How forest guards have kept our tigers alive

Did you hear that forest guard, Rampal Mali, was killed by a tiger inside Ranthambore National Park on the evening of May 8?

You may not know "Rampal Mali" for sure, but when I say the tiger who killed him was “T-24”, then you’ll immediate know whom I’m referring to. You’ll know that this is one of the most iconic tigers of the park, which is often seen on Route No. 1. That’s it. You know the big cat more than the man who protected it. Because no one photographed and posted pictures of Rampal Mali on their Facebook wall and we never “liked” images of him with T-24.

The incident is sad for sure. But at the same time this is another eye-opener on the wretched lives led by our forest guards who look after and protect wildlife across the country. We don’t talk about forest guards, rangers and watchers. We don’t photograph them and we don’t even know or care that they exist!

All we talk about hovers on the notion that they are corrupt, they take bribes, they don’t work and they are responsible for our tigers disappearing. But what we often forget is that a number of them lost their lives guarding our forests and wildlife across the country. When you sit in the comforts of a touring Gypsy and shoot a tiger using an advanced high-tech camera with a fabulous zoom effect and later post it all over social media, you don’t pause to reflect that it is because of the tireless efforts of the unsung guards and rangers that we still have the luxury of basking in the proximity of such beautiful and majestic creatures in the forests.

In the past eight years of working with the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), I came across with a few thousands of forest guards who protect tigers and other wildlife across the country. Many of them were proud of their duty and happy to be the guardians of the wild. They are the real unsung heroes of India’s great “conservation success” story. As they patrol day in and day out throughout the remotest jungles, ensuring that the animals are not poached, trees are not cut, boundaries are not encroached upon, they help thrive the delicate ecosystem of this country. 

And at enormous cost. For they get killed too, many times by the very animals which they protect!

Have you ever wondered if the news was the other way round, what would have happened?

In case a forest guard had accidentally killed a tiger (say your favourite Sultan, T-72, offspring of T-24) to save his own life, the social media would have erupted in anger over the incident. Thousands of comments would have choked Facebook, and too many among us would have been busy expressing our shock at the death of the tiger! There would have been television discussions charting how insensitive the forest guards are, how unfit and unsympathetic they are towards the dear animals they are paid to protect by the taxpayers’ money, that they should have been trained to exhaust every other method to bring the tiger under control before resorting to the extreme step of killing the animal, etc., etc.

If you are frowning at this “hypothetical” turn of events, wait! This is exactly what happened when a man-eating tiger was shot dead in Karnataka last year. All that we were bothered about was this:  “How could we have saved the precious life of that tiger?”

I fail to see any corresponding sympathy for the slain forest guard, whose family is the only one that is shaken by the incident and tragic loss. When I narrated the incident of the unfortunate death of Rampal Mali to a friend of mine, the reaction was typical. “Oh he was fifty-year-old … I am sure the government will give his son a job and his wife will get life-long pension and compensation,” was the matter-of-fact answer.

That’s it! That’s where our support for conservation of our forests and forest-dwellers stops. I am sure, even today, there will be people visiting Ranthambore National Park and the guides will be telling the visitors that they are in the territory of “Sultan: T-72" or "T 24” who killed a forest guard. Yet, instead of nursing any feeling of sympathy towards the dead guard, when they get a glimpse of T-24, everyone will be all too thrilled and excited to be in the company of the animal. Photos will be duly taken and posted on their Facebook walls, while Rampal Mali’s family suffers in silence. They must have hung Rampal’s photo on their mud wall — which is real, not virtual — with a garland around it, to remember the fallen man and the breadwinner, now gone. Both are walls that people look at, but they stand miles apart, with a bloodied connection that none of us will ever try understand.

And never forget that even if you nickname the tiger Sultan or Charge or Prince or Sita or Machali, they will remain TIGERS. They will not turn into domestic cats. They will kill, for that is what is in their DNA. There are no cute and cuddle-happy tigers in the wild. They are top-end carnivores, who kill anything that they can overpower.

Note: On the night of May 8, we checked our database at WTI and found that Rampal Mali was insured under our supplementary insurance scheme. We will ensure that the relief reaches his family at the earliest. However, it will be only a meagre relief, since we can never replace Rampal the husband, Rampal the father.

If anyone wants to support the family, please contact me and I will be more than happy to assist you with this.

 A slightly different version of this post first appeared in Jose Louies' Facebook wall.