Poachers gun down Odisha tiger reserve patrol member: Why guns alone can’t protect forest guards in India

This relentless onslaught is not surprising given that the forest staff’s job is to protect scarce and lucrative resources — endangered animals, trees, sand and boulders, minerals, and forest land.

Fighting fire with fire

It’s not that forest guards are never armed. Depending on the state, they may be issued weapons from basic .303s to INSAS rifles and SLRs, a range that includes 12-bore shotguns, 0.32- and 0.22-calibre revolvers, etc.

Ironically, uncertain law and order situations often prevent forest guards from carrying these weapons, particularly in insurgency-hit areas. This was why the forest staff in Simlipal, part of the red corridor from Chhattisgarh’s Indravati to Bihar’s Valmiki tiger reserves, stopped carrying guns.

Weapons can be a liability even in the absence of insurgents. In 1994, Rajasthan issued weapons to forest staff with the instruction that if they were carried to forests, there must be at least two persons with firearms lest they were snatched.

Also, forest officials have no power to proactively use their weapons. Like other citizens, they can exercise their right of private defence under Sections 96 to 106 of the Indian Penal Code.

“The main objective of arming the officials is self-defence” and to “provide psychological deterrent” to poachers and other offenders, the 1994 Rajasthan order said. In an inquiry, the onus would be on the forest official to justify the use of firearms, it said.

An early user of one of these guns, forest guard Badan Singh who came under attack for compounding livestock at Ranthambhore’s Bhodal forest post, retired a bitter man with a case still pending against him.

In July 2010, Assam became the first state to make the provisions of Section 197(2) CrPC applicable to all forest officers, giving them protection from arrest and criminal proceedings until and unless a magisterial probe had established that the use of firearms was “unnecessary, unwarranted and excessive”, and the conclusion had been “examined and accepted” by the state.

In 2012, after a spate of tiger poaching cases, Maharashtra issue a similar order.

The Kaziranga experiment

In April 2017, India banned the BBC from all national parks and sanctuaries for five years for “grossly erroneous” reporting in a documentary that explored what the broadcaster called the “dark secrets” of Kaziranga, examining its “ruthless anti-poaching strategy”, where forest guards have powers “to shoot and kill”.

While the government denied the allegations, a 400-page submission in 2014 by then director of Kaziranga M K Yadava to Guwahati High Court in a PIL summed up the core strategy: “It matters who shoots first and who has the better firepower.”

While the allegations of human rights violations piled up, the rhinos of Kaziranga were not immediately safer. Between 2000 and 2010, 17 poachers were shot dead inside Kaziranga, while 68 rhinos were killed. Since the notification, between 2011 and 2016, the number of poachers killed jumped to 59 and the number of rhinos poached to 103.

Kaziranga has lost only 20 rhinos to poaching since 2017, thanks largely to diminishing political patronage to wildlife traders.

Bad optics and big risks

The Kaziranga strategy has not been applied elsewhere in the country — for good reasons. To the forest-living communities, frontline forest staff are the most visible arm of the state that guards the resources their livelihood depends on. Not surprisingly, the relationship is usually hostile.

In such a scenario, the risk of misusing firearms or being framed for merely possessing one is high. In August 2022, the divisional forest officer of Madhya Pradesh’s Vidisha district was transferred over the death of a tribal in firing by a team of foresters who were booked for murder.

In July 2019, the Supreme Court stayed proceedings initiated under the SC/ST Act against a woman forest officer in Telangana who was injured by a mob while on duty. The top court intervened again after the deputy conservator of forests of Rajasthan’s Mount Abu was brutally assaulted and also booked under the SC/ST Act in May 2020.

Needed: return to basics

This March, a forester lost his life and a guard suffered injuries in Assam’s Morigaon — but not because they did not have guns. A wild elephant came upon them, but neither of them knew how to fire their weapons.

According to the International Ranger Federation, 31 forest field staff lost their lives on duty in India in 2021. Only eight were cases of homicide. Others were killed in forest fires, elephant and rhino attacks, and motor accidents.

India’s frontline forest staff need professional training, adequate compensation, and field incentives for working in some of the world’s most hostile conditions. Indeed, no other force faces the risk of getting killed by those whom they are trying to protect.

India’s forest establishment often prioritises bureaucracy over the frontline workforce. With too many vacancies across India, too few are left on the ground to defend the forests and themselves.