Celebrities live on a different planet than the rest of us. The planet may look similar to Earth but there are subtle differences. Most of its landmass is covered in dense forests of kale, under whose iron-rich leaves roam ravenous packs of magazine photographers. Poverty and disease are non-existent, and people subsist mostly on unicorn tears.” Thus evocatively an anonymous travel blogger captured the world of stardom — in this world, the residents are bound by a different set of life rules, or so it seems.
I bump into them all the time, professionally, socially, serendipitously, even tragically. There are many who devote some part of their lives to a social cause and my world of nature conservation attracts some of the best souls.
There are others who devote a large part of their lives to creating an image of themselves that is saleable, part of which demands a green hue and they hover around the fringes of wildlife safaris and conservation salons. And then, there are the ones who break all the rules and come into my orbit via the long arm of the law.
The recent conviction of Salman Khan, the shirtless wonder of Bollywood, to five years in prison by a court in Jodhpur for shooting the endangered blackbuck brings the case of the celebrity hunter into sharp focus.
What many people don’t know is that Khan is not alone in this world of trigger-happy, macho wannabes. In a country where all forms of hunting wild animals is illegal and punishable by strict penalties including mandatory imprisonment for killing endangered species, there exists a set of celebrity poachers.
Who are they?
“But these are not real poachers, honey, they are sport hunters,” a well-known model tried to defend her friends, as if the ‘real poacher’ was confined to an impoverished tribal hut feeding his family by snaring the occasional wild boar, or perhaps the village sharpshooter who brings down an elephant to sell its ivory to a middleman.
Legally, a poacher is a hunter who breaks the law. Anyone who does that, despite the size of their bank accounts or fan clubs, is a poacher. But who are these people and what drives them to kill wild animals?
There are at least half a dozen cases in which I have been involved to some extent. The first was that of a scion of a well-known industrialist family in Delhi. The family used to hunt, every Christmas weekend, by booking the same forest rest house near the Jim Corbett National Park. After the Wildlife Protection Act strengthened its strictures, the only thing they changed was their entries in the rest house register under ‘reason for visit’, from ‘ shikaar ’ to ‘holiday’.
With forest watchers and Gujjar tribes in their employ, the merriment continued till a youngster’s adrenaline got the better of him and he tried to land a helicopter in Corbett to shoot a crocodile. The chopper landed in the reservoir at Ramnagar and although the boy and his girl friends in the chopper escaped from the scene of the crime, an uncompromising forest officer ensured that he was convicted and the chopper confiscated.
Then broke the story of the best-known cricket captain of yore who used his minor royal lineage and stardom to shoot antelope in Haryana. His untimely death prevented a conviction but he did spend a couple of days in police custody, which gave the media a gala time. Khan then went on his by now famous shooting jaunt. Whether it was just a film shooting or blackbuck shooting has now been proven twice in court.
A couple of years before that, an equally famous actor was caught poaching in Uttar Pradesh, but was let off by the villagers when they recognised their hero. The only reason Khan is still in the dock is because the Bishnois, who were witness to the shooting, consider the blackbuck their children and even breastfeed the fawns. Such is their love for the animals that it was well-nigh impossible to buy them out.
Shooting parties
In between these two events, a national shooting champion was caught with a sambar deer he had poached and posed with. Then there are the political families of Punjab for whom hosting partridge shoots are de rigueur.
There are some attributes that are common to all these men — yes, they are almost always male. They are all rich, all politically or socially well connected, mostly young, and they hunt either for sport or peer-induced bragging rights.
Framing the boundaries of stardom in India, they are either from political or royal families, or have earned their stars in the world of celluloid or sport. Now, they are also software engineers or plantation owners.
They justify their poaching as a relic of their past shikaar days or merely as a show of their current prowess that allows them privileges that are not available to the common man.
They are a relatively small number and don’t endanger a species as the poachers who kill for the illegal wildlife trade do. But they do endanger respect for law and society, break their own holier-than-thou image, created by their sycophants and fan clubs, and make poaching look glamorous. Just for that, when they cross the line, we are happy to help the state bring them to book and to cheer when that happens.
The Indian legal process may be long and arduous and sometimes riddled with a thousand flaws, but when it comes to such exemplar cases of celebrity crime, the law has more often than not caught up with the perpetrator.
When the Australian cricket team was caught cheating recently, the whole nation erupted and handed them strict punishment. There was no mass hysteria about their heroes being pushed off the pedestal. Instead there was a loud cry of anguish at having felt let down by those from whom we expect so much more.
If Indian fans and the media turn a similar cold shoulder to those who flaunt their irreverence of the law, we could see a change in the prevailing situation. For if the cheering masses abandon them, who will the celebrity shed unicorn tears for?
The writer is Founder and Executive Director, Wildlife Trust of India, and has spent three decades conserving wildlife.
