at the edge of the jungle - saw

his energetic launch into the area of conservation. As a freelance wildlife

warden, he played a major role in the creation of the Dudhwa National Park in

1973, authorised by India's prime minister of the day, Indira Gandhi. In 1976 he

was awarded the WWF gold medal for his work in saving an important herd of swamp

deer.

 

Billy Arjan Singh recently became the second Indian to receive the J. Paul Getty

Wildlife Conservation award (2004), which serves to recognise outstanding

contributions in International Conservation. The first one was ornithologist,

Salim Ali.

 

 

About Duff Hart-Davis

 

Duff Hart-Davis is the author of many books of fiction and non-fiction, the most

recent including Fauna Britannica: The Practical Guide to Wild and Domestic

Creatures of Britain, and Audubon's Elephant. He lives in Gloucestershire.

 

Other titles by Duff Hart-Davis

 

 

Tracking down Billy Arjan Singh

 

S. SUBRAMANIUM

RECLUSIVE conservationist Billy Arjan Singh may be a difficult man to track, but

his long time friend and associate, U.K.-based journalist, DUFF HART-DAVIS,

seems to have managed to pin the elusive man down. Hart-Davis, himself a lover

of animals, said about the J. Paul Getty Wildlife Award that Singh has just got,

" this is something that should have come his way long time back. " Hart-Davies,

who has known Arjan Singh for the last 30 years, has written a biography

Honorary Tiger that takes a honest, but affectionate, look at Singh and his

contribution to wildlife. Hart-Davies wryly acknowledges that his friend

" remains a loner " but hopes the book will show off his many facets.

 

 

SUCHITRA BEHAL

Billy Arjan Singh

Dudhwa's Tiger man

 

Born in Gorakhpur on August 15, 1917, the feisty 'Billy' Arjan Singh is a man

ahead of his time. His ancestors found favour in the court of Queen Victoria and

he is a living legend today; considered by some to be the very soul of the

Indian tiger. Unpopular for having helped put 26 shikar companies out of

business 40 years ago, his life has been mired in controversy ever since he

reintroduced Tara, a hybrid, zoo-born tigress into the wilds of Dudhwa.

 

 

 

 

Body-builder, reformed hunter, foster-father to an infamous tiger, or a thorn in

the side of the Uttar Pradesh Forest Department… how would you like to be

remembered?

I want simply to be remembered as Arjan Singh, a man who loved tigers and fought

to keep them alive and safe from humans.

 

But I recall with great pleasure my days of weightlifting and body-building,

when I was able to meet the American and Russian Olympic weightlifting teams and

managed to lift 220 pounds in the Clean and Press; close to a record for my

weight!

 

You once threatened to wrestle Dr. Sálim Ali during an Indian Board for Wildlife

meeting years ago, if my sources are right?

He was such a delightful man, with a great sense of fun. When he and I stood

next to each other, we looked quite a sight. Someone at the IBWL meeting had

commented on his frail body and how it contrasted with my pumped-up muscles, so

I caught Sálim by the neck in a mock grip and he asked if I would care to fight.

Everyone had a good laugh, including Sálim.

 

Like Sálim Ali you were also once a shikari.

No. I can't lay claim to be a shikari. At least they had some rules. I was a

bloodthirsty, murderous urchin who shot anything that moved. Even as I grew

older I continued to shoot owlets and hyaenas and leopards and tigers. I am

condemned to live with my deepest regrets for being part of the slaughter that

maligned the evolutionary processes that created such magnificent creatures. I

finally stopped shooting in 1960 when I was overcome with remorse for ending the

life of a beautiful leopard in the headlights of my jeep. I had no right

whatsoever to destroy what I could not create.

 

But you did eventually work to have sport hunting banned in India?

Yes. I realised when the tiger was slipping away from us that sport hunting was

a sinful, hypocritical act opposed to all civilised human thought. No one has

the right to be entertained by murder. Sadly the virus of sport killing runs

deep in the human psyche and wild predators like wolves, tigers, leopards and

sharks continue to pay the price for human blood lust that condones killing with

the use of telescopic sights, automatic weapons and even helicopters. Yes, I

took on the outfitters of the day. They tried every dirty trick in the book to

coerce the Indian government to let them carry on their bloody business when

tiger shikar was banned in 1969-70. They spoke sanctimoniously then about

conservation, but took extra money for guaranteed kills. I recall that Allwyn

Cooper actually set up a dead leopard for the famous African hunter Robert Ruark

to shoot when they could not deliver a live animal in his line of fire! They

were an unscrupulous lot and India is well rid of them.

 

Let's talk about Dudhwa. How did this forest become so entwined with your life?

Well, I had taken to farming in the area soon after Independence when I left the

army. The thunder of barasingha hooves was commonplace. I had to struggle to

establish my farm over the years, but despite the trials and tribulations I came

to love it all the more for its proximity to the wilderness. Once, with my

brother Balram and a friend called John Withnell, we shot two barasingha at

Bhadi Tal, only to discover that they were a protected species. We promptly

reported ourselves to the Divisional Forest Officer, who let us off,

complimenting us for our honesty in confessing our mistake. I was a pioneer

settler, but as the years passed, farmers began to migrate in large numbers from

Pakistan. When a large company called The Collective Farms and Forests Ltd.

cleared 10,000 acres, I could see the writing on the wall and began to seek a

halt to the destruction.

 

When did Tiger Haven come into your life?

That was in the height of summer in May 1959. I had gone out into the forest on

Bhagwan Piari, the elephant with whom I spent 25 wonderful years. I could see

the Himalayan ranges across the Dudhwa grasslands. At the confluence of the

Soheli and Neora rivers I discovered a patch of land that was owned by a

politician who had lost all interest in it. I bought it and turned it into a

functioning farm, which was inundated several times a year when the rivers were

in spate, but which profited greatly from the fertile silt that was left behind.

Here we protected wildlife, even as we managed to share a functioning farm.

 

Shooting was still the rage, though you had stopped by then.

True, but along with several friends we used to reserve the shooting blocks

adjacent to Tiger Haven to stop others from using them. Sometimes I used to

fudge applications in five or six different names! One way or another we managed

to provide a safe haven for wildlife. I was repaying old debts. Some old

shikaris used to come and drink with me around my campfire and their loosened

tongues would provide me with information that I would unhesitatingly use

against them!

 

Was this why you were appointed to the U.P. State Wildlife Board?

Yes, that was in 1964, the same year the U.P. State Wildlife Board itself was

established. I remember George Schaller had come to visit me at Tiger Haven and

together we conducted a survey in the adjoining Ghola forest, only to discover

that the presumed 1,500 barasingha had dropped to 600. I then submitted a

proposal to protect the endangered barasingha and after some vacillation, Dudhwa

became a sanctuary that shared a border with Nepal. And best of all, Tiger Haven

was right in the middle of it.

 

I created grasslands, salt licks and water sources to attract barasingha, which

I also helped drive with help from Bhagwan Piari, beaters and crackers all the

way from Ghola. Had we not done this, they would have succumbed to guns and land

grabbers operating under the protection of Naxalites. Tiger Haven's protection

plan had worked. I could ask for nothing better.

 

And what did your neighbouring farmers have to say about all this?

They were upset, as was the hunting lobby. But that was their problem. The tiger

and the deer on which they depended were safe. Nothing else mattered. Years

later, in 1972, I also managed to get the Kishanpur Sanctuary declared. By then

the Wildlife (Protection) Act had also been declared, Project Tiger was on the

anvil and, thanks to the late Mrs. Indira Gandhi, the tide had begun to turn in

favour of India's wildlife.

 

In India wildlife is the responsibility of the forest department, yet your own

relationship with them has always been rocky. Why?

They could not tolerate my calling a spade a spade. I was always against their

commercial timber operations. I also recall when the tigers of Dudhwa were in

their deepest crisis that the forest department lied to the world, stating that

there were 104 tigers in the park. I knew that there were no more than 20! And

when tiger carcasses were turning up in wells and canals, it was somehow

suggested that overcrowding was driving them to suicide! The forest department

doesn't care about tigers. They are only concerned with absolving themselves on

file of any and all blame for the tiger's desperate plight.

 

But surely you cannot hold them solely responsible for the tiger's decline?

I suppose not solely responsible. But their spine was certainly conspicuous by

its absence when, for instance, they conspired to allow the Irrigation

Department to construct a barrage along the Soheli river, which formed the

boundary of Dudhwa, which had by then been declared a national park. I had

pointed out that the barasingha for whom the area was protected would be badly

affected. Not one person in the forest department supported my plea for

protection and the barrage, illegal as it was, was built. Later they compounded

the damage by constructing safety walls. In the Madrahia-Sathiana area, the

barasingha numbers dropped from 1,200-1,600 to just about 150. It was a

catastrophe. Of course I hold the forest department responsible.

 

What is the problem, the root problem for tigers?

Habitat fragmentation. This is what induced a division of one species into eight

subspecies. In conjunction with poaching, habitat loss has devastated the tigers

and has led to three subspecies vanishing altogether. Then, of course, is the

problem of people competing with the tiger for survival. As the master race, we

have to resolve this conflict or Armageddon will overtake our overpopulated and

plundered universe. We are losing our forests and the symbolic presence of the

animals it shelters before our eyes.

 

And you feel not enough is being done to counter this decline...?

Look, even the figures presented by the forest departments of the total number

of tigers alive in India are suspect. The estimation is carried out by untrained

personnel, haphazardly selected from subordinate staff who must perform a host

of other forestry operations. Wildlife staff are transferable to five different

disciplines and two-thirds of all tigers do not even have this minimal

protection. Certainly not enough is being done to save them.

 

What would you have the government do?

Stop the fragmentation of tiger habitats immediately. Have uniform control over

tiger habitats, rather than the differentiated administrative control that is

the rule today. The forest department is trained in commercial forestry, but

saving tigers is a totally different discipline for when a tree is destroyed,

habitat is lost. " A clean forest floor " is the dream of a forester, but it is

the nightmare of a wildlifer. The same department cannot and should not run the

operations for they are antagonistic. Our government's budgetary allocations are

not only minimal but dishonestly structured. Despite our reverence for Ganesha

and Durga, political and administrative will to conserve wildlife is

infinitesimal. That is what I would have the government change.

 

And what about Tara? You would agree that she has been the root of most of your

antagonism with officialdom?

I suppose so. The project that allowed me to reintroduce Tara, the tigress into

Dudhwa was approved by no less than Mrs. Indira Gandhi. Tara conceived a total

of nine off- spring over a period of 15 years and I believe that they have

reinvigorated the Dudhwa tiger population. European scientists however claimed

that Tara was an Indo-Siberian hybrid and suggested physical elimination on the

grounds of genetic pollution. The attitude to wildlife protection by officialdom

is not only uncaring, but demeaning.

 

But almost every expert would advice against the " genetic pollution " of wild

tigers.

Research suggests that subspecific integration may not be injurious.

Hybridisation is revitalising. And the tigers of Dudhwa continue to breed well.

Project Tiger refuses to accept that genetic depression is the final arbiter of

survival. I find this obsession with purity strange. When the main religion of

the country forbids intergenetic alliances for purposes of lineal purity we

connive at continuous incestuous breeding of tigers in facilities like

Nandankanan. India must accept heterozygosity for tigers or we cannot save the

species. Let's just say that my differences with the forest department are

irreconcilable.

 

But even your worst critics respect you and no one questions your purity of

purpose in wanting the tiger saved. As a WWF gold medal winner, member of IUCN's

Cat Specialist Group, Honorary Wildlife Warden and recipient of the Padmashree,

surely you can mend your fences with people who share common objectives?

I am too old now to change my spots. I do not trust them and they do not trust

me. I have never claimed to be infallible, but I know what tigers need to

survive and in

India today the right to survival is being denied to them. I believe that the

future of the great cats lies in the creation of maximised reservations.

 

But translocation of a large predator in a thickly populated country does seem

unrealistic and your own experiments with leopards have proven fatal for some

unfortunate victims.

People who live near wild animals risk death. Many people die at the hands of

" untranslocated " great cats each year. Translocation is going to be an

inevitable strategy. When I pass to another world, you must remind people of

this conviction of mine. It was right for rhinos in Dudhwa and it is right for

tigers too.

 

And how do you suggest this objective be accomplished?

The most workable solution is to translocate animals from other (overcrowded)

areas. We could artificially inseminate a receptive wild tigress. Or we could

reintroduce a captive born cub as I did.

 

Has your life been a success or a failure?

Life is a continuum. Success or failure can only be judged in millennia. Tara's

bones lie in some deep ravine somewhere in Dudhwa. Her cubs are alive and well.

That gives me a sense of fulfillment. But Dudhwa is an island and desperately

needs to be connected to nearby forests. The many poachers, the timber mafia and

the ham-handed officials that operate unfettered, mock the very thought of

" success " .

 

And your last word about the tiger?

The air we breathe and the water we drink stem from the biodiversity of the

universal environment and its economics. The tiger is at the centre of this

truth. If it goes, we go.