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In 2017, the photograph of an autistic woman relieving herself in the forest of Corbett Tiger Reserve (CTR) in Uttarakhand went viral. The image was captured by a camera trap set up to monitor wildlife in the area and local men appointed as temporary forest personnel circulated it to humiliate and subjugate the marginalised community to which the woman belonged.
The incident led to locals of the woman’s village setting these camera traps on fire and probably drew attention to the gendered impact of such surveillance devices on the lives of women, which has been captured in a new paper published in the journal Environment and Planning F.
News stories often focus on the economic dependence of locals on forests and miss out on the aspect that each local individual has a relationship with the forest as a space. The ethnographic study found that women who venture into the woods every day to collect forest produce, come back with more than just timber and grass — they look at the forest as a safe sanctuary where they can be themselves and form lasting friendships with other women, according to the authors of the report. This role of the forest is threatened by camera traps and monitoring drones in CTR, the study found.
Apart from such horrific incidents, these intrusive devices are altering the daily lives of women in subtle ways. Singing is one such activity that has been hampered, the study noted. Trishant Simlai, a Cambridge University researcher, interviewed 270 locals living around CTR, including many women from neighbouring villages, many of whom told him that they sing in the forest to voice their frustration and because it is prohibited to sing in their villages or home, apart from ceremonies. “We sing because we feel alive in the forest,” said one of the women Simlai talked to.
They also said they sing to prevent themselves from being attacked by wild animals when they are working in the forest. But they immediately fall silent when they spot a camera trap on their way, becoming aware that they are being monitored. “When there are cameras in the forest, I feel like I am doing something wrong or stealing something from the forest, even when I am picking up dried and dead firewood (sukhi lakdi),” said a local woman in an interview. This is despite their legal right to collect such items for sustenance.
Not being able to sing or chatter loudly not only robs them of the joy of roaming the forests, it also exposes them to tiger and elephant attacks, the women narrated. “There is a baaghin (tigress) with cubs in this part of our forest, if we don’t sing or talk loudly there is a chance of her being surprised and attack us as any protective animal would do.”
Moreover, they venture deeper into the woods to avoid these camera traps, narrated another woman. There, the risk of running into elephants is higher because of the thick vegetation, she added.
The cameras are things of mystery to the villagers, who don’t understand the purpose of their deployment. This information gap heightens the fear and discomfort the women experience around these cameras. In the security and obscurity the forest offers, many women smoke beedis or engage in other activities that are looked down upon in their villages. But the presence of the cameras have made them anxious about getting caught and punished or ostracised.
“The woman from the nearby village was smoking a ‘beedi’ and walked past a camera, she was lucky that the camera was inactive, otherwise it would have been a matter of great shame,” said a local woman.
“We don’t know who is watching us from these cameras, is it clicking our photo? Or recording a video, can it hear us?” said another.
And they are not entirely wrong. From the accounts and interviews gathered during the study, it becomes clear that locals and forest officials are using these surveillance cameras to control women.
“Our interviews also revealed that the use of aerial surveillance technologies such as drones was amplifying the means through which women’s bodies were being controlled and disciplined, particularly for those from marginalised communities,” the researchers wrote in the paper.
Women from the pastoralist communities were found to be bearing the brunt, they added. “During this study, multiple incidents revealed that where drones were deliberately flown near and above Van Gujjar women who were returning from the forest carrying firewood and grass on their heads. This action resulted in the women becoming frightening and dropping their gathered produce while fleeing to find cover.”
Some forest officials revealed how they have used these camera traps deployed specifically to monitor wild animals to report young couples getting intimate inside the forest.
Some of the local men interviewed during the study also seemed to encourage the use of camera traps as it prevents their women from “straying from their household duties”. A majority of the men — husbands, father-in-law’s and even sons — think women ‘waste time’ and ‘enjoying themselves’ in the forest, the researchers wrote. Certain men, the report mentioned, regularly expressed interest in viewing camera trap images of their spouses to keep an eye on them.