Once upon a time there was a vast forest. Over time, it became overrun by humans. The trees, as well as the animals they sheltered, disappeared, unable to bear the increasing demands of growing populations of people and their cattle. Finally, even the grass vanished from the land, leaving bare hillocks that blazed every night with the fires from a hundred hearths, fires that sent up sooty smoke that obscured the stars above.
So what’s new, readers may ask. One hears countless such hard luck stories about our planet every day. But our story is not one of those. Our story is about a man who took over this bruised and battered land, and returned it to its original state. It is about Fateh Singh Rathore, the first director of the Ranthambore National Park — he is credited with the single-handed rejuvenation of Ranthambore into the vibrant forest that it is today.
When Rathore first reached Ranthambhore in 1971, there were over 20 villages and virtually no tigers left. In fact, most believed that it could never be made viable for tigers to live there again. But somehow, by 1976, in spite of considerable flak from villagers and politicians, Rathore as part of Project Tiger had managed to move all those villages out. The trees began to grow again. The tigers that he’d fallen so hopelessly in love with slowly began to move back in — and with them returned all those species that had been previously driven out by humans years ago.
This, however, came at a huge human cost. Rathore said in an interview that the village communities, bitter over their forced relocation, cried and pleaded with the authorities to be allowed to stay on. They did not understand at all why they were being asked to relocate. Were animals more important than human lives, they demanded to know. Rathore was once even ambushed and left to die by angry villagers who wanted the tiger reserve closed. But he survived. And so did Ranthambore.
As Rathore gained the reputation of having an uncanny ability to second-guess the movements of tigers in Ranthambore, he came to be called the Tiger Man. He served as park director for ten years, and was appointed honorary warden after his tenure ended. He worked tirelessly with poachers, believing that jailing or fining them was no long-term solution. Offering them other choices to earn a living and removing the very market for poached animal body parts and skin were more difficult but also more efficient options, he believed. As the tigers of Ranthambore flourished, the tourists started arriving to see them. Today, virtually the entire economy of the area depends upon the animals that had once all but vanished from the area. It’s as though the tigers themselves were giving the poachers another avenue for employment.
Fateh Singh Rathore passed away on March 1. It was the end of one of the most aggressive and successful conservation efforts in the world. I remember an interview in which he said that people have to be made to understand that their lives on this planet would become unlivable if tigers were to vanish from the face of this earth; and that as long as the King of Beasts roamed free in his jungle, it meant the ecology of that place was reasonably sound. While he lived, few people believed as strongly in the conservation of tigers and their habitats as he did. Now that he’s gone, it seems to me as if the Tiger Man’s breed of conservationists is getting to be as endangered as tigers.
