I am not Valmik Thapar, or Belinda Wright. I’m not a scientist, nor am I an ‘expert’. I’m just an ordinary Indian and human being. And sometimes I wish I was neither. Over the past few months, I have read with increasing hopelessness and helplessness about our natural heritage, especially our wildlife, being destroyed with impunity. Why should it be so? After all, we are humans, and supposedly the most intelligent beings on earth. And our ability to reason must tell us that what we are doing is wrong. The words ‘humane’ and ‘humanity’ are lost. When one reads of the electrocutions, the skinning alive and the steel traps that are used to kill animals in the wild; or when one sees, despite legal and administrative restrictions, bears ‘dancing’ with painful hooks in their noses, far from their natural habitat, these words ring with a grotesque irony.And when I see pictures of a poacher in the Sunderbans, gun on his back, I wish I had been there: I know what I would have done with the gun. Animals have no court of law to turn to for justice or protection, no representatives, no police. I have nothing but disgust and contempt for those who tell with misplaced bravado of their ‘hunting’ exploits. Since when does shooting with lethal weapons at defenceless animals make us brave? How can killing wildlife with unequal means of destruction be called ‘sport’? We are the most hypocritical people. We worship Durga riding a tiger. Our national animal is a lion. And we persecute and exterminate them with impunity.We need harshest possible penalties for possessing/ trading in banned animal parts. National figures like Salman Khan should publicly apologise or do community service for the killing of the black buck. From a 33% forest cover in 1947, we are down to less than 7% today. When man and animal meet, one must give way, and we all know who it is. (One example: the continuing standoff between the villagers and the Bharatpur bird sanctuary — the villagers, besides diverting the canal waters for irrigation and thus drying up the park, which means that wetlands have become drylands and migratory birds have dried up too, also send their cattle to graze in this ’protected’ area). Publicise those who keep animal skins etc at home. Make them figures of ridicule. It is us humans who have given a pejorative meaning to the word ‘animal’. In fact, I’m sure ‘animals’ probably use ‘human’ as a pejorative term, e.g., Mother Tigress to Cub: ‘‘Tiger, please do not behave like a human.’’ If we do nothing about this mass murder, we are accomplices too. We will be party to our children losing their heritage. Just like if we sat back and did nothing if we saw someone taking a hammer to the Taj Mahal.And finally, on a news story on TV the other night, I saw the Chief Forest Conservator being interviewed about the missing tigers of Sariska. Quite appropriately, he had a framed picture of a tiger. And quite appositely, it’s probably the only one he’s probably seen, and indeed, the only way we’ll ever get to see one unless we give animals a fighting chance of survival.The writer is a communications consultant based in New Delhi
