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ANTHOLOGY OF INDIAN WILDLIFE
VOLUMES I & II Evolution of Man Record of how good poachers turned better gamekeepers By M K Ranjitsinh ANTHOLOGY OF INDIAN WILDLIE VOLUMES I & II Those steeped in the conservation culture of today will find it hard to believe that the hunting ethos -- prevalent not only prior to Independence but as late as the early '70s -- was not just the progenitor of the present conservation milieu but a direct cause for it through the revulsion and the awakening that it led to. The League of Nations, the United Nations and the Marshall Plan were, after all, the offspring of the two great wars. There is a lesson in this, especially for those who advocate the re-opening of hunting, even of the sometimes troublesome animals like the nilgai and wild pig. There are no halfway measures in India. If the pendulum swings back to hunting, it will be even more difficult than before to curb it. Mahesh Rangarajan and Oxford have thus done great service by making available this anthology. The first and larger volume is devoted to hunting, shooting and trapping and the second partly to hunting, but mainly to watching wildlife and its conservation. The writings reproduced span more than a century and a half, culled from over 250 books and innumerable articles, many of them out of print. They are, as the editor puts it, a record of a way of life, an era long past. The doyens among the hunter-naturalists are, of course, well represented -- James Forsyth, Frank Simson, Pollock and Thom, C.P. Sanderson, Dunbar Brander, J.W. Best and Jim Corbett. But it was a revelation to find the less conspicuous but no less interesting authors like G.C. Mundy, R.P. Noronha, Suydam Cutting, R.S. Dharmakumarsinh and Divyabhanusinh. The article by C.H. Stockley on the Kashmir stag and by Brander on the tiger are classics. No less fascinating are pieces on Govindgarh by Louis Roussellet written in the 1880s and the one by the great cricketer and athlete C.B. Fry on panther shoots with the immortal Ranji. Among the watchers and the preservers the names of Salim Ali, E.P. Gee, Dharmakumarsinh, Arjan Singh, M. Krishnan, K.S. Sankhala, R. Sukumar and Zafar Futehally represent a wide spectrum. But also not to be missed are "What is the Use of Leopards?" (1934) by pioneer photographer-naturalist F.W. Champion and the article on lions by historian Edward Thompson. The compendium whets the appetite for more. It is impossible to include all the foremost authors. But one cannot help being wistful about the omissions -- Kinloch, Fenton, Woodyatt, Wardrop and Burton of the shikar era and George Schaller, F.M. Bailey, J.C. Daniel, Vivek Menon and Rupin Dang of the conservation epoch. Nowhere in the world is montane fauna so diverse and the topography more grand and awe-inspiring as in the high Himalaya, trans-Himalaya and the uplands of India's North-east. Yet this region goes quite unrepresented. This is no criticism, just a nudge to Rangarajan and Oxford to publish more. NEW RELEASES The First Aid Guide Science is My Best Friend The Crisis of a Hung Parliament Rape of the Mountains: Kargil Negal How to Relieve Tension |
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