Commentary/Dilip D'Souza

Apathy, corruption and a lack of political will have eaten away at every protection we once set up for the tiger

That simple equation adds up to one simple result: The killing goes on. Why are tigers being killed so rapidly? One reason is the vast market for tiger parts. Traditional Chinese medicines use bones from tigers and other animals. These medicines have always been expensive, but with the boom in the Chinese economy in the last two decades, millions of people in China can suddenly afford them.

Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and even the USA have large Chinese communities where these medicines are in great demand. Tiger penis soup is a much-relished delicacy in these communities -- not because it confers any powers of virility, which it doesn't, but because it is an expensive status symbol.

EIA Director Dave Currey told us that Taiwanese businessmen throw large parties for their associates where bowls of tiger penis soup are served. They spend thousands of dollars on these bowls, 'just to show off.'

To feed this market, tigers have been slaughtered all across Asia. The animal is essentially extinct everywhere in the continent. Because of strong protective measures we took two decades ago, India is really the last refuge of substantial numbers of tigers in the wild. I use 'substantial' with some hesitation, for estimates of the size of our population of tigers are in the low thousands. That's a huge decline from even a quarter century ago.

Still, with tigers gone elsewhere in Asia, the market for tiger parts has now turned its beady eye on Indian tigers. Sure enough, more and more of them have started showing up in little shops in Hong Kong and Taipei, San Francisco and Beijing and lots of places in between. In the form of bones. Or skins. Or penises.

As EIA's report accompanying their film (The Political Wilderness: India's Tiger Crisis) points out, 'It is entirely fair for Indian conservationists to blame the international community for its failure to end the international trade in tiger parts.'

But blaming the international community, or blaming the Chinese, is, as the EIA report also points out, only one part of the story. The second, and this is the other reason our tigers are dying so fast, is the sorry tale of Indian enforcement. There was a time when we took the lead in protectingour tigers. Today, those days are just memories, much like the tiger itself soon will be.

We have strict wildlife protection laws. We have committees that have submitted reports that have made excellent recommendations. We still have dedicated, committed staff in our various reserves. The problem, as with much else in our country, is that we have forgotten how to apply and use these strengths. Apathy, corruption and, above all, a simple lack of political will have eaten away at every protection we once set up for the tiger.

This is why environmental regulations are routinely ignored instead of applied. For just one example, take the Jamva Ramgarh sanctuary in Rajasthan. There are 40 marble mines operating inside the sanctuary. Do we really expect tigers to live in the middle of mines? Why were the mines allowed in there?

It's also why many of the forest department staff in our parks are not kept equipped with such basics as boots, raincoats or even batteries for their flashlights. In the Kaziranga Park in Assam, guards were not even paid between February and April this year; when EIA visited in July, their pay was three weeks overdue. These are the men we expect will protect the tiger against well-armed and financed poachers.

And finally, the failure to apply our laws is why India's most notorious illegal wildlife trader, a thug called Sansar Chand, is free despite at least 40 cases pending against him dating back to 1974. Those 40 include one, from 1988, involving the staggering number of 29,369 skins from all kinds of animals, including the tiger.

While his cases have meandered around the courts for two decades, this man's illegal operations continued to seriously impact India's wildlife. It's these failures just as much as the demand for its body parts that are sending the tiger into oblivion.

So what's the connection to Roja you're asking? Just this: we get extremely protective about a cloth that's painted saffron, white and green. Yes, it's a symbol of our country, but it's still a piece of cloth. When will we get even half as protective about a beautiful, majestic animal; this living, breathing symbol of India?