dancing bears

[Guest guest]

I just read that the last dancing bear in India now walks free.

 

Congratulations to Maneka Gandhi. It was her idea to find alternative

employment for the Kalhandars (bear trainers and handlers) that took them

away from catching and training bears. If they had not found alternate

employment, it would not have been possible to free all the bears. India has

excellent laws but is is notoriously slack in implementing them. The law

banning dancing bears, like many others, would have remained on paper only.

 

I emphasize the *alternate employment* since that is the ONLY solution. The

training of the Kalandhars gave me the idea to train the Kurumbas in the

Nilgiri Hills. They are excellent trackers and were the poachers' guides.

After the C.P.Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation trained the young men of the

tribe to paint on paper, they are busy, occupied and well-paid in their new

career - and the number of tigers in the Nilgiris has gone up. The Forest

Departments of Tamilnadu, Karnataka and Kerala say it is now 266 (from 16),

but I think the figure is over-ambitious, since the tigers move all over the

area and each state has a separate census - there must be some double

counting. However, the fact is that the population has gone up considerably

due to the weaning away of the Kurumba tribes from hunting. In fact, the

Nilgiris are probably the only place in India which shows a steady rise in

the number of tigers.

 

It was during Maneka's tenure as Minister for Tribal Affairs that the

training of the Kurumba tribals was made possible by her Ministry's support

of the tribes by giving them a stipend till they started working on their

own and earning an income. Today they are so busy that I need to book them a

couple of months ahead when I need them to paint for our projects. Last

year, C.P.R. Environmental Education Centre brought out a calendar with 12

paintings by the Kurumbas depicting their festivals over 12 months. It was

splashed all over the print media and became a collector's copy. The

Kurumbas have also formed Forest Protection groups which now

prevent poaching in the Nilgiris. How wonderful.

 

I mention these two cases because I believe that if an animal welfare

programme is to succeed, it must permanently wean away the perpetrators of

cruelty towards animals.

 

Nanditha Krishna