CHAPTER: 5

WILDLIFE AND ITS CONSERVATION IN THE UNITED

PROVINCES

Nature has endowed India with a magnificent asset in its rich and varied fauna.
It is estimated that there are over 500 different species of mammals in the country. As
for bird life, India possesses one of the richest avifauna in the world. But, man has
been persecuting wildlife for his own ends, without appreciating its value and
importance in the maintenance of the balance of nature. As a result of this persecuting
nature of human, several species of animals and birds have become either extinct or
are threatened with extinction. In India wildlife has, from time immemorial enjoyed
protection though religious myths and sentiments and its preservation has been a part
and parcel of our ancient traditions. ‘Ahimsa Pramo Dharma’ has been a guide line of
our way of life. The ‘ashrams’1 of the ancient ‘reshis’ were always treated as refuge
of wildlife, where animal roamed about freely without any fear of molestation by
man. There are significant passages in Kautilya’s Arthashashtra, which point to the
recognition given by the statesmen, in those days to wildlife preservation. The need
for special consideration for wildlife was felt even in those early days and what we
now term Sanctuaries and ‘National Park’ was established. Forest superintendents
were appointed for supervision and guards posted to prevent poaching. Heavy
penalties were prescribed for offender, who trapped, killed or molested deer, bison or
fish etc. in an area declared as protected. Certain animals and birds were completely
protected e.g. elephant, horse, animals partly with human form, peacock, partridge,
swan, cuckoo, fish in tank etc. Even animals which became vicious were to be trapped
or killed outside the sanctuary so as not to disturb or scare others. Extraction of
timber, burning of charcoal, collection of grass leaves and fuel, cutting of canes and
bamboos and trapping for fur, skin, teeth or bones were all totally prohibited in the
National Parks. Relevant examples and descriptions are found in many of the ancient
classics. The animals such as the hog deer, wolves, chinkara, wild dogs, Jackals,
horse, cats, hyenas etc. were commonly found in Indus valley. The earlier known
record anywhere of measures taken for the protection of wild life came from India,
viz. the fifth pillar edict of Asoka, by which game and fishery laws were introduced in

1 In which the best in our ancient culture was born.

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Northern India in the 3rd century B.C. In this inscription, the emperor had carved an
enduring stone a list of birds, beasts, fishes and even insects which were strictly to be
preserved. The mammals named were bats, monkeys, rhinoceros, porcupines, tree
squirrels, barasingha stages, brahmini bulls and the four footed animals which were
not utilized or eaten. Other creatures declared as inviolable were parrots, mynas,
queen ants and fishes of various kinds. The Edict further ordains that forests must not
be burnt, either for mischief or to destroy living creatures.2

Under Mughal times, much interesting information concerning wildlife is to

be found in the memoirs of the Mughal emperors and the chronicles of European
travellers in India in those times. The Mughal emperors were great sportsmen and
lover of nature and were therefore, interested in the wildlife of the country and its
preservation. There writings are full of descriptions, some in great details of animals,
plants and flowers of the country over which they ruled. While Babar, Humayun,
Akbar and Aurangzeb displayed in their writings their great love for nature. Jahangir
excelled as a naturalist; his profuse memoirs make an engrossing account of the
natural history of India. The shikar grounds of the Mughals covered the upper valley
of the Indus towards Peshawar and the whole of the present Uttar Pradesh. 3 Westward
of the Ganges up to the Kathianwar and southwards up to Mandala in Madhya-
Pradesh. Elephants, rhinoceros and wild buffaloes were known to the Mughals.4

Among the wild animals, wild elephants are most frequently mentioned in our
texts of the 16th and 17th centuries, i.e. Ain-i-Akbari (c.1595). The evidence about the
habitats of wild elephants is also relevant since these animals can only flourish
wherever they have the protection of dense forests. In eastern and southeastern
Gujarat, elephants used to capture in large numbers in the 17th century but by 1761 the
connection of forests there with the main central Indian forests had been closed by
human settlements, and so elephants were no longer found there.5 Another large beast,
the rhinoceros, was encountered by Ibn- Battuta in 1330 on crossing the Indus near
Multan and Bahraich in east Uttar Pradesh. Two hundred years later Babur described
the animal as abundant in the territory of Peshawar, Hasthgarh (North of Kabul river)

2 Irfan Habib, Man and Environment: The Ecological History of India: A Peoples History of India,
36,New Delhi, 2010, p. 62.
3 Including Uttrakhand.
4 Irfan Habib, Man and Environment, op.cit., p. 95.
5 100 years of Indian Forestry, op.cit. 119.

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and the Salt Range and on the banks of the Saru (the old course of the Sarju running
past Bahraich), thus confirming Battuta. Abul Fazal in the Ain-i-Akbari notes its
presence in Sarkar Sambhal (northern Rohilkhand). By the early decade of the 17th
century the rhinoceros had disappeared from northwest Punjab, since Jahangir, despite
his extensive hunts there, fails to mention it; and today it is extinct in all the areas
within Uttar Pradesh, where it was present till late in the 16 th century.6 Wild buffalo
was found within the Gangotri basin and in late 14th century, in large herds in Kather
(Rohilkhand); it was found in Mughal times in the province of Awadh (central and
North east UP), Tirhut (Bihar), and near Burdwan and in the Sundarban.7

Among the larger felines, lions used to be found in considerable numbers in

northern India. But one major difficulty in distinguishing references to lions from
those to tigers in Persian texts is that, the word sher applied to both animals. Mughal
paintings sometimes depict a lion and even a lioness but tigers appear more
frequently. We may assume that in Gangatic basin it was the tiger, and in the Indus
basin and Gujarat, a lion that held sway.8 Hunting with cheetahs was a favorite
pastime of the nobility in India from the very beginning. The cheetahs habitats were
in desert, or scrubby or slightly rocky country. Other wild animals were black-buck,
nilgai and gazelle have been very abundant but there is no mention of bears in the
Mughal literature, nor is there much mention about deer hunting.9

The advent of the British rule which followed the Mughal period ushered in an
era of comparative peace and settled conditions of life. Consequently, as the area
under cultivation continued to expand in colonial times, the habitats of the wildlife
(mammals) became more and more restricted. This naturally reduced their numbers.
Still, game animals and birds were quite plentiful in the early days of British rule.
About the richness of Indian fauna Dr. Chalmers Mechell10 says as a whole that
“Indian contains the richest, the most varied and from many points of view, the most
interesting part of the Asiatic fauna. Notwithstanding … Its dense forests and jungles,

6 Irfan Habib, Man and Environment, op.cit. p. 97.

7 Ibid, p. 95.
8 Ibid, p. 97; ‘100 years of Indian Forestry’, op.cit. p. 121.
9 100 years of Indian Forestry, op.cit. pp. 121-22.
10 A zoologist was Secretary of the Zoological Society of London from 1903 to 1935.

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its magnificent series of river valleys, mountains and hills have preserved until recent
times a fauna rich in individuals and species.”11

GENERAL DIVISION OF WILDLIFE:

The science of zoogeography has both ecological and historical aspects. On

this basis, for a systematic study of the wildlife, the world has been divided into six
zoogeographical regions:

i) Nearctic – North America, Canada, Iceland and Greenland.

ii) Pala arctic – North Africa Europe, North, North east, and Central Asia.
iii) Neotropical – South and Central America and the Antilles.
iv) Ethiopian – The lower three fourth of Africa and Southern Arabia.
v) Oriental – Indian Sub-Continent and South-East Asia.
vi) Australian – Australia and Newzealand.12

The oriental region which includes the Indian sub continent has been further divided
into the following sub-regions:

(a) The Himalayan sub-region: This sub-region is made up of three distinct zones.
The first covers the whole of the forested outer and lower slopes of the
Himalayas from Bhutan to the eastern frontiers of Kashmir. The foothills and
lower valleys (Doons) of the sub-region covered with dense tropical
vegetation and are inhabited by animals such as tiger, elephants, bison and
Sāmbhar which are also found in the forests of the peninsula. In the swampy
forests of the Terai13 cheetal (spotted deer), hog deer and swamp deer are
common.

The second includes the inner western Himalayas from Kashmir and eastern
Ladakh to Chitral. The third includes the arid plateau of eastern Ladakh up to
Tibet.

(b) The Indian Peninsular sub-region: This comprises India proper, extending
from the base of the Himalayas to cape comorine, excluding the Malabar
Coast.

11 E.B. Stebbing, ‘The Dairy of the Sportsman and Naturalists in India’, London, 1920, p. 289.
12 100 years of Indian Forestry, op.cit. p.125.
13 The strip of lower-lying country which adjoin the foothills.

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(c) The Malabar Coast: In contrast to the adjoining dry zone of the Deccan, the
Western Ghat presents a region of heavy rainfall covered with dense evergreen forests
composed of lofty trees, often festooned with climbers and associated with luxuriant
undergrowth of seeds and, in regression types, bamboos. In places, the forests have
been opened up and the banks of the streams were covered with spice and betel
groves.14In this chapter, I discuss the wildlife of the United Provinces and its
conservation under British rule. To understand the colonial wildlife conservation it is
important to discuss about the geographical boundary and wildlife of the United
Provinces. On the basis of zoogeographical division, United Provinces include the
foothills and lower valleys (Doon) and Swampy forests of Terai of the Himalayan
sub-region. And some part of the Indians Peninsular sub-region (Gangatic plain of
doab).15 About the topography of United Provinces E.P. Stebbing said that “Between
the Jamuna, which forms the western boundary of the province here and the Ganges
the fertile plateau of the Dun exists with Himalaya to the north and the Siwalik range
fifteen to twenty miles to the South East of the Ganges stretch the Terai jungles
comprising the famous sporting area of the Ganges, Kumaon, Garhwal and so forth
with the well known Oudh jungles of the south. The Ganges is the great river of the
Province, which is joined by the Jamuna at Allahabad. These two rivers rise quite
close to one another in the Himalaya. The other main tributaries are the Ghagra,
which divides the province from Nepal on the east and the Gandak, which separated it
from the Bengal to its South.”16

The Imperial Gazetteer of India refers to the name of wild animals, most of which
formerly existed in the United Provinces, as may be seen from the below table.

SPECIES FOUND IN THE UNITED PROVINCES

District (Div.) Species Habitat

1. Pratapgarh Wolves, wild hog, Nilgai, Jackals, forees, wild
fowls
2. Fayzabad (Div.) Nilgai, Antelope Dhak Jungle
3. Barabanki Hog, Nilgai, Jackals
4. Gonda Tiger, Bears, Leopards (Common) Deers,
Antelope, Nilgai, Wolves & Jackals
(Occasionally)
5. Bahraich Tiger, Leopards, Bears, Wolves, Hyenas, Wild

14 100 years of Indian Forestry, op.cit., pp. 125-126.

15 Ibid.
16 E.P. Stebbing, ‘The Dairy of The Sportsman and Naturalist in India’, op.cit., p. 151.

110
 hog, Sanbhar, Spotted deer, hog deer, barking
deer, antelope, Nilgai.
6. Sultanpur Wolves, Jackal’s, Nilgai & Wild hog
7. Lucknow (Div.) Jackals Hog (Common), Antelope & Nilgai
Lucknow Dist. (occasionally)
8. Rai Bareli Wolves, Jackals (abound), Nilgai & antelope
(scale)
9. Hardoi Wolves, Nilgai, antelope, Jackals, hares
10. Kheri Tiger, bears, wolves, Leopard, wild dogs,
hyenas, jungle cats, jackals (common), Five
species of deer (swamp) deer being the
commoner one), Antelope, Nilgai, & Hog.
11. Unao Wolves, Jackals, wild hogs (common), Nilgai
& Antelope (small no.)
12. Kumaon (Div.) Garhwal Tigers and Elephants, Leopards, Three kinds Bhabar & Lower
of beer, wolf, Jackals, wild dogs, Sāmbhar / Hill
Jarau & gural
13. Almora Elephants, Tigers, the slot beers, leopards,
wild-dogs & yark
14. Nainital Elephants, Tigers & Leopards, Slot Bear, The Bhabar & Tarai
Owing to the wild range Wold, Jackal, Wild dog, Himalayan Black plain to the hills
of climate and elevation, Bears, Sāmbhar, Spotted deer, Swamp deer, range hills
most of the animals of hog deer, barking deer, four horned antelope,
both the plains and hills nilgai, antelope and gurals
of upper India are found
15. Gorakhpur (Div.) Wolf, Jackal, and fox (common) wild hog and
Nilgai (occasionally)
16. Basti Wild hog, Nilgai, wolves and Jackals
(common spotted) spotted deer (occasionally)
17. Gorakhpur (Div.) Tiger & Leopard (common) wild buffaloes, Short within the
single rhinoceros (common). The spotted deer few years
& hog deer. Sloth bear (occasionally) wild “
hog, nilgai, volwes jackals All over the dist.
18. Benares (Div.) Banares Antelope Not important,
(Dist.) owing to the
density of
population.
19. Ghazipur (Div.) Nilgai & Antelope Densely
populated and
cultivated
20. Jaunpur (Div.) Wolves “ & absence of
forest
21. Mirzapur Tigers, Sambhar, Chital & four horned, Pressures of
leopard, Hyena, wolf, Jackal & fox pocks, Chakea and over
Antelope, ravine-deer & nilgai the whole tract
south of Som,
Kaimur over
whole district.
Southern jungles
ganges valley
22. Ballia Nilgai & Wild hog Absence of
uncultivated land,
North-East of
Ganges

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23. Allahabad (Div.) Jackals Hog (common) Antelope & Wild Hog. Doab & trans-
Tiger, Ravine beer & leopards and tiger ganga South of
(occasionally) and wolves. Hog, Antelope & Jamuna Hills
Nilgai

24. Jhansi Leopards, Chital, Sambar, Hyenas, Wolves & Northern Hills,
lyme, Tigers, bears, wild dogs and four horned Further South
antelope wild buffalo
25. Hamirpur Leopards, Hyenas, Wolves, Jackals, Antelope
& Hog (common) Sambhar & Chital (few)
26. Banda Tigers, Leopards, Hyenas, Wolves & Bear Reserved Forests
(common), Wild Hog (abound)
27. Fatehpur Leopards, RFind & Wolves, Wild Hogs, “ Everywhere
Jackals, Nilgai & Antelope Broken ground
28. Cawnpore Leopards, Wild hog, Wolves (along the Bank Confluence of
of rivers) Ravine deer. Antelope & Nilgai Sengar and
(small decreasing) Jamna. Along the
Jamna
Everywhere
29. Bareilly Division Leopard, wolves & Hog deers Antelope North of the Dist.
East of the Dist.
30. Pilibhit Tiger & Leopard (numerous) wild hogs and Wilder part of
deer of various kinds Jackals & Wolf Puranpur various
(common) part
31. Shahjahanpur Leopard, Tiger & hyenas spotted Deer, Nilgai, Everywhere
Wild Hog. Antelope.
32. Moradabad Tiger (occasionally short) Leopard (common Near Gumti and
mostly) Wild Hogs (numerals), Nilgai (small), Ganga, North
Wold, Fox, monkey, porcupine East of Dist. &
Ganges Khadar.
All over
33. Bijnor Tiger, Leopard & Chital & Sambar, four- Forests
horned deer & barking deer wild elephant Hills during rains
34. Badaun (Tiger extremely Tiger (last & killed in 1893) Antelope, Nilgai, Near Ganges
rare ) Wild Hog, & Wolves (common)
35. Agra Division – . Leopard & Hyenas, Wolves (common), In the Ravine &
Agra Ravine Deer (gazelle), Antelope Western Hills
Near Jumna
36. Farukhabad Antelope (common) & Nilgai (occasionally),
Jackal, Hyenas, Wolves and Foxes, Wild Hog
(numerous)
37. Etawah Leopard (occasionally), Tiger, Wolves (rare), Wild tract South
Hog (common), Antelope & Nilgai, Ravine of jumna
Deer (gazelle)
38. Muttra Leopards, Wolves, Hyenas, and Nilgai, Wild Hilly tracts near
Cattle, Wild Hog (plentiful), Pig, Antelope the Bharatpur
(common), Chinkara/Ravine deer Borders.
Jumna Ravines &
Khadar
39. Meerut Leopards (common), Tiger (extremely rare), Ganges Khadar &
Antelope (numerous), Wild Hog & Pig, Wild, Ravines
Fox, Jackal, Hog deer & Nilgai.
40. Aligarh (Div.) Wild Hog (common), Antelope (common) Khadar & near
the Canal most

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 part of Dist.
41. Bulandshahar Decreasing Wild Hog & Hog Deer, Antelope & Nilgai Khadar &
owing to the spread of Upland
cultivation
42. Muzzaffarnagar Wolves (common), Wild Hog Swarm, Swampy land
Leopard (occasionally), Tiger (very rare)
43. Saharanpur Tigers, Leopard, Wolves, Wild, Hog Siwalik & Sub-
(common) Lyme, Hyenas, Sloth Bear, Wild ……….. forests
Elephant, Deers of various shorts sambhar, Siwalik
Chital, barking, deer & Parha/ Hog deer, Four Siwalik
horned Antelope & Gural
44. Dehradun(Divs.) Meerut Wild Elephants, Tiger, Leopards, Sloth Bear, Siwalik in Forests
(Dist.) is singularly rich Spotted Deer and Monkey
in animal life, but the
game has been shot down
lately.
Source : Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series of the United Provinces of Agra and Awadh, Vol. I& Ii.

Debate on Wildlife Conservation:

To understand the colonial wildlife conservation movement, it is imperative to

examine the history of Indian forestry and environment. From the onset of the
colonial rule, the British pursued an agenda for a stable agrarian order that, in turn,
dismantled many local forest societies. 17 In the early 19th century, with the rising
ambition of the East India Company to extend colonial control over forest territories
led to the appropriation of Indian forest resources and wildlife. 18 Initially on the name
of exploration and hunting, and through commercial forestry, the British were able to
redraw the jungle and woodland boundaries on the edges of settled agrarian
communities. One leading group of historians opine that environmental imperialism
brought about by colonial rule was based on the displacement of the local ecologies in
favour of the European model of scientific forestry. 19 Madav Gadgil and Ram
Chandra Guha frame the colonial ecological counter as a contest between the
European industrial modes of resource use and the Indian settled – cultivator modes.20
Their studies shows that many forests were considerably altered and recognized in the
colonial model of selective commercialization of species that devoured traditionally

17 A.I. Birkett, Batting and building amongst the Bhils, London, 1914, p. 12.
18 Ramchandra Guha, The Unquiet Wood, Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Western
Himalaya, Delhi, 1989, p. 29.
19 Richard Grove, Vinita Damodran and Satpal Sangwan, eds.‘Nature and the Orient: the
Environmental History of South and Southeast Asia, Studies in Social Ecology and Environmental
History, New Delhi, 1998.
20 Gadgil and Guha, ‘This Fissured Land’, op.cit, pp. 113-45.

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wooded areas which in turn displaced wild animals.21 These writings are mostly
concerned with delineating the history of British imperialism in relation to the
environment as a defining moment and identifying the British and their legacy as the
premier agent in shaping the conservation policies in the 19th and the early 20th
centuries in India. Forest management became the means to expand British political
hegemony as the British government acquired control over Indian forests resources
and wildlife.22

Another group of historians led by Richard Grove argued that similar forms of
forest exploitation for commercial value could be traced back to the pre-colonial
period Grove refers to the examples of the Maratha rulers in Western India who found
it necessary to acquire control over large tracts of forest land to set up plantations for
the purpose of ship building and revenue.23 Similar monopoly control over forests was
initiated in Cochin and Travancore. Further, Grove traces the origins of empire
forestry back to the days of the company rule. For example, the establishment of the
Bombay Forest conservancy in 1847 later inspired the British Indian Government to
found and established the Imperial Forest Department in 1864.24 The irreversible and
disastrous impact of British colonial forest policies have been established beyond any
doubt in recent writings25. But Grove overlooked the aspect of exploitation and
appropriation of natural resources under British rule. 26 In this context, Mahesh
Rangarajan’s writings on the history of Indian wildlife are significant contributions to
the larger corpus of wildlife historiography. 27 He reports that now a war was waged
by the colonial administration against wild beasts, although he stops short of

21 Gadgil and Ramchandra Guha, State Forestry and Social Conflict in British, Past and Present, 123
(1989), pp. 141-77.
22 Ibid.
23 Richard Grove, ‘Conserving Eden: The (European) East India Company and their Environmental
Policies on St. Helena, Mauritius and in Western India, 1660-1851, Comparative Studies in
Society and History’, 35, 1993, pp. 318-51, at p. 331; Also in Ecology, Climate and Empire; The
Indian Legacy in Global Environmental History, 1400-1940, Delhi, 1998, pp. 37-85.
24 Richard Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Eden and the Origins of
Environmentalism, 1600-1860’ Cambridge, 1995, p. 473.
25 As evident in colonial endeavored in the appropriation of Indian forest lands through official
legislation, commercialization of forestry, vermin eradication program, unrestricted activity of
game hunting and the loss of natural habitat for Indian fauna.
26 David Arnold and Ram Chandra Guha, eds., Nature, Culture and Imperialism, Delhi, 1995, pp.
115-40: How colonial policies deprived many agrarian and forest communities of their rights and
privileges.
27 Mahesh Rangarajan, ‘Indian’s Wildlife History, An Introduction,’ New Delhi, 2006.

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describing this as official policy.28 He has also pointed out, many of the differences
between the two perspectives are a consequence of the different periods they deal
with Guha’s study looks at the period from the late 19th century while Grove’s
analysis halt at the mid-19th century. Yet by the mid 19th century Forest Department
was only beginning to be established.29

Factors Leading to the Depletion of Wild Animals

In the early 19th century the rising ambition of the East India Company to
extend colonial control over forest territories led to the appropriation of Indian forest
resources and wildlife.30 Therefore, the decline of wild animals started from about
middle of the 19th century, gained further momentum with the increase in the variety
of sporting weapons and equipments and the development of hunting guns and
rifles.31 As a matter of fact, it can generally be said that the fate of wild animals all
over the world was sealed with the invention of gun powder. Many of the early British
army officers, civil servants and tea planters in India took heavy toll of wild life and
there are instances on record to show that many of them indulged even in Wanton
slaughter of wild animals (mammal) for a mere fun of it.32 A British planter is said to
have killed no less than 400 elephants in the Nilgiris in the 1860s. In Kathiwar, a
cavalry officer was reported to have short as many as 80 lions, while on one occasion
14 lions were short in the Gir forests within 10 days. Wilson, a British public servant
who served in India during the colonial period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
noted that, “at one time only 16 lions were believed to exist. They are to be found in
only one spot in the whole continent, in the forest of Gir”33 until the 1930s. Within the
government controlled forests and duly under license, hundreds of tigers were killed
annually, the numbers of those killed illegally in these controlled area, or killed out
side of them, are not known. It is not surprising that by an estimate accepted by Salim
Ali, the probable number of tiger in India declined from 40,000 to 4,000 over the last

28 Mahesh Rangarajan, ‘The Raj and the Natural World: The War Against “Dangerous Beats, in
Colonial Indian Studies in History, 14, 1998, p. 299.
29 Ajay Sakaria, ‘Timber Conservancy, Desiccationism and Scientific Forestry: The Dangs 1840s-
1920s’, ed. The Environmental History of South and South East Asia, op.cit., pp. 596-97.
30 Ramchandra Guha, Writing Environmental History in History of India, Studies in History, 9
(1993), pp. 119-29 (Journal).
31 Bore rifle by Baker in 1840, express rifle by Forsyth in 1860.
32 100 years of Indian Forestry, op.cit.,p.121
33 Ibid, pp. 122-23

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fifty years 1900-1950.34 In the same way in United Provinces 1,074 tigers were killed
alone, in 1929-39. As F.W. Champion mentioned that “there had been a decrease of
25% in nearly all species in the United Province.”35. Forests and west lands are
natural habitats of animals and the destruction of these has resulted in the depletion of
wild animals. The main factors for the depletion of wild animals are hunting and
pouching. Deforestation is also one of the main causes of it. In colonial India, vast
stretches of natural forests were destroyed for the expansion of railways, agriculture,
commercial farming and mining. As F.W. Champion mentioned the reasons behind
this reduction of wild animals in these words: “The reasons for this reduction, I would
put down to (a) Motor-cars making shooting for easier than it used to be (b) the
destruction of game in the adjoining areas outside the forests resulting in a smaller
influx and generate damage to animals straying outside.”36

However the main factors which have led to this depletion are as follows:

The Danger of Technology: A fair balance between the hunter and the hunted was
overthrown once the quicker and increasingly accurate hunting guns and rifles arrived
with British hunters. By the 20th century, the use of automatic weapons, telescopic
lenses, motorcars and headlights by colonial hunters made killing easier. The
improved guns and rifles (weapons of destruction) were claimed as instruments of
kindness in the discourse on colonial hunting. Jim Corbett summed up the feeling of
empowerment in owing a modern rifle that gave him the confidence to penetrate
deeper into the forest:

“The bow and the arrow had enabled me to penetrate further into the
jungles than the catapults and the muzzle-loader had enabled me to
penetrate further than the bow and arrow; and now, armed with rifle, the
jungles were opened to me to wander in wherever I choose to go.”37

The incidents of shooting at game from trains and motorcars increased during
the early 20th century, which also responsible for the wildlife depletion. As F.W.
Champion says that “I have recently heard from A.E. Wood … that in his earlier days
Lachiwala in Dehra Dun division used to be a ‘veritable paradise’ for wild animals. I

34 Irfan Habib, Man and Environment, op.cit., p. 138.

35 F.W. Champion, Preserving wild life in the United Provinces, No. 04, The Bombay Natural
History Society, Vol. 37, 1934, pp. 84-85 (Journal).
36 F.W. Champion, Preserving wild life in the United, op.cit. p. 85.
37 Jim Corbett, Jungle Lore, New York, 1953, p. 25.

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am well acquainted with Lachiwala and I can only say that it is very far from being an
animal paradise nowadays. It is more a ‘paradise’ for motor picnic from Dehra Dun
city and containment. …. The game inside the reserved forests – particularly in Oudh,
where motors now penetrate to every corner”38

In the same way E.P. Stebbing mentioned in his diary that “the opening out of
the country and the consequent restrictions of animals is also responsible. It is now
some years since the buffalo disappeared from the United Provinces – about the
nineties of the last century or there about. The great increase in the numbers of
sportsmen who visit the jungles annually on sport intent, an increase brought about
chiefly by the greatly improved communications owing to railways and road case, and
motorcars will intensify it.”39

However, the use of new technologies by European hunters alarmed the

British sportsman. Local administrations sought to introduce new regulations to check
the corruption of hunting practices.

Poaching: Until the 20th century most poaching was performed by impoverished
peasants for subsistence purposes, supplementary meager diet. Under colonial rule,
British began to view hunting as an exercise in building character, inculcating the
spirit of sportsmanship, encouraging manliness and boosting an appreciation of
nature. At the same time, a moral code that valued restrain and righteousness and
linked these to sportsmanship began to govern the practice. These values were also
projected as defining trait of British national character, and in time, of Victorian
notions of honor. However, colonial forest officers, hunters and naturalists assumed
that they had a superior scientific understanding of nature, while the native
understanding of the Indian environment bases on local practices and traditions was
described as sub-standard. Thus, an imperial forest administrator, Edwar Stebbing,
blamed the locals for treating wild stock numbers by means of unauthorized
poaching.40 As stebbing mentions that “Perhaps a more important one in its effect on
the great decrease which is imperiling some of the species in the country, is to be
found in the operations of the Indian Poachers. The poacher remained outside the
notice of the Government and has had a free hand to perpetrate his nefarious

38 Champion, Preserving Wildlife in the United Provinces, 04, op.cit. p. 85.

39 E.P. Stebbing, The Diary of the Sportsman in India, London, 1920, p. 259.
40 E.B. Stabbing, The Dairy of Sportsman and Naturalists in India, op.cit., p. 241.

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practices.”41 He also described some local method of poachers like pitfall method for
elephants, trap-door method for leopard or panther noose method for sambar and
black buck, light and rings for spotted deer, fishing hook for antelope and bows and
poisoned arrow for tiger etc.42

Historically, the people labeled as intruders and encroachers by the Indian

imperial forest officials were, in fact, a population displaced by the colonial wildlife
protective legislation.43 This naturally resulted in poaching and isolated hunting
activities which, though now criminalized, remained persistence. 44 It is interesting
that even the advocates of Indian wildlife conservation did not directly criticize the
hunts of the British upper strata and Indian princes, or indeed critique the colonial
government strongly. Instead, they petitioned the relevant authorities to stop the
unregulated activity of hunting big game species. Further their conservationist urges,
it could be argued, were driven by underlying political advantages in their later
lives.45

Scientific Expedition: In its earlier days, the Asiatic society was largely depended on
hunters for specimens. In 1908, the natural history branch of the Indian Museum
published a catalogue of horn and another in the hope that it would help sportsmen in
the field. N. Annandale, the superintendant of the Museum also hoped that catalogue
would inspire more sportsmen to donate their trophies to it. He admitted that the
Museum often found itself in “the somewhat ridiculous position of being unable to
answer inquiries about some common animals, simply because we cannot refer to
specimens.”46 Although a fully equipped zoological survey was established in 1916,
sportsmen remained important contributors to their collections. Colonial hunters
prided in contributing to the growth of a scientific temper in a savage and wild land.

F.W. Champion, the famous wildlife photographer in the Indian Forest

Service, challenged the view that the valuable part of natural history consists merely
in the knowledge of the manners and forms of animals. In his words “Fireside

41 Ibid, p. 242.
42 Ibid., pp. 243-51.
43 Michael Lewis, Cattle and Conservation at Bharatpur: A Case Study in the Science and Advocacy,
Conservation and Society, 1, 2003, pp. 1-19.
44 Sainthill Eardley-Willmot, Forest Life and Sport in India, London, 1910, pp. 30-40.
45 For example the power, publicity and influence of Jim Corbett and Richard Burton.
46 T.Bentham, ‘An Illustrated Catalogue of the Asiatic Horns and Antlers in the Collection of the
Indian Museum’, (Calcutta: Indian Museum, Natural History Section), 1908.

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naturalists who, having discovered a low of nature which undoubtedly hold true with
certain animals in certain set of conditions, have left enthusiasm run away with them,
and have made claims which the man who lived in the wilds and does not spend his
time within four walls of the museum realizes at once to be ridiculous.”47

However, Amateur naturalists enjoyed the same legitimacy the hunter-

sportsman, the poacher and the amateur sportsman enjoyed viz a viz professional
sportsman. Amateur hunters, sportsman and naturalists were all noble individuals who
did not care for material gain but pursued their activities to improve themselves, build
character and contribute to science.

This moral superiority of natural science created a hunger for specimen-

trophies that often led in the age of preservation in the 20th century; excessive killing
for specimens did not violate any codes of hunting. The specimen collector William
Hornday on an expedition to collect specimens of Nilgiri langur, short a large number
of monkeys of which less than half could preserved as specimens and celebrated his
success.48 As E.P. Stebbing mentioned in his diary that “later day’s so-called
scientific expeditions for the purpose of adding specimens to great Museum … For in
same instances these so-called scientific missions have simply became glorified
slaughter and butcher expeditions financed by a wealthy man in the name of science.
The old time butcher had not disappeared. He still exists and with modern rifles his
power for slaughter as we have seen is infinitely more terrible. … Such a permit
should never be allowed to take effect in any Game Sanctuary and permission to kill
in the name of science should be retained by the Supreme Government.”49

For the hunter naturalist, bagging the right specimen contained all the essential
thrills of chase, of classification and recording became essential requisites for
sportsman of the early 20th century. The collaboration between naturalists was
beneficial to both. Sportsman published their observations of animal behaviors in
various sporting journals and provided specimens for further study. Natural sciences
complimented their activities by providing information on animal’s habitats, habits

47 F.W. Champion, ‘The Jungle in Sunlight and Shadow’, New York, 1934, p. 51.
48 William T. Hornday, quoted in F.E. Piorer, ‘The Non-Human Primates of Nilgiris”, in Paul
Hockings eds. Blue Mountains, Delhi, 1989.
49 Stebbing, ‘The Dairy of Sportsman and Naturalist in India’, op.cit., p. 276.

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and anatomy enabling the hunter to manufacture superiority of the colonial hunt as
one bases on scientific principles.

Policy of Extermination and Selective Conservation: The colonial policy of

conservation of wild animals was selective in its approach and ran paralleled to the
policy of extermination of other species. And for the most part undertaken to support
the commercial interests and practical needs of British governance in India. Protecting
game was also critical for the continuance of the imperial sport hunting, as
predominantly evident from the denial of hunting rights to the local population.50
With changes in administrative structure in the decades following 1858, the
responsibility of undertaking measures against wild animals came to rest with the
Home Department of Government of India and with the general administration
departments in the provinces. The Board of Revenue gave rewards for the destruction
of carnivores. According to guidelines of the Home Department:

“I am determining the sum (of reward) to be granted, the collector will

be guided by the circumstances of the case; the size and ferocity of the
animals, the havoc committed by it, whether in carrying off of cattle or
the loss of human lines; and the danger attending its pursuit and the
personal courage display by the parties concerned in its destruction.”51

These normative values were given a more real form by rewarding the hunter
against the real and potential economic damage caused by the animals. However, as
rulers, the British were the first to invent a policy of vilification of wild species such
as tigers, leopards and wild pigs and to consent to the destruction of the same to suit
their vested interests and needs primarily to meet the needs of governance and
commerce.52 Before the British rule in India, there was no state proclamation
requiring the killing of wild animals or officially classifying them as ‘dangerous’.
While discussing state forestry projects and colonial commercial exploitation,
historian K. Sivaramakrishnan briefly but very usefully points out that the
extermination of carnivores, a process known as ‘Vermin eradication’, reached its
peak during the last decades of 19th century.53

50 S.E. Wilmot, ‘Forest Life and Sport in India’, op.cit., pp. 30-40.
51 Progs. No. 33, A, Proceedings of Home (Public) Dept., 1870; NAI.
52 Progs. No. 363, A., Home (Public), Dec. 1889, pp. 37-39. Results of the measures adopted for
exterminating wild animals. NAI.
53 K.Sivaramakrishnan, Modern Forests: State Making and Environmental Change in Colonial
Eastern India (Stanford, CA, 1999), p. 90.

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 Colonial preservation policy of Indian Wild animals was particularly selective,
for instance elephants were granted state protection as early as the 1870s,54 big
predatory animals – particularly tigers – ruthlessly exterminated as ‘vermin’. In
contrast to tigers, elephants in colonial India received a fairer deal. During the early
phase of British rule, the elephant was considered as the greatest threat to the upkeep
of colonial economy and agricultural base. For example Henry Baven, a major in the
Madras (in 1828) Native Infantry detailed now he had shot a wild elephant that was
coming from some grain field.55 But British attitudes toward the elephant gradually
began to take a different course from the mid 19th century onwards. As W.W. Hunter
reports that the capture of elephants in the Indian empire has became commercially
valuable to the British. In Assam province for example, during 1877-83, about 735
elephants were captured, yielding to the government revenue of 12, 173 pound
sterling.56

However, the importance of elephants had shifted from the battlefield in pre-
colonial times to every day trade and administration in India under British rule, where
their worth for communication and transport was recognized. Elephants under the rule
thus were brought into service for the transport of troops, access into jungles, hunts
and the timber trade. They were employed for large-scale assignments of logging, to
fell the heavy trees that weighed up in tons and drag them through streams and rivers
from the forested region, and then unloaded into trucks and boats with the advent of
the Indian railways, which necessitated timber extraction for the nascent railway
construction work, especially for laying down the rail sleepers, the British
acknowledged the economic worth of the elephant. Thus, the elephant’s workmanship
was engaged for constructing the Indian railways system too. However, these factors,
in fact, underline the role of the elephant as a ‘beast of burden’, and also paved the
way for the conservation of the elephant species.

In contrast, tigers represented the ultimate challenge to all respectable hunters

in the 19th and the early 20th centuries of all the Indian fauna, the tiger occupied the
uppermost position in the British imagination. Joseph Sramek has argued that ‘British
tiger hunting represented imperial domination not just of India’s politic but also of its

54 Elephant Preservation Act.

55 Major H. Bavan, Thirty years in India, London, 1839, pp. 257-58.
56 Sir W.W. Hunter, ‘The Indian Empire: Its Peoples, History, and Products’, London, 1886, p. 521
[reprint 2005, New Delhi].

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natural environment’.57 Of course, tigers were ruthlessly hunted and killed under the
auspices of the British to justify their vested colonial interests. The policy of game
preservation resulted in extermination drives as well. Animals like the other (seen to
be destructive to fish), and the rated (a member of the ferret tribe, perceived to be
destructive to birds), were included in the list of vermin to be exterminated.
Extermination drives also often included raptors and nearly all over India, rewards
were offered to kill the “notorious poachers and game be spoiler.”58

The presence of carnivores were also seen as a setback to the British efforts to
civilize Indian. Calling for the urgent measures against tigers and advocating the
system of bounties as most effective method for tiger extermination, H.S. Thomas,
acting magistrate of south Canada, argued in 1870:

“It was done in England with wolves, when the country was densely wood and
not so well armed as India now is. I venture to think it a stain on our administration
that at this date, the beast of pray should still contest in the field with us, and no man
dare leave his flocks out at night….”59

The method thought most appropriate for extermination of ‘noxious beasts’

was bounty hunting. The method not only satiated the hunger for trophies among
sportsman, but was also held to be more economical in the long run. By the end of
19th century the British were looking for more systematic methods to exterminate wild
animals through legislation. Consequently, approximately 80,000 tigers and 150,000
leopards were exterminated between 1875 and 1925.60 As Mahesh Rangarajan reports
on how a ‘war’ was waged by the colonial administration against wild beasts.61

Sainthill Eardley-Wilmot, who joined the Imperial Forest service in 1873,

believed that it was the duty of the British officer-hunter to secure ‘the good-will of
the wild tribes of the forests’, if his work was to provide a ‘considerable sum of
money’ to the colonial state.62 While incharge of Kheri division, Wilmot described

57 Joseph Sramek, Face him Like a Briton; Tiger Hunting, Imperialism, and British Masculinity in
Colonial India, 1800-1875,’ Victorian Studies, Vol. 48, No. 4 (2006), pp. 659-680, at p. 661.
58 File No. 99/1904, Proceedings of the Forest Department of United Provinces, Uttar Pradesh State
Archive. (Hereafter UPSA)
59 Progs. No. 45, Part A., Proceedings of Home (Public), 8 Feb. 1870.
60 Rangarajan, India’s Wildlife History: An Introduction, op.cit., p. 32.
61 Mahesh Rangarajan, The Raj and the Natural World: The War Against “Dangerous Beasts” in
Colonial India, Studies in History, 14 (1998), pp. 265-99, at p. 299.
62 Eardley Wilmot, Forest Life and Sport in India, London, 1910, pp. 9-14, 24-5 and 89.

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now a Gujjar tribesman, trembling with rage, came to him begging him to
exterminate a tiger that had killed three of the villager’s cow. Wilmot afterwards,
went on to rescue the local from the tiger onslaught. He narrated such encounters as
though he was performing a mere social service to the locals and subsequently
justified hunting in defence of ordinary Indians and their livelihoods. In his early
career as a forest officer, Wilmot’s hunting party killed twenty tigers, panthers bears
and as many deer near the borders of the United Provinces and Nepal.

Wilmot’s attitude towards the tiger was typical of the forest officials of his
time. For him, the tiger was nothing short of Vermin, and he suggested that the
extinction of tigers was only a matter of time:

“for no Government would face the rare opportunity which would be

afforded for misrepresentation by taking steps to protect so interesting
a beast from extermination. Pity it is that he (the tiger) must disappear,
and with him (the tiger) one of the greatest charm of forest life, and
also a form of sport that has been not only enjoyable, but beneficial, to
hundreds of exiles”.63

On account of ferocity of big carnivores in India further crystallized the

conviction that human settlement was incompatible with wild animals. A consistent
and persistent drive for extermination was launched against the carnivores. In addition
to the great cats, local government were empowered to undertake measures to
eradicate animals considered destructive like wolves, jackals, bear, wild dog etc.64

While, the colonial government acknowledged that herbivores, like pig,

porcupine and members of deer family, caused considerable crop damage and it was
appropriate to kill them wherever they found it necessary.65

Wild Animals Conservation:

From the very beginning, at one level, imperial hunting was closely linked
with conservation. A constant point of interest for colonial administrators and
naturalists was to safeguard wildlife for the recreational activity of hunting. Later,
with the advancement of colonial scientific forestry and the exploration of Indian
fauna and flora, there emerged a genuine concern for the endangered species. Imperial

63 Ibid., p.120.
64 File No. 99/1904, Progs. No7, Proceedings of the United Provinces Forest Department, UPSA.
65 F.W. Champion, ‘Preserving Wild Life in United Provinces, 04’, op.cit., p. 83.

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administrators, who were hunters turned naturalists, became advocates of
conservation based on years of expertise and observation of Indian fauna and flora. A
close focus on these efforts reveals critical information on widely written about
aspects of the exploitation of wildlife, as well as the cultural attitudes that were
imprinted in the British colonial mindset.

Initially authored by British sportsmen and forest officers, the earliest writings
on wildlife conservation reflect their understanding of the native practices of shikar as
well as appreciation for Indian wildlife. Colonial hunting accounts also offered critical
reports on animal population and their hunts, as well as wider habitats. Imperial
sportsmen such as William Rice (1857), Henry Shakespear (1862) and James Forsyth
(1889), among others, gave detailed pictures of a happy environmental balance with
great heard of hooves animals and numerous large predators co-existing alongside
populated areas.66 Captain James Forsyth of Bengal staff corps observed that during
the later half of the 19 century, forests in United Provinces and Central India were
home of significant population of tigers.67 The expansion of the Indian Forest Service
also enabled forest officer to hunt and study Indian fauna and flora more closely.
Benjamin Will points out that ‘Shikar might have played a more obvious role in
keeping the multiple functions of forests presents in the minds of foresters’. Hunting
was a form of recreation that got a forest officer out into the woods “to explore many
places he might not have otherwise inspected.”68 Thus, Edward Stebbing, who had
worked for sixteen years as a forest officer in India in the early 20th century, found
that his routine duties offered unique opportunities for observing and studding animal
life in Indian jungles. His profession afforded and yielded facilities for the enjoyment
of unparalleled sport of large and small game. According to him, the Indian Forest
Service would appeal to “all young Britons possessed of a love of science, a love of
natural history, and a love of sport.”69

While systematic destruction of wildlife for sport marked the end of the 19th
century, gradually, from the beginning of the 20th century, a perceived change in

66 William Rice, Indian Game: From Quail to Tiger London, 1884; and Henry Shakespear, ‘The Wild
Sport of India’, London, 1860.
67 James Forsyth, The Highland of Central India: Notes on their Forest and Wild Tribes in India,
Chicago, 1984, pp. 230, 273 & 292.
68 Benjamin Will, Conservation, Exploitation and Cultural Change: in the Indian Forest Services’,
1875-1927, Environmental History, 11, No. 2 (April 2006), pp. 319-43 at p. 327.
69 Edward Stebbing, Jungle by Way in India, London, 1910, p. viii.

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attitude developed towards the hunted species and the appreciation of nature colonial
officer-hunters adopted a position of ‘fairness’ which collectively resulted in a
growing conservation movement. As J.A. Mangan and Callum Mckenzie point out,
the future protection of wildlife became a necessity of the imperial officer-hunter for
ensuring the future of game hunting. The British officer-hunter, therefore, became the
guarantor, whereby ‘game’ became ‘wildlife’ and ‘preservation’ became
‘conservation’.70

The process also drove a further wedge into the hunting community. As
conservation did not result in a blanket ban of hunting, the prerogatives came to be
more sharply defined. The arrangement and general type of habitat in which hunting
took place, the weapons used to hunt, and the relative importance of big game
animals, in turned determined the relative importance of the hunter within controlled
regime.

In colonial India, hunters like G.P. Sanderson and E.F. Burton emphasized the
‘level-headed shikar’ in the later part of the 19th century. By the turn to the 20th
century, as we know from the life of Jim Corbett, Colonial Richard Burton and F.W.
Champion, notion of ‘wildlife’ and ‘conservation’ had their dedicated adherent.71
While tiger-hunt and pig-sticking continued as a highly ritualized form of elite
activity among the British upper strata and Indian princes, the aforementioned
colonial official wrote and articulated views defending the preservation of wildlife.

Jim Corbett (1875-1955) hunter turned conservationist, who specifically

directed his efforts towards the conservation of tigers and leopards. He emerged as a
unique individual in the late British rule. Before his turn towards conservation,
Corbett was a well-known hunter of man-eating tigers and leopards for thirty-two
years in the Garhwal region of the United Provinces, between 1907 and 1920 as well
as in the 1920s and 1930s. Corbett’s portrayal of the tiger as ‘gentleman’ however
stood out in contemporary wildlife thought and highlighted his emphasis in support of
Indian fauna, especially the tiger.72 With the help of Malcolm Hailey, the governor of
the United Provinces, and a series of efforts that were launched between 1933 and

70 Maghan and McKenzie, ‘Martial Masculinity in Transition’, p. 1243.

71 By the turn of 20th century, colonial hunters such as Jim Corbett and colonel Richard Burton
became the leading advocates of wild life conservation.
72 Jim Corbett, Man-eaters of Kumaon, London,1944, p. xv.

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1935, Corbett succeeded in the creation of a wildlife sanctuary in the Kumaon hills.73
In his later life, Corbett devoted his efforts solely towards wildlife protection,
advocated cameras instead of guns, and began to capture tigers on film. 74 Corbett and
Richard Burton75 represent significant interventions in the colonial program of
‘vermin eradication’ and conservation.

F.W. Champion, one of the leading naturalist in the first quarter of the 20th
century, also strongly advocated the camera instead of the gun. 76 Champion an officer
in the imperial forest department in the united provinces, was later to become the first
leading wildlife photographers in colonial India. He was also an inspiration to Jim
Corbett in introducing the art of wildlife photography. In 1934 champion noted that
animals such as blackbuck, the chital, and the game birds, both in the plains and the
hills across the united provinces and other parts of India, were hunted despite the
provision of colonial wildlife protection laws.77 Champion lamented that such heavy
shooting did not make ‘the work of the animal photographer any easier.’ He suggested
the use of camera as the medium of pursuit in capturing living animals, especially
felines in Indian jungles.

The last decade of the 19th century saw a proliferation of new “preservation
society” in Britain and in India which shared the concerns of existing game
associations over dwindling game numbers and reduction in trophy worthy
specimens. Comprising of prominent sportsmen and administrative officials, these
pressure groups were instrumental in campaigning for legislative intervention for the
protection of fauna. While it was generally claimed that the main cause for the
disappearance of wildlife was hunting by natives,78 some of the campaigners also
acknowledged the role of British hunter in this process. 79 Preservationists (naturalists)
argued that if game laws were not formulated and implemented, some game species
would even become extinct.80

73 Martin Booth, A Life of Jim Corbett, New Delhi, 1986,pp. 212-14.

74 R.E. Hawkins, Jim Corbett’s India, Oxford, 1978, pp. 241-42.
75 Richard Burton, an advocate of wildlife sanctuary.
76 F.W. Champion, With a Camera in Tiger Land, London,1927.
77 F.W.Champion, The Preservation of Wildlife in India in the United Provinces, pp. 10 4-110
(Journal).
78 E.P. Stebbing, Diary of Sportsman and Naturalist in India, op.cit., p.
79 Ibid.
80 R.W.Burton, The Preservation of Wildlife in India,Benglore,1953,Wildlife Preservation in India:
India’s Vanishing Asset,p.100

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 The colonial government no doubt ruled by its own imperatives when it came
to conservation. The early game law of the late 19th century were a precursor to the
establishment of the protected areas for wildlife preservation in first decade of the 19th
century, a brief analysis of the acts and debates also reveals the constraints that
fathered preservation policies in India. The debate around game preservation revealed
that the colonial state had to balance the economic interests of the state, especially
agriculture revenue with game protection,81 and at the same time deal with intense
protest on limiting opportunities of hunt from its own officers. 82

It was the then governor Lord Napier whose keen interest saw the formation of
Nilgiri Game Association in 1877 and the passing of the subsequent legislation of the
Nilgiri Game and Fish preservation Act II of 1879.83 The all laid down new rules for
the establishment of a close season, preventing the shooting of the game animals and
birds of certain specific kinds and regulating fishing licenses. In addition laid down
penalties for violation of game provisions.84 The passing of the Elephant Prevention
Act in the same year was the first in the series of enactments by the colonial
government in the area of conservation. It was followed by the wild Birds Protection
Act of 1887,85 and Wild Birds and Animals Protection Act of 1912. The later in
particular was extremely effective in imposing close and open hunting seasons, also
mandating a license to hunt that thereon became functional in British India.86 Eric
Strahorn describes the 1912 provision as the ‘new era of conservation’, as it devised
rules specially to protect the tiger species from decline by prohibiting tiger shoots in
the night, observing the ‘harvest’ season of endangered wild animals, and imposing
restrictions on the baggage of game, besides preserving charismatic birds and
animals.87 In addition, the Bengal Rhinoceros Preservation Act was passed in 1932 to
protect the rare one horned rhinoceros species.88 The Act of 1912 was amended in the
year 1935 by Wild Birds and Animal Protection Act (amendment) 1935 (27 of 1935).
While each of these Acts extended the list of animals that could be shot or introduced

81
82 Notes and Oders, proceeding of the United Provinces, Forest Dep., file no.99/1904,UPSA.
83 W.Francis, The Nilgiris,Madras,1908,p.333
84 The Nilgiris Games and the Fish Preservation Act of 1879, NAI.
85 The Wild Bird Protection Act, 1887 (10 of 1887), Government of India, Legislative Department,
Calcutta, 1887, NAI.
86 The Wild Bird and Animals Protection Act 1912, Act No. 08 of 1912 dated 8 Sept. 1912; Stebbing,
‘Diary of Sportsman and Naturalist in India’, op.cit., pp. 269-77.
87 Eric A. Strahorn, An Environmental History of Post-Colonial North India, New York, 2009, p. 33.
88 The India Code I, Indian Ministry of Law, Delhi, 1955, p. 58.

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a limit on the numbers of heads of a particular species, it also created greater space for
provincial administration to deal with game preservation to the best of their abilities.
The Central Government was unable to evolve a uniform set of laws that could be
enforced across the subsequent. The flexible nature of these All Indian Acts reflects
the complex diversity in the situation in various regions. For most part, provincial
authorities made rules that could work the best in their areas with varying success.

I now focus on the conservation in the United Provinces which began with an
enquiry initiated by the Government of India in 1900 for further legislation needed to
preserve game. In 1904 Government of India asked the provinces to give their opinion
on preservation while keeping two cardinal principles in mind. First, where there was
any conflict between the interests of cultivation and those of game preservation, the
latter must give way. Second, the destruction of wild beasts dangerous to human
beings and cattle must not be interfered with by any arrangements for game
preservation. In response to the Government of India, the United Provinces Forests
Department proposed several measures for better protection of wildlife (Bird) in 1904.
According to G. Bowers, the Collector of Saharanpur, the new regulations in 1904
“practically close big game shooting not only to district officials, but to everyone
except forest officers”.89

Though the Forest Department conceded to exemptions to senior officer the

gazetted service towards the end of 1904, it still retained the power to grant admission
into Reserved Forests. With the help of forest and game legislation, the United
Provinces Forest Department had managed to acquire great power during early 20 th
century. During the 1930s when preservation in the United Provinces called for the
constitution of a new Game Department, autonomous of the Forest Department, it
successfully blocked the idea by claiming that game preservation by the Forest
Department had “been a labour of love” and was effective.90 F.W. Champion, one of
the leading naturalist of the 20th century stated that:

“The United Provinces Forest Officers as a class are and always have
been extremely sympathetic towards wild animals… It would be a great
mistake to remove the wild animals inside Reserved Forests from the
protection of the Forest Department. The present system is working
very well, and such action would be regarded as slur on Forest Officers

89 File No. 99/1904, Notes and Orders, Extracts from the Proceedings of the United Provinces, Forest
Department, State Archive (UPSA)

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 and would alienate the all-important sympathy of the powerful forest
department.”91

Their claims were validated in 1935 when during a wildlife conference, its
role in preservation was lauded and the idea of creating a separate wildlife department
(doing rounds since the early 20th century) was discarded. By 1908, the Government
of India had arrived at the conclusion that the line of action originally contemplated
should be abandoned, and that legislation of a very simple nature needs be undertaken
for protection of those wild birds and animals that are threatened with extermination.
It was felt that the diversity of regional conditions made it impossible to set out
clearly defined preservation schemes. Local government continued to make
regulations as regards the nature of protection of various species. For instance, in the
areas where deer and antelope caused considerable crop damage, not only was the
open season extended in Reserved Forests but the shooting of hinds was also allowed
outside its bounds. As F.W. Champion stated that

“On the other hand some wild animals, such as deer, do seriously
interfere with the management and revenue of valuable forests, and the
forest officer cannot allow deer to increase to an excessive extent ….
Again, the proportion of hinds may have excessive, with consequent
deterioration in the size of stages, so that some of the hinds have had to
be short off; but such destruction is stopped as soon as the position
becomes normal once again.”92

Most local regulations sought to prohibit activities like shooting over water
holes, snaring and netting by the natives outside Reserved Forests. Since, entry to
Reserved Forests was prohibited in the closed periods and was regulated through
licenses in the open periods, it was hoped that these activities of the native, could be
controlled inside them. It was accepted that though it would be impossible to enforce
the rule that prohibited shooting by natives over water holes outside Reserved Forests
and surreptitiously inside them it was still necessary to retain such as rule as an
indication of the government’s desire to control unsportsman like activities.93

While, debates on game preservation raged within colonial bureaucracy, the

political opinion among some urban Indians questioned the government’s policy of
restricting arms to native Indians. In particular native legislators argued that wild

91 F.W. Champion, Wild Fauna Preservation in the United Provinces, Journal of Society for the
Protection of Fauna in the Empire – xviii, 1933, pp. 22-23.
92 F.W. Champion, ‘The Preservation of Wildlife in India’, No. 04, op.cit., p. 82.
93 E.P. Stebbing, Diary of Sportsman and Naturalist in India, op.cit., p.

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animals were wreaking havoc on life and property in the countryside and that the
cultivators should be armed to protect themselves and their crops. The official view of
the problem was that the decrease in game number was due to the natives and the
success of preservation depended on the control of native’s access to guns. Mr.
Rodgers of the Forest Department argued that though there would be difficulty in
bringing the control of guns into practical politics, firearms should be controlled as
they were controlled.

“In all civilized countries for the purpose of the preservation of law
and order and are so controlled in British Isles. There seems no reason
why the village shikari and license of humble position in India should
be entrusted with a weapon which he can commit indiscriminate
destruction.”94

There were others like A.J. Cook, the Magistrate of Jalaun, who felt that the
argument that the natives were destroying game with weapons meant for crop
protection was an exaggeration: ‚A taste for sport is not common among natives of
India, and a large proportion of the guns held under license in form XI are used
merely to frighten off animals and not to kill them. Many of the guns are seldom or
never discharged.”95 Despite the view of administrators like Crook, the common
perception and thrust of policy making continued to be directed against the native.

Necessity to Preserve:

By 1920s, as the national movement grew, this also opposition had gained
momentum. In 1921, Kunwar Anand Singh, an elected legislator to the U.P.
Legislature asked if the government would consider exceptions from licenses for the
natives and ensure at least one gun free from licenses for protection. The government
response was that it did not deem it necessary or desirable to lift the prohibition of
guns and started that “owing to Non-Cooperation campaign in Kumaon the
distribution of licenses has been hindered and cannot be resumed until the return of
the district to normal conditions.”96 For the United Provinces Government however,
the task of defending itself against elected legislators became increasingly difficult.
During a council session in 1925, the subject of protection from wild animals came up

94 Progs. No. 44, File No. 367 of 29, 1929, Department of Education, Health and Land [Extract from
Proceedings].
95 Letter from A.J. Cook, Magistrate, Jalaun, to Commissioner Allahabad, dated 2nd Aug., 1904;
Forest Department, File No. 99/1904, Progs. No. 22(a), UPSA.
96 Proceeding of United Province Legislative Council, 28th March, 1921.

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in connection with a discussion with the Arms Act. According to another legislator,
G.B. Pant, despite the savages of Rudraprayag man-eating leopard, “all that the
government did was to withhold or cancel licenses.”97 The government hurriedly
sought to clarify that the government had not refused any application for a gun license
by any person resident in the area where the Rudraprayag man eater had been
operating and subscriptions were being raised to fund hunters to kill it. 98 Pant argued
that the British attitude was one of extending preferential treatment to certain classes:
while restricting shooting and fishing rights to the local population, it had exempted
all gazetted officers and Indian title holders bear arms and shoot game. He claimed
that the damage to cattle and crops due to wild animals was tremendous.

“If statistic were collected, it would not be surprising if the aggregate

loss came to about a quarter of the total local out turn for the year…
apart from the incalculable loss of human lives the depredations of wild
animals cost Kumaon about 36 lakhs in agriculture and live stock. This
enormous wastage is largely due to the reservation of extensive tracks in
the neighbourhood of populated areas and to the paucity of arms
licences…There is also an Act penalizing cruelty to animals. A
government possessed of a tender heart for the beast of the jungle would
ordinarily be expected to assess human life at its proper value but the
general policy of disarmament of the entire community followed side by
side with reservation of extensive forests in the immediate vicinity of
populated tracks is opt to raise a suspicion that the government cares
more for the protection and preservation of wild animals than of their
human neighbours”.99

On a more somber note, some sportsmen felt that the extinction of game was only a
matter of time. W.H. Cobb, the commissioner of Meerut, pointed to the overwhelming
success of the “civilizing mission”. According to him, the disappearance of jungles
drainage of swamps, extension of cultivation, diversion of rivers to canals,
improvement of communications, extension of railways and increase of human
population that followed British rule and expansion impacted game adversely.

“The Indian ruler of by gone days expected his subjects to provide him
with tigers and stags at the expense of their cattle and their crops. Can a
government which lays down as first considerations the protection of
crops and the destruction of dangerous beasts claim at all to have
inherited from him the royal prerogative of sport?

The only persons who can claim to have inherited it and they do claim it
and exercise it – are the English officers, civil and military, who are

97 Proceeding of United Provinces Legislative Council 31st Jan. 1925.

98 Ibid, Forest Dept., File No. 214/192, Progs.No.22, UPSA.
99 G B Pant, Forest Problems in Kumaon, Allahabad: 1922.

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 stationed in the country. But year by year the prerogative dwindles, and
such personal and local influences as they are able to exert becomes less
and less effective; they cannot preserve game, they can only retard its
extermination.”100

The problem of protecting natives and protecting game seem inherently

conflicting and contradictory. Despite their commitment to game preservation, the fair
minded British Sahib had to compromise on wildlife protection to further the
improvement of the native. Such argument was later used to bolster the movement
towards the creation of game reserves.

Agenda to conserve (sanctuary): In a period that saw extension of cultivation,

reduction of forested areas and expanding population, mere preservation laws could
not go very far in either protecting human life or killing wild animals. Since economic
development was more important than conservation of animal species in terms of
overall state policy, it was felt that dilemma could only be resolved by separating the
functions of the land into areas for growing crops and for game preservation more
rigidly. The establishment of the first game sanctuary in Assam in early 1900s was a
result of this mode of thinking within officialdom. Some conservationists were of the
opinion that if wild animals were secluded from habitation it would serve a dual
purpose. On the one hand, the animals would remain well protected, and on the other,
destruction of life and property of human would be minimized. Conservationists thus
contemplated the setting up of wildlife sanctuaries to separate animal habitats and
human settlements from each other. In 1897, the idea of sanctuaries had found
popularity with some officers of the provincial forest departments. As R.H. Thompson
the conservator of Forest North Circle of Central Provinces wrote:

“The formation of sanctuaries for game in which no shooting is

permitted except by special permission of the imperial govt. it
undoubtedly the only proper and rational course of action to pursue if
interesting fauna of the country is to be preserved from extinction …..
locales for such sanctuaries should be cut off from circumstances that
allow extension of cultivation and animal husbandry.”101

The formation of the first sanctuaries from the first decade of the 20th century onwards
can be seen as impetus towards solving the human wildlife conflict. The idea of

100 Letter from W.H. Cobb, Magistrate of Meerut, to Commissioner, Meerut, dated 20th Aug. 1904,
Proceedings of the UP Forest Department, File No. 99/1904, Progs. No. 24(a), UPSA.
101 Proceedings, Rev. and Agri. Dept. (Kheddah) B, Progs. No. 707, July 1897, NAI.

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“sanctuary” was highly romantic. It was meant to be an area where wildlife could live
in its “natural state.”

The idea of sanctuaries and national parks however gained popularity only
after the horrors of the violence experienced in the First World War. The move
towards pacifism, concern about diminishing wildlife, and the concept of conservation
due to extensive campaigns by preservationists had brought about a visible change in
attitudes. F.W. Champion, one of the leading naturalist in the first quarter of the 20 th
century, and an officer in the imperial Forest Department in the UP, was later to
become the first leading wildlife photographer in colonial India. He strongly
advocated camera instead of the gun.102 Frustrated at the obsession with trophies and
continued decline of wildlife, he commented.

“I have never able to understand why natural photography does not

become more popular in a country where very other Britisher is keen on
Shikar …. Keen to such an extent that no hardship, no privation is to
great, provided only that the unfortunate quarry is brought to bag.”103

He also countered the justification given by many hunters that the jungle was a cruel
place by stating that “cruelty for cruelty’s sake is a vice practiced only by the self
styled lord or creation.”As a forest officer and a lover of nature he hoped that his book
The Jungle in Sunlight and Shadow would generate more sympathy for nature.

“I am trying throughout this book to show that nature is not cruel that wild
creatures do not live a life of terror, forever trembling at the thought of the awful
thing that may happen to them at any moment …. And for the most part, live a happy
care free life of physical fitness and keen enjoyment.”104 Such a view was a departure
in an era where most self proclaimed nature lovers who campaigned for preservation
of animals only to ensure a ready stock of game for hunting.

The idea of conservation was popularized by bodies like the Bombay Natural
History Society which was established in the 1880s. The organization that had
positioned itself as popularized the natural sciences among the reading public,
regularly published articles on the importance of each species of animals. Speaking of

102 F.W. Champion, With a Camera in Tiger Land, London, 1927.

103 F.W. Champion, The Jungle in Sunlight and Shadow’, 1996, Dehradun, p. 97. [1st Published
in1934].
104 Ibid., p. 34.

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government efforts to create sanctuaries, it sought to clarify the government
objectives:

“The term ‚game preservation‛ is really to some extent a misnomer, and

it may perhaps create the impression that the preservation of fauna is of
interest only to the sportsman. One of the first things we have to do is to
bring it home to the public generally that what we are talking about is
simply the protection of all wildlife. It is simply asserting the right to live
of undomesticated animals and plants of the world ….”105

Other argued that natural science and preservation of animals were dependent
on each other; one could not survive without the other. Theodore Hubback, a member
of the society for protection fauna in the empire, argued that “the hit or miss method”
of a budget allowance for what is erroneously called “game preservation” would
never achieve the saving of our wild life.”106 He felt the only way to insure against
extinction of species was the careful understanding of ecology and animal numbers
which was possible only in a natural and protected setting of reserves like national
park individuals like Fraser Darling extended this view by pointing out that national
park were needed not just for furthering the cause of game preservation but for wider
knowledge of ecology and cycles in nature.107 The main impetus of this thinking in
India however, came from the metro pole. Preservation associations here had been
“championing” the cause of game preservation since beginning of the 20th century. By
the 1920s, they looked to extend their activities to the subcontinent. Their efforts
found enthusiastic reception in likeminded people, who also formed similar
associations to campaigning for wildlife protection.

Preservation: In international arena the move towards national park had been gaining
momentum since early 20th century. By the 1920s, wildlife was being viewed as an
international asset and it was argued that, “precious fauna does not belong to
provinces and states but whole of India and further to the whole world therefore her
protection is the task of the Central Authority.” 108 One of the chief conduits of this
metropolitan urge to conserve all fauna came from the highly influential society for

105 Editorial Comment, Journal of Bombay Natural History Society, Vol. XXXIV, 1929, 607.
106 Theodore Hubback, “Principles of Wildlife Conservation”, Journal of BNHS Vol. 40, No. 1, 1938,
reproduced in Lt. Burton, ‘The Preservation of Wildlife in India, A Complication with summarized
index of contents, 1953, pp. 90-99.
107 Fraser Darling, Wildlife Conservation, Journal of Society for the Protection of Fauna Empire, Part
XXIII, 1934, 24.
108 Theodore Hubback, “Principles of Wildlife Conservation, Society”, No.1, Vol.40, 1938;
Reproduced in Burton, The Preservation of Wildlife in India, 92.

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the preservation of fauna in the Empire (SPFE) that was set up in 1903 in an effort to
stop the widespread destruction of animals in Africa. Its mandate slowly extended to
controlling the decrease of wildlife throughout the empire. Its core membership
comprised of elderly big game hunters and patrons included prominent politicians and
naturalists.109 By 1930s its members played important roles in two international
conferences convened to discuss standards and legislation affecting the protection of
African flora and fauna. The conference in 1931 resulted in the signing of a
convention by a number of African powers to protect flora and fauna. This convention
formed a basis for demands of this society and its sister organizations in India for a
similar convention in Asia. It was the period between two world wars the society also
became associated with the American Committee of International Wildlife Protection
and through 1920s and 1930s, it pushed for the formation of sanctuaries and National
parks.

The records of the Education, Health and Land Department of the Government
of India show that they were very proactive in soliciting support from the top officials
of the colonial bureaucracy. Lord Onslow as a patron of SPFE wrote the viceroy
Linlithgow to encourage the Government of various provinces to support the
expansion of its membership and activities in India. The viceroy felt it was his “duty”
to encourage such an association and issued orders that governors when approached,
should try to cooperate to the SPFE.110 In the International Conference for the
Protection of Nature held in Paris in July 1931, the British Prime Minister Ramsay
MacDonald sent a massage where he clearly indicated the policy of the British
government:

“In the territories for which they are responsible His Majesty’s
Government in the United Kingdom regard themselves as trustees for the
Protection of Nature not only in the interests of their present inhabitants,
but in those of the world at large and of future generations”.111

In India, similar ideas were encouraged through numerous preservation

associations as well as institutions like the Bombay Natural History Society that also
had close links with the society for the protection of fauna in the Empire. In United

109 A List of Historical Records of the Fauna Preservation Society, Compiled by Phillipa Bassett
Centre of Urban and Regional Studies and Institute of Agricultural History, University of Reading,
Aug. 1980.
110 Progs. Of the Dept. of Education, Health and Lands, GOI, 22-7/37, NAI.
111 Ibid.

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Provinces, the Association for the Preservation of Game in United Provinces
(henceforth APUP), founded in 1920s, was a powerful body and one of the most
active campaigners of the National Parks Bills. Like the SPFE, APUP’s stated
objective was to launch “extensive propaganda by bringing like-minded individuals
together.”112 This association headed by Jim Corbett and Hasan Abid Jafry and like
the Nilgiri Game Association, seems to have been successful at soliciting the support
of important officials. Not only was Mr. F. Canning, IFS Chief Conservator of Forests
United Provinces a member of the association but it also secured the patronage of
Lord Hailey, the Governor of United Provinces, after whom the first national park in
India was initially named.

Just as SPFE played a pivotal role in calling for and in organization of the
international conferences on African fauna held in Europe, the APUP encouraged an
All-India conference to deliberate on the question of wildlife preservation and to
consider if the African convention could be extended to India.

National Parks By the 1930s, though the idea of taming the wild frontier had not
completely died out, the “naturalists” made sure that their voice was heard by the
powerful. Stuart Baker, an observer for Government of India in the International
Conference for the protection of fauna and flora of Africa in 1933, was impressed by
the idea of reserves and national parks and advocated the forming of such entities in
India:

You cannot eradicate the hunting instincts from man. ‚”Where man is he
kills”. In the African national parks the most wonderful thing is the astonishing
tameness of the animals. They are no longer hunted and they have, therefore, no
longer any fear of man. Surely, it would be a wonderful thing for India to have such a
national parks in each province where wild life could remain unmolested and where
man would be free to enjoy the wonderful spectacle of wild animals, which are no
longer afraid of him.113

112 Annual Report of the Association for the Preservation of Game in the United Provinces, 1933.
113 D. Stewart, Observer for the Government of United Provinces, Report on the International
Conference for the Protection of the Fauna and Flora of Africa, London, 1933 and the Convention
Relative to the Preservation of Fauna and Flora Agreed to by the Conference, The United
Provinces Forest Department, and File No. 256/1933. Page. 7.

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 The idea to form national parks, he argued, not only respected the long-
standing ethos of the country, but in contemporary situation national parks provided
“the means by which the clash of interest between man and animals is obviated.” 114
However, the move towards national parks was not embraced by all. In 1935, the
combined efforts of the APUP and a powerful forest department, the National Park
Bill were introduced in legislature. During the All India called on the question of
wildlife preservation, Mr. Canning pointed out that reserves as proposed by the
African Convention would lead to lot difficulties: “Our circumstances are very
different. We proposed a park in the United Provinces but it is not a park in the sense
of this convention, that is, we do not propose to stop forest work in it at all.”115 This
was a remarkable departure from the national parks model being advocated in Africa
and North America as wild places where animals were undisturbed.

In 1935, in response to the efforts of APUP to organize an all-India conference

on the question of wildlife legislation, the Forest Department of the Government of
India, decided to hold on an official all India conference on the subject. The agenda
included a discussion on the convention adopted in 1933 by the International
Conference for the protection of the Fauna and Flora of Africa and the desirability of
creating reserves on the lines advocated by the convention. In a lengthy memo,
echoing the voice of SPFE, and the APUP, the Forest department stressed the urgency
for more efficacious measures for the preservation in India: “Time has come when
courageous and sure methods should be adopted in desirable since the political
destinies of India are on the anvil of Reform and it will be a sorry day if we fail to
give proof to practice wisdom at thisjuncture118”.

The concern with instituting game preservation as a clearly define policy of

the state was largely due to the increasing number of Indians in the administrative
service canning, who had earlier clarified that the United Provinces Forest department
would not halt forestry operation, stated the objective of creating a national park:
“Our object in calling it a National Park is to have a sanctuary which is established by

114 Ibid.
115 Proceedings of the All India Conference for the Preservation of Wildlife, 1935.

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legislation and which cannot be effected by executive order. That is the difference we
make and it is a material differences.”116

The National Park Bill was passed by the United Provinces Legislative
Assembly in April 1935 paving the way for the declaration of the Hailey National
Park.117 The United Provinces Forest Department had been able to effectively manage
conflicting interests and political opposition to reassert its control over wildlife over
large sections of forests. And while British hunters continued to hunt in other forests,
the Hailey National Park became an ultimate symbol of British paternalism and their
success in fulfilling the self appointment role as a trustee of nature in the Empire.

However, before the commencement of British rule, the forest area which now
constitute Corbett National Park were the property of the ruling powers, and some
parts of this reserves, particularly the flatter patches and gentles slopes on lower hills
along the Ramnagar used to be under cultivation. As late as in 1868, the management
of the area was taken over by the forest department and cultivation was discontinued
and cattle stations were removed. It was sometime in 1907 when the possibility of
creating a game sanctuary in these forests was considered by the British Government
for the first time. But it took nearly twenty nine years, till 1936, when the idea took
the final shape, and the area became the India’s first national park, simultaneously
with the enforcement of United Province National Park Act passed in 1935 and name
as Hailey National Park, after Sir Malcon Hailey, the then Governor of the state
(United Provinces.). Initially the park covered an area of 323.75 km2. Subsequently,
in 1954 after independence, the reserved was renamed as Ramganga National Park
and finally in 1956 as Corbett National Park, as a home age to Jim Corbett, the
famous author and wildlife conservationist who spent a large part of his life in this
region and made special contribution to the creation of the park.118

116 Callum McKenzie, The British Big-Game Hunting Tradition, Masculinity and Fraternalism with
Particular Reference to “the Shikar Club” Sports Historian 201, 2000, pp. 70-96.
117 Renamed Corbett National Park in 1957.
118 E.P. Gee, The Wildlife of India, New Delhi, 1964, pp. 90-93.

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