“Five years ago on a rainy evening, I was documenting the Kumkis at the elephant camp in Mudumalai when my veterinarian friend got a call from the Anamalai Tiger Reserve to tranquilise a tiger that had strayed into a village in Valparai. It must be a leopard, I thought. But after an overnight jeep ride traversing the bumpy ghat roads of the Anamalais, I found myself staring at a full grown male tiger, looking like a bundle of striped fur soiled in slush, its eyes twinkling in falling light,” recalls R Senthil Kumaran, a city-based photographer who has done extensive photo documentation of man-tiger conflict zones across India. “The beast was weak and had not even eaten the two cows it killed the previous day. After the animal was tranquilized and caged, I got the opportunity to document the entire rescue operation.”
“I saw the tiger surrounded by a mob of villagers wielding sticks and stones and raising voice against the forest department. That formed my first idea of man-tiger conflict. It's a complex issue involving labyrinths of human emotions and animal psyche,” says Kumaran, who has travelled to the cores of various tiger reserves including Sundarbans, Bandipur, Mudhumalai, Anamalai, Tadoba and Kalakkad Mundanthurai. “Till then my idea of the beast was what I had seen only on TV.”
Fight for space
Night Watchman protecting his cattle from Tigers at Tadoba
The fight is for space, resources and livelihood, he says. Kumaran started following news regularly, gathered information of tiger attacks across the country. His next visit was to Sunderbans which is the most severe conflict zone in India. A whole colony full of widows there would give you a rough idea of the number of human deaths due to tiger attacks, points out Kumaran. “Annpur the last village of Sundarban is the most affected as it's closer to the core of the forest. There's even a hospital named as 'Bagh' (meaning Tiger) opened in the 80s to treat victims. Though it lies defunct now, the ledger there overflows with over 500 names and details of victims since the past 15 years. On an average, 35 people are attacked by tigers every year in the Sundarbans.”
The tigers of Sundarbans excel in ambush and are habitual man-eaters. The thick mangrove forests provide them the best hiding places and they leap on to men busy collecting honey or crabs, invariably attacking from behind and crushing the spine. “I documented the stories of over 20 victims and all of them fought with the beast to survive the attack. One of them, after surviving three attacks, became a priest at the local Kali temple there,” says Kumaran. “Interestingly, the form of Kali worshipped as Bonbibi (the goddess of the forest), is seen killing tigers.”
Fragile balance
During a safari at Tadoba
“In 2015, a woman was killed by a tiger in Gudalur. On seeing the flash news, I left immediately and reached the spot the next morning. There was lot of violence, the forest department officials were attacked and their jeeps were torched. I could see myriad of moods, people were on the boil, angry with the government, system and the tigers,” says Kumaran. “In many places, the animals and humans walk a tight rope, maintaining a fragile balance, understanding and sharing. In most cases, it's unfortunately the humans that impact animal behaviour in a way that this balance is lost resulting in conflict”
Camping in the eco-tourism zones of Tadoba Tiger Reserve, Kumaran got to understand the various aspects of the issue. Tadoba has an estimated population of 110 tigers out of which nearly 50 have spilled out of the designated reserve areas and into the surrounding villages. “Tadoba is a unique landscape that's not continuous like the Western Ghats. There are small towns and villages, roads that divide the landscape into patches. However, every village has a different reason for being or not being a conflict zone,” he says.
City-based photographer Senthil Kumaran
Kumaran has also documented the translocation of an entire village in Tadoba. “Compensation and translocation are two important aspects to mitigating conflicts. When properly executed, compensation for loss ensures that the people don't poison tigers in retaliation. As a conservationist, I would suggest the usage of terms like human-animal interface and coexistence policy, instead of conflict.”
