Hanging fire for decades the
Supreme Court resolved the issue the other day. The issue was about relocation
of a few Asiatic lions from their only home in the Gir National Park to the
already-prepared Kuno Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh (MP). It was
stonewalled by Gujarat for all these years claiming, as it did, the lions as
its own The Court ordered in favour of the proposal and went by the considerations
based on scientific reasoning that one couldn’t really put all one’s all eggs
in only one basket. The proposal had been mooted by the wildlife experts of central
and the two state governments concerned and the MP government had prepared the
Kuno Palpur sanctuary for reception of the Asiatic lions. Gujarat, however, had
a change of heart and started opposing the shift with all its might. The
Sanctuary patiently waited out the decades nursing its ecosystem in the hope
that better counsels would prevail someday.
That day has come now. But,
strangely, a matter that is purely administrative in character and should have
been decided within the governmental framework had to go all the way up to the
Supreme Court at great public expense for the reason of mulish defiance of all
scientific reasoning by the Gujarat administration.
Though the Court
gave a decision as logical as it should be, the reactions in Gujarat defy
logic. Its people are fuming. The decision sparked protests in Junagadh and a bandh (forced stoppage of all activity –
commercial or whatever) has been
called at Sasan, close to the Gir Park. One wouldn’t be surprised if some
activist adopts the Gandhian method of undertaking a fast unto death. Gir is
not far away from Porbandar, the birthplace of the Mahatma. The villagers
residing within the Park have been so well brainwashed that they are reported
to have said that they would part with their lions only over their dead bodies.
The sense of appropriation for themselves and for Gujarat of the rare,
critically endangered species appeared to be complete as, indeed, was their instigation
at the hands of the propagators of “Gujarat asmita”
(Gujarat’s Identity). True, survival and increasing numbers of the Asiatic
lions in Gir is a success story worthy of being proud of, yet, the lives of the
lions are held together by a slender thread, acutely vulnerable as they happen
to be to any mishap – an epidemic, for instance, the like of which had wiped
out about 90% of the Tanzanian lions during the last decade of 20th
Century.
Once spread over a wide area in
India and its neighbouring countries, trophy-hunting and poaching drastically
reduced the numbers of Asiatic lions. I recall having read somewhere that a
British officer had claimed to have shot as many as half a dozen lions in one
outing somewhere close to Hissar, back then in Punjab, in the 19th
Century. Much earlier, Mogul Emperor Akbar is reported to have hunted lions
near Rewa, now in Madhya Pradesh, hundreds of kilometres away from Gir. Lions
shared their extensive habitat in the plains of India with three other big cats
– the tiger, leopard and the cheetah – indicating its richness and ampleness of
the prey-base in the forests of the country. But over the centuries and decades
hunting and poaching took their toll, as also the rapid rise in population
necessitating clearing of vast tracts of forests appreciably reducing their once-thriving
habitat.
In the process while the cheetah
became extinct the three other big cats saw drastic reduction in their numbers.
By the last count tigers were around 1700 in number, surviving in a few pockets
across the country and are under severe threat of extinction because of
persistent poaching and indifferent management. Though the leopard seemed to
have somehow survived, its count, though hardly ever methodically taken, is
surely not more than in a few hundreds. Due to shrinkage of its habitat it
often comes in conflict with humans in almost all corners of the country and
reports of its being trapped or being mercilessly done to death by insensitive
villagers and urbanites frequently appear in the press. A project for
conservation of leopards on the lines of that of the tiger is indicated if the
species is to be saved and propagated in the wild.
The Asiatic lions are, however,
much worse off. Having lorded over better part of the sub-continent for
centuries human insensitivity drove them into a far western corner of India
where the late Nawab of Junagarh, having been instrumental in wiping off lots
of them and faced with their precariously low numbers in the early parts of the
20th Century, had the sudden realisation that the beasts needed to
be conserved. Howsoever rudimentary in nature the conservation effort was it,
at least, stopped the animals’ wanton killings. Post-independence conservation
efforts, mainly by creation of a sanctuary for the lions at Gir and later
converting it into National Park yielded better results. Today they are around
400-odd in number (by a Gujarat count). Packed within the limited confines of
the Park they are too many for it and are reported to be wandering out into
neighbouring areas of Amreli district. They have also been sighted in other small
settlements in Junagarh district outside the Park and even near Diu. The Park
is virtually bursting at its seams, so to say, crawling with Asiatic lions as
it would seem.
Having once belonged to the
entire country the lions could not be justifiably converted into Gujarati lions
with the state exercising exclusive rights over them. The animals surely have
found succour from the state government which has nursed and cared for them;
but the entire nation, and why, even the world has contributed towards their
protection and conservation through personnel, expertise and finances. Since
they happen to be located in India the country has the right over them as also
the duty to ensure that this endangered species endures and enriches the
country’s wildernesses with its presence. Appreciating its obligation in this
respect the Centre showed unusual alacrity in conducting a countrywide survey
to look for a suitable site for a second home for the lions and pitched on
Kuno-Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary in 1993-94. It also pumped in the required
finances to prepare the Sanctuary over the last two decades to enable it to
host the lions. That no mishap occurred during the intervening period has been
a matter of luck for Gujarat or else “Gujarat asmita” would have seen the end of this significant species. The
loss would have been not of Gujarat alone but of the entire world.
The orders of the apex court
place onerous responsibilities on the MP government, especially the Wildlife
Wing of its forest department. Its performance in recent times has not been
very encouraging and the same had been forcefully argued out at the apex court
by Gujarat lawyers against the proposed shifting of the lions to the state.
“Panna” still stalks them as also 12 tiger deaths in 10 months of 2012 and 3 in
2013. Poaching of tigers and their electrocution by farmers has gone on
unchecked. Reports have also consistently appeared about poaching and hunting
of game from the constituency of the state’s forest minister. While his tenure
has been crammed with controversies, the chief minister of the state has
displayed definite aversion towards wildlife when it comes to a crunch – a
crunch that has political overtones. The foresters, therefore, will have to
exert their utmost to ensure safety and wellbeing of the lions, as indeed of
other animals in the wild, as history does not quite foster faith in their
commitment to the wild.
Gujarat government, on the other
hand, is yet to come to terms with the judgement of the Supreme Court and is,
quite unwisely, mulling a review petition against the apex court’s orders. One
hopes better sense will eventually prevail and the judgement will be accepted, if
not for anything else, at least for the sake of the lions.
Photo of Asiatic lion: from the Internet
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