Down To Earth speaks to the author of ‘The story of India’s cheetahs’, first published in 1995, which has more or less been the most exhaustive work
Elton and Freddie, two male cheetahs in the wilds of Kuno National Park, as seen in this photo released by the Park. Photo: @KunoNationalPrk / Twitter
The cheetah is all over the news across India. Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi released eight Namibian cheetahs into a boma in Kuno National Park on his 72nd birthday (September 17, 2022), the slender and sleek cat has been a hot topic of discussion countrywide.
Over 30 years ago, much before the current project, a book on the animal’s historic presence in India had been published in 1995.
The end of a trail: The cheetah in India has more or less been the most exhaustive work on the cheetah in India, ever since.
On May 3, 2023, the book was relaunched as The story of India’s cheetahs in New Delhi.
Divyabhanusinh, author of the book, is a past president of the World Wide Fund for Nature-India (WWF-India) and also a member of the Government of India’s Cheetah Task Force for the animal’s reintroduction.
He spoke to Down To Earth about the project. Edited excerpts:
Rajat Ghai: Seven months since Project Cheetah was launched, three adult cheetahs and a cub are dead. Two have strayed away from their boma. The question in everyone’s minds is will the project be a success or failure. Your thoughts?
Divyabhanusinh: I am not connected with Project Cheetah. It is a government project and I am not a government person. What I hear or know is from the media.
Today’s Hindustan Times newspaper (May 11, 2023) quotes a South African expert involved with the project as saying that mortality is to be expected. So, there is nothing to worry on that score.
To my mind, mortality is not supposed to be a big thing. Deaths are bound to occur. One of the three deaths was due to a snakebite. You cannot prevent that.
Another death was due to a fight among the cheetahs themselves. What can you do about that? Such things happen in nature.
Only one case was that of a kidney ailment. Perhaps that individual came to India with such an ailment. We do not know. So, I am not unduly worried on that score.
Second, our national parks are not fenced like in Africa. For instance, South Africa fences its game reserves. We don’t do that with our protected areas.
So, some cheetahs will walk out. Males are particularly looking for new territories to establish. Whether these two cheetahs were looking for territory or prey, I am not aware. So, I cannot comment on it.
But you must understand that Project Tiger started 50 years ago. It is only now, after five decades, that tigers have reached a population of 3,000. In 1952, the Chief Minister of Assam wrote to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister, that there is practically no rhino left in Assam. Today, 70 years later, you have 4,000 rhinos.
The first attempt to protect the Asiatic lion started in 1879. Then it went through a bottleneck. Today, you have nearly 700 lions.
The protection or restoration of large carnivores is a very long-drawn out affair. So will be Project Cheetah. Because as the Cheetah Action Plan itself says, we require 50 cheetahs over a period of 10-15 years. They must then spread out to other sanctuaries and national parks. Only then can you have a population which is genetically viable for a long period.
So, it is a very long process. For me to say it is a success or failure will be premature.
RG: Did this book provide the rationale or intellectual heft for Project Cheetah that is being implemented now?
Divyabhanusinh: In 2010, I was a member of the National Board for Wildlife. So was MK Ranjitsinh (the architect of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972). He spearheaded the idea to reintroduce the cheetah in India.
At that time, I gave a copy of the earlier version of my book (published in 1995) to Jairam Ramesh, the then Union minister for environment.
When he read the book, he was convinced that cheetahs had always been a part of the Indian cultural and natural scene. Once he read the book, he gave the go-ahead to the project. So, to that (very small) extent, the old version was responsible for getting the seed of the idea to germinate into the project.
RG: Is the politicisation of Project Cheetah a boon or a bane?
Divyabhanusinh: I don’t know what you mean by politicisation. All I know for a fact is that the Prime Minister himself has taken an interest in the introduction of the cheetah in India. So, one would assume that if the Prime Minister himself has taken an interest, everybody else would push in the same direction.
That is a good sign because if the political head of the country has taken an interest, the bureaucracy responsible for protecting wildlife will take the project as a top priority. In that sense, it is a good thing.
RG: Project Cheetah is supposed to restore India’s grasslands. But many of those lands are considered ‘degraded’ by the Centre. How then can the project help revive India’s grasslands.
Divyabhanusinh: Right now, we have crossed the first stage of Project Cheetah, which is bringing the animals here. The second stage is to let them regain national parks and sanctuaries which have large grasslands inside them so that the cheetah population grows beyond Kuno-Palpur.
If you look at the historic presence of the cheetah in the Indian subcontinent, you will find that it also occurred in Sal forests.
Once this project stabilises and you get a large population of cheetahs, the next step for the Government of India should be to restore grasslands that are not necessarily in thick forests.
If you protect an animal like the cheetah, you will also be protecting several other animals like the caracal or the Great Indian Bustard. This is the direction where the project’s phase 2 should head towards.
Right now, the aim is to establish a viable, long-term population of cheetahs and the best areas for this are those that are already protected very well. These usually are forests with a lot of grasslands in them such as Nauradehi Wildlife Sanctuary and Madhav National Park.
RG: How different is Project Cheetah from Project Tiger? Where do you see India’s biodiversity in the next 50 years?
Divyabhanusinh: Both projects are very different. Project Cheetah is starting 50 years later. That is the first difference. The second difference is the tiger is a very different animal from the cheetah.
If I were to look at 50 years down the line, I would hope that the cheetah is restored to some of its old haunts in India and Pakistan. I would say a lot of these areas, despite having a growing human population, are those where degraded grasslands and forestlands can be restored where the cheetahs can flourish again. That is where I would like to see the cheetah in the next 30/40 or 50 years.
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