The Truth about the Foreign Hand

What? What?! What?!! Are you insane? Can’t you see the havoc wrought by exotics? Lantana,Congress grass (and party?),water hyacinth,the cane toad in Australia,Indian mynas in Hawaii,cats,rats,rabbits and goats everywhere — see what they’ve done — decimated the god-fearing locals like a deranged terminator with RPGs in a primary school. Look what happened to the poor dodo because of cats and people. Off with their (and your) heads,you…you…you…Prosopis juliflora you!

Sure,but who can blame the exotics for their success? If you were a lantana sapling living quietly in central America and a kind lady took you to India in a flower pot because she thought you were pretty,and you found the surroundings salubrious and the butterflies,friendly…If you were a mangy cat in the London docks and were taken by sailors to a paradisical island where the rodents and birds were fat and stupid…well? If you opened the fridge door and saw a resplendent,helpless box of Belgian chocolates reposing there…well?

Besides,it’s pretty much the story of human history. The United States of America is full of exotics as is central and South America and Australia. Do we dance about like dervishes and scream,“Off with their heads”? The god-fearing natives of those lands have been driven to extinction,so anyway,they wouldn’t be able to do so. As for us in India,exotics of all hues came,saw,ripped us off royally and took away all our jewels and went back home because they couldn’t stand the weather. And now,they’re trying desperately to push us out of their “native places”,lest we make the old rabbit-guinea-pig move on them — two today,a million tomorrow.

This phenomenon is just another manifestation of Darwin’s survival-of-the-fittest theory. But it can overwhelm itself if it goes too fast or the climate doesn’t suit you. If cats introduced on an island went berserk and killed and ate every bird and animal in the place,within 15 minutes of landing,they would soon have to turn on one another or become vegetarian and thus extinct. This is very likely,as it takes nature an awfully long time to come up with a fitting response — say a cat-snatching roc or a kitten-killing mouse,so that the balance of power can be stabilised again. So,we step into the breach and let loose dogs and people with guns to deal with the cats. Sometimes,it works sometimes,it doesn’t. When cattle were introduced to Australia,the continent was soon neck-deep in dung,because the local dung-beetles floundered and were rendered out of their depth by the volume and quality of the dung. So professional dung-beetles were imported and went about their task assiduously,and which is why you can today also enjoy outdoors barbecues in Australia. (Otherwise,the flies emerging from the dung everywhere would not have allowed this.) The cane toad,introduced to get rid of another pestiferous beetle,however,went rogue and attacked everything it could. It’s poisonous and not quite appetising itself. Actually,this is really playing politics with nature; you make a friend of your enemy’s enemy and hope it won’t turn on you one day,jaws agape. It’s always a dangerous business.

Actually,if you back up far enough,you will discover that every living creature — yourself included — was once an exotic. Did my primitive ancestors always live in old Delhi? Way back,some of them must have made the trip from Africa or wherever,once they had learned how to walk,and thus,were exotic wherever they settled. In fact,I feel very much an exotic here even after 30 years. We can get into a sticky political situation if we continue along these lines: suffice to say,let’s re-write those lines by John Lennon: Imagine there are no exotics; It’s easy if you try…

Besides,some of them like the gulmohur,bougainvillea,periwinkle,and frangipani are really very beautiful too.

nRanjit Lal is an author,environmentalist and bird watcher. In this column,he reflects on the eccentricities and absurdities of nature