Just how ruthless British sporthunters could be in their relentless pursuit of India’s wildlife during the Raj can be discerned from the writings of Sir William Rice. William Rice was a lieutenant in the 25th Bombay Regiment, and described in his hunting memoirs, his role in 156 grand hunts over a span of 5 years, during which he killed 68 tigers and injured 30, thus hunted a total of 98 tigers, killed only 4 leopards and injured 3, therefore hunted a total of 7 leopards, and killed 25 bears and injured 26, and thus hunted a total of 51 bears.
Rice felt that readers might suspect exaggeration on his┬аpart, and duly named 7 officers as eyewitnesses to his bloody handiwork. Most of the aforementioned animals were hunted in the areas of Gandhi Sagar, Jawahar Sagar, Rana Pratap Sagar, Bijoliyan, Mandalgarh, Bhainsrorgarh in Rajasthan.┬аIf you are a wildlife lover, you are unlikely to not want to curse Rice after reading every page of his memoirs. However, if we read history whilst flowing in a river of emotion, then we are liable to miss out on the real picture of that era, and the anecdotes penned by William Rice are very relevant to┬аtiger conservation today.
‘Jaat panther charging’ from Tiger Shooting in India : Being an account of Hunting Experiences on Foot in Rajpootana, During the Hot seasons from 1850 to 1854 by Sir William Rice. By panther, Rice means leopard
Rice once wrote that he was puzzled that he did not find a large animal to hunt in the forest of the village of Ambha, ┬аlocated on the other side of the Chambal river in front of Bhainsrorgarh after spending five days there. He was then informed that some pastoralists had recently poisoned 2-3 tigers with arsenic. It seems that back then, between the years 1850-1854, to poison a tiger for lifting cattle was a very common practice.
‘Order of procession following up a wounded tiger’ from Tiger Shooting in India : Being an account of Hunting Experiences on Foot in Rajpootana, During the Hot seasons from 1850 to 1854 by Sir William Rice.
At present, it is not easy to guess just how common retaliatory killings of tigers by poisoning are. In the last decade, at least 5 tigers have been poisoned to death in┬аRanthambhore Tiger Reserve.┬а These 5 tigers were confirmed cases of poisoning by government laboratories. We don’t know how many such cases have not come to the fore. According to these data reports by Tiger Watch –┬аhttps://tigerwatch.net/status-of-tigers-in-ranthambhore-tiger-reserve/, it is known from studying the disappearance data of Ranthambhore tigers during the last 10 -11 years, on average at least 3 tigers go missing every year.┬а However, in the last year 2020-21, this number has alarmingly climbed to 12-┬аhttps://tigerwatch.net/the-missing-tigers-of-ranthambhore-2020-2021/.┬аIt is unclear just how many of these missing tigers are the result of negative human intervention.
‘Panic at Deypoora’ from Tiger Shooting in India : Being an account of Hunting Experiences on Foot in Rajpootana, During the Hot seasons from 1850 to 1854 by Sir William Rice.
William Rice described that when the tiger hunted the cow, the pastoralists swore revenge, and when the tiger was away from the kill, they made some long vertical incisions in the dead cow’s back and filled them with arsenic. Along with this, Rice also wrote that the powder of a red coloured berry also used to serve as poison in the same vein.The ‘ berries’ were in all likelihood, of the tree Strychnos Nux-vomica, locally known as┬аKuchla, a common, and much-favoured poison in those days. Neither poison has a distinct smell, so tigers would ingest it while eating large chunks of meat, only to die soon after. Nowadays, irate livestock owners poison cattle kills by injecting them with insecticides.
Even Ramsingh Mogiya, a member of the Mogiya traditional┬аhunting tribe, and resident of Laxmipura (outside Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve), ┬аlamented that this was the method being used to destroy animals these days, and that it is unfortunately on the rise. It seems that some hunters, whether it was William Rice or members of the Mogiya tribe, are saddened when confronted with wildlife being destroyed in this way.
References:
Rice, W. (1857).┬а┬аTiger-shooting in India: Being an account of hunting experiences on foot in Rajpootana, during the hot seasons from 1850 to 1854. Smith, Elder and Co., London, 219pp.
Authors:
Dr. Dharmendra Khandal (L)┬аhas worked as a conservation biologist with Tiger Watch – a non-profit organisation based in Ranthambhore, for the last 16 years. He spearheads all anti-poaching, community-based conservation and exploration interventions for the organisation.
Mr. Ishan Dhar (R) is a researcher of political science in a think tank. He has been associated with Tiger Watch’s conservation interventions in his capacity as a member of the board of directors.
Tiger Shooting in India : Being an account of Hunting Experiences on Foot in Rajpootana, During the Hot seasons from 1850 to 1854
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Dr. Dharmendra Khandal (L)┬аhas worked as a conservation biologist with Tiger Watch – a non-profit organisation based in Ranthambhore, for the last 16 years. He spearheads all anti-poaching, community-based conservation and exploration interventions for the organisation.
Mr. Ishan Dhar (R) is a researcher of political science in a think tank. He has been associated with Tiger Watch’s conservation interventions in his capacity as a member of the board of directors.
Colonel Kesri Singh, in one of his books┬а (One Man and a Thousand Tigers published in 1959), mentions Nathu Bawariya, a┬а traditional tribal hunter from Ranthambhore, who aided him in tracking a “troublesome tiger”, and apprised him in detail , of the purported medicinal benefits of different kinds of bushmeat. This is the first instance of a traditional hunting tribal being written about in the same context as Ranthambhore and it’s tigers. Whilst mentioning him, Col. Kesri Singh also described the long history of Nathu’s tribe in Ranthambhore, and their unparalleled knowledge of wildlife and junglecraft.
It was perhaps with Col. Singh’s assistance (he did manage the Shikarkhana of the erstwhile princely state of Jaipur after all), that Nathu’s son Mukan was employed in Ranthambhore as a forest guard. Mukan was quite possibly the first Bawariya to directly join the mainstream by working for a government agency. However, steady employment and accountability still being relatively alien concepts, Mukan eventually ‘sold’ this job for a pittance. For just a few rupees, Mukan had the paperwork of his government job changed, and handed them over to an opportunistic local. The latter was in fact, a wily upper caste man from the same village named Kajod Singh. However, whilst employed as a forest guard,┬а Mukan curiously started using the surname ‘Mogiya’, instead of ‘Bawariya’,┬а the name of his father’s tribe. There is a long and complex history behind this change.
Mukan Mogiya jubilantly dancing at a community wedding celebration (Photo: Dr. Dharmendra Khandal)
Although ‘Mogiya’ and ‘Bawariya’ refer to the same community, there are many painful secrets and fascinating stories behind the use of these two names, which are buried only in the hearts of the people of this tribe. The use of these names has historically been dependent on government policy.
The British Raj, under the Criminal Tribes Act – 1871, placed┬а 12 communities in┬а Rajasthan on the list of criminal tribes – Mina, Bhil, Bajaria, Kanjar, Sansi, Banjara, Bagaria, Nat, Nalak, Multani, Bhat┬а and Mogiya. It is said that the Kingdom of Mewar (Udaipur) first gave the name ‘Mogiya’ to┬а select Bawariya tribesmen. This is because some Bawariya tribesmen assisted the ruling house in quelling an insurrection led by Bhils or Minas (there are differing accounts).┬а The Mogiyas were thus considered close to the ruling house of Mewar. According to George Whitty Gayer’s 1909 book, Lectures on some criminal tribes of India and religious mendicants, the Maharaja of Mewar declared in a durbar that the loyal Bawariya tribesmen, “were to him as precious as the Moongas i.e. coral beads of his necklace”, and the same select tribesmen were then referred to first as ‘Moongias’, and then later ‘Mogiyas’.
Mukan and his family (Photo: Dr. Dharmendra Khandal)
Following their listing as one of the ‘criminal tribes’┬а under the Criminal Tribes Act – 1871, the young men of this tribe began using the surname ‘Mogiya’, in order to avoid facing the brunt of this discriminatory law. Around 1947, there were 127 tribes that the British kept under the ambit of this draconian law. Back then, the population of these tribes would have been approximately 1 crore 30 lakh (13 million). Stories of the indignities this law subjected these communities to are eye-opening, for example, the men were compelled to report to the nearest police station every week to register their presence, and if they were found outside of their designated areas, the full force of the law was brought down upon them.
India is a unique country with several castes, communities and creeds. Almost every individual is confined to the boundaries created by these divisions in different ways.┬а At present, such identities are assumed at birth. These identities may have once been related to occupation, which were first hereditary, and then evolved into distinct identity groups altogether.
In 1952, on the recommendation of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), India finally emancipated these 127 tribes from an outdated colonial schedule, and they were henceforth known as ‘Denotified Tribes’. However,┬а it was quite like scraping the top layer off a glued sticker, for there is still some sticky residue at the bottom that is very difficult to get rid off.
Mukan’s son, Bhajan Mogiya, a reformed tiger poacher (Photo: Dr. Dharmendra Khandal)
Mukan Mogiya’s family has a rather unique association with Tiger Watch Ranthambore. While one of his sons Govind served on our anti-poaching unit, our organization also caught two of his other sons, Kalu and Bhajan for poaching tigers and leopards, in collaborative anti-poaching operations with the Rajasthan Police. At the same time, 15 children from this family have been educated in our Mogiya Education Program (MEP), a relationship which continues to this day.
It was one of these children, an older boy, who suddenly declared one day that if he got some money,┬а he intended to change his surname from ‘Mogiya’ to ‘Bawariya’. I thought that this might be an effort at self-respect or individualism, but on the contrary, he responded that Mogiyas belong to the ‘Backward Classes’ (OBC) whereas Bawariyas are included in the ‘Scheduled Castes’ (SC) and are thus given greater priority when it came to free rations, education and employment. Therefore, reverting to ‘Bawariya’ two generations later was a beneficial move. He thus reverted to his great-grandfather’s surname and identity, by bribing a local government official with a mere Rs. 2500. Today, most of the children enrolled in the MEP have started using the surname ‘Bawariya’ again instead of ‘Mogiya’.
It is ironic that whilst people in villages do not distinguish between ‘Bawariya’ and ‘Mogiya’, the government considers them two distinct identities. In the recent past, researchers from the Anthropological Survey of India came to Tiger Watch to study the Mogiyas, believing them to be a distinct tribe they had ignored till now.
Bhajan’s son, Dilkush Bawariya. The 4th generation since Nathu Bawariya, and the first to receive a formal education. The Mogiya Education Programme (MEP) has been consistently supported by Sud-Chemie Pvt. Ltd. (Mr. Iskander Laljee) (Photo: Dr. Dharmendra Khandal)
In our 15 year experience of operating┬а the Mogiya Education Programme, which included a dormitory before the onset of┬а COVID 19, it became evident on many an occasion, that not only are the Mogiyas looked down upon by┬а upper castes, but they are also looked down upon by communitites considered a part of Dalit society ( such as the Bairwas etc.)┬а Equally revealing was how some Mogiya students refused to eat, drink, and live with students from similar communities such as the Kalbelias and Bhopas, whom they considered untouchable. Today there are 352 nomadic and denotified tribes in the country, whose population is approximately 10-11 crores, they struggle to stay connected with their traditions, and are disenfranchised. The government is making an effort, however, all that is required for such tremendous change is not easily available in this resource-deficient country. Yet, where else can one get their community identity changed for a paltry sum of 2500 rupees?
Fortunately for the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve’s wildlife, the younger generations of Nathu Bawariya’s family have now forgotten their traditional hunting skills, and acquired a formal education, along with identity certificates as a result of a cleverness far more reminiscent of their grandfather’s nemesis Kajod Singh. Today, they will not be duped by opportunistic locals, but in all likelihood, will make the government dizzy.
This article is based on factual information, and personal observations of 4 generations of a Bawariya/Mogiya family in the vicinity of the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve.
References:
Raj and Born Criminals Crime, gender, and sexuality in criminal prosecutions, by Louis A. Knafla. Published by Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002. ISBN 0-313-31013-0. Page 124
Draft List of Denotified Tribes, Nomadic tribes and Semi-nomadic tribes in India. Government of Rajasthan. National Commission for Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-nomadic tribes – Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment
Lectures on some criminal tribes of India and religious mendicants By George Whitty Gayer. Published in Nagpur – 1909
Authors:
Dr. Dharmendra Khandal (L)┬аhas worked as a conservation biologist with Tiger Watch – a non-profit organisation based in Ranthambhore, for the last 16 years. He spearheads all anti-poaching, community-based conservation and exploration interventions for the organisation.
Mr. Ishan Dhar (R) is a researcher of political science in a think tank. He has been associated with Tiger Watch’s conservation interventions in his capacity as a member of the board of directors.
Dr. Dharmendra Khandal (L)┬аhas worked as a conservation biologist with Tiger Watch – a non-profit organisation based in Ranthambhore, for the last 16 years. He spearheads all anti-poaching, community-based conservation and exploration interventions for the organisation.
Mr. Ishan Dhar (R) is a researcher of political science in a think tank. He has been associated with Tiger Watch’s conservation interventions in his capacity as a member of the board of directors.
The Rajasthan rock bush quail is believed to be endemic to the state. It was discovered by a British┬аArmy officer in Nasirabad near Ajmer. The quail is actually a subspecies of the rock bush quail (Perdicula argoondah (Sykes 1832). The officer in question was Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen (3rd March 1878 – 17th June 1967), ┬аwho was a British army and intelligence officer, as well as a budding ornithologist. Col. Meinertzhagen procured a specimen in 1926, and passed it on to another English ornithologist, Hugh Whistler, a specialist in quails and francolins.
A Rajasthan rock bush quail (Perdicula argoondah meinertzhageni) (Photo: Dr. Dharmendra Khandal)
While Col. Meinertzhagen, the discoverer of the rock bush quail in Rajasthan, was indeed a decorated military officer, his name has also been sullied┬аas a result of a much darker history. Perhaps never have so many research papers been written on the accusations against any one individual, let alone an ornithologist. His actions continue to haunt us to this┬аday, many decades after his death. Historically, Col. Meitnertzhagen may not have been the only colonial officer to have oppressed the common people of India and Africa for his own sadistic pleasure, perhaps he was not the only one to have murdered his own wife to cover up his crimes , but he was probably one of the few naturalists to steal multiple specimens from natural history museums (many from the Natural History Museum in London!), and then have them recorded as his own discoveries. Alan Knox, Pamela Rasmussen, Robert P. Prys-Jones and John Critchley researched these allegations. Their hard earned evidence was based on a vast collection of 20 thousand bird specimens presented to the┬аNatural History Museum by Col. Meinertzhagen, on which┬аhe also published several research papers.
A covey of rock bush quails. (Photo: Dr. Dharmendra Khandal)
However,┬аno question of any kind has been raised regarding this particular quail discovered by Col. Meinertzhagen in Rajasthan so far. That being said, not nearly enough research has been done on this subspecies. We hope that the new generation of ornithologists sheds some more light on this subspecies.┬аIt is often asked just how many species of birds are endemic to Rajasthan.That is, birds that only occur within the boundaries of the state of Rajasthan. Ornithologists say that in reality there is not even one. Nevertheless, the principal distribution area for 6-7 subspecies is Rajasthan, but they are also distributed in neighbouring states.┬аIt is an altogether different matter that some experts outright deny classification of these as subspecies, they believe that some diversity in ┬аspecies occurs on a geographical basis.
Col. Richard Meinertzhagen
When Hugh Whistler received the specimen from Nasirabad in 1937, he found it to be a different variety from the rock bush quail found in the Deccan region, and wrote in a mere two line description, that its colour is much lighter than the quail found in the Deccan, ┬аand that in the male, the ‘ black bars’ found on the lower part of its body were far narrower, ‘making the lower plumage less heavy in appearance’.
Col. Richard Meinertzhagen with a kori bustard shot in Kenya in 1915.
Whistler further elaborated that it was found in Southeastern Punjab, the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh), around Jabalpur( Madhya Pradesh), Central India, Rajputana (now Rajasthan) and Kutch (Gujarat).┬аIt is unclear how this distribution area was established, since the short description is based on only one specimen. Today, no new subspecies can be established based on just a short two-line description. Hugh Whistler also successfully proposed the Mysore rock bush quail as a new subspecies, on the basis of a specimen sent by the famous Indian ornithologist Salim Ali in 1940. Times have changed and perhaps more light can be shed on these conundrums through DNA analysis.
A drawing of a pair of rock bush quails (Perdicula argoondah) ( male and female ) by Col. William Henry Sykes, who first described the species in 1832.
And let’s not forget that true to form, Col. Meinertzhagen is the same individual who stole a specimen of forest owl from another scientist’s collection, and fraudulently reported it to be his own find from Gujarat, leaving many ornithologists confused for days. Perhaps there is more to the story of the Rajasthan rock bush quail. We have raised enough questions, it is now your turn to unearth the truth.
Whistler, Hugh 1937. Untitled [“Mr. Hugh Whistler sent the following description of a new subspecies…”]. Bulletin of the British OrnithologistsтАЩ Club. LVIII: (ccccvii)
Ali, Salim;Whistler, Hugh 1943. The birds of Mysore. Part V. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 44: (2) 206тАУ220 (With 1 plate)
Authors:
Dr. Dharmendra Khandal (L)┬аhas worked as a conservation biologist with Tiger Watch – a non-profit organisation based in Ranthambhore, for the last 16 years. He spearheads all anti-poaching, community-based conservation and exploration interventions for the organisation.
Mr. Ishan Dhar (R) is a researcher of political science in a think tank. He has been associated with Tiger Watch’s conservation interventions in his capacity as a member of the board of directors.
Cover Photo: Col. Richard Meinertzhagen in 1922, and rock bush quails drawn by Col. William Henry Sykes.
Dr. Dharmendra Khandal (L)┬аhas worked as a conservation biologist with Tiger Watch – a non-profit organisation based in Ranthambhore, for the last 16 years. He spearheads all anti-poaching, community-based conservation and exploration interventions for the organisation.
