ANTAGONISTIC interactions between people and wildlife in India are by no means exclusive to the (recently coined) Anthropocene.¹ Longer-range histories of landscapes, people and animals dispel the notion of a pristine past, revealing shared spaces where close cohabitation entailed conflict and disharmony along several levels. Yet, in many of these engagements, non-lethal management and lethal control of problem species went hand in hand with respect, reverence and propitiation of the offending crop raider, cattle lifter or maneater. Over the centuries, local communities have explored and evolved numerous strategies to overcome, cope and rationalize when confronted with marauding wildlife. This tension between conflict and coexistence has been a defining feature of human-wildlife entanglements in forested landscapes.

The cultural core of modern conservation in India, however, pays little attention to this diversity of worldviews, opting instead for a primarily exclusion centred, fortress conservation approach.² Under this dominant ideology, an adherence to Edenic philosophies³ and animal rights orientations of conservationists intersect easily with the exclusionary byproducts of princely and colonial governance which also precipitated contemporary mechanisms of control. Here, context specific, situated knowledges embedded in local traditions, culture and experience (i.e., knowledges that are partial, local and embodied) are given short shrift and remain marginalized in favour of a privileged, disembodied, modern science, or of political interests masquerading as science.⁴ Together, these factors have engendered a strong preservationist enterprise from whose standpoint differing ethical leanings and traditional use systems fall under the category of forbidden ‘third rail’ topics that dare not be spoken of. Hunting, culling and consumption of species are prime examples of such themes.

 

In the following paragraphs, highlighting the case of one of the most common mammalian crop raiders on the subcontinent, I address two related forms of conflict that have, for good measure, been confused with each other. The first relates to the direct conflict between people and animals which has a long, centuries-old history, whereas the second is a problem reflective of the contemporary situation – that of conservation linked conflict – between different groups of people holding contrasting viewpoints on how to manage problem species, land and resources.⁵

Although the first form of conflict has been researched ad nauseum by conservation biologists (albeit with a narrow lens), it is the results of a small number of recent studies working from the vantage point of ‘histories and perspectives from below’ that have begun to highlight the broad spectrum of socio-cultural and non-material elements relating to human-wildlife interactions.⁶ These studies have interrogated political ecologies, multi-species ethnographies, animal geographies and longer-range histories of a number of large vertebrates involved in conflict, without falling prey to the moral extensionism that typically accompanies this form of conservation scholarship. The results from such explorations are critical in show-casing the complexities of local contexts and in linking them with the more challenging issue of contemporary conservation conflict.

 

Some of these studies also show that in many areas residents actively oppose extra-local influences imposed on their landscapes by the state as well as those by powerful conservation lobbies. The issue is particularly relevant as the latter are no longer underdogs, but active political agents capable of exerting pressure on marginalized groups to conform or to behave in ways that are incongruous with local practices. In this respect, conservationists have gained territory, playing the game from the top, while largely being unaffected by the day-to-day problems that local communities face. This situation of being out of range while being beneficial for short-term control has been increasingly problematic in contemporary India.

 

Top-down insertion of extra-local morality and authority changed the nature of conflict from one primarily between people and animals to that between different groups of people with contrasting viewpoints on how to coexist, manage and conserve. The divergence from the colonial practice of eliminating pestilent wildlife to that of enforced protection also entailed a shift in conservation perspectives whereby an urban conservation ethic increasingly imposed itself on local livelihoods. An exploration of these linkages shows that mainstream conservation approaches are likely to be problematic for modified landscapes on account of their tendency to generate and reinforce inequalities and power differentials. In those areas of the forest fringe where species spill over to cause conflict, protection accorded to wildlife is considered as a form of expanding territorialization by the state and environmentalists, and one which privileges animals over people.⁷ Conservation in such spaces, therefore, needs a nuanced, context specific focus, a wider appreciation of ethics and the development of locally acceptable solutions.

In the following paragraphs, I attempt to outline a series of insights from these lines of enquiry using the ubiquitous Indian wild boar as a case in point. I begin by providing a broad brush historical outline of the complex nature of human entanglements with the wild boar in India and their relevance for contemporary conservation. This is followed by a brief exploration of select case studies that explore the genesis of conservation conflict in which wild pigs are scapegoated as the main offenders, but the conflict is actually between different groups of people. I conclude by offering a few ideas towards taking the discussion forward in reconciling some of these issues in present day human modified landscapes.

 

A widely distributed species causing extensive damage to agriculture, the Indian wild boar (Sus scrofa) has been involved in complex entanglements with historical as well as contemporary local communities. In the oldest known artistic rendition from the Bhimbetka cave complex in central India, a mutant giant boar is depicted to be rapidly gaining ground on a tiny fleeing human. Stretching back several thousand years, this depiction perhaps belies the destructiveness of the boar and the helplessness of the human in the eyes of the primeval artist. This notion is reinforced in a number of regional mythologies (as is the case in several Old World cultures) where the legend of a ferocious giant boar ravaging crops is a frequent one.

In the Tamil Sangam bardic poetry at the turn of the Christian era, local people battled pigs that raided millet fields but their damages were also offset by the provision of delicious pork. Other representations too reiterate the problematic nature of conflict. Scattered throughout Karnataka, veeragallu or ‘hero stones’ commemorate important events and deeds of valour. A frequent theme of depiction in this widely distributed practice has been the subjugation of crop raiding pigs by humans (and their hunting dogs) or vice versa. Even in the north-eastern part of India, where the species is one of the most valuable sources of meat, pestilence by pigs was still a problem for local farmers.

 

Conflict, however, has been only one aspect of these local relationships. In peninsular India, where the boar was a destroyer of agriculture, it simultaneously appears to have been incorporated into several other spheres of everyday existence and cultural networks. The wild boar appears on the Indus seals as an animal of some importance; pig bones appear in several post-Harappan sites signifying their use as food. In the Vedic pharmacology that considered the ‘universe as a kitchen’ and in the ancient Indian zoology that was a ‘catalogue of meats’, boars on account of their residence in anupa (marshy) lands were endowed with a ‘heavy’ meat that had powerful therapeutic values for strengthening the body.

In the iconography of mainstream Hinduism, Varaha, appears as a boar-headed (or zoomorphic) avatar of Vishnu (and Brahma) as well as several other forms.⁸ Worshipped widely across the length and breadth of peninsular India, during the first ten centuries of the first millennium, Varaha was considered the saviour of the earth. His consort, the sow-headed Varahi appears as a complex deity with Vaishnava, Sakta and Tantric attributes in Hindu Dravidian and Buddhist mythologies.⁹ Granting boons and offering protection, the goddess is amalgamated into the several strands of religious iconographies of peninsular India. As a result, pigs figured in propitiation rituals and sacrifices seeking enhanced agricultural production and fertility, and protection from misfortunes. For numerous malevolent villages goddesses in southern India, sacrifices of domestic swine were integral to propitiation.

 

A long view of the past and a broader interrogation of human-animal relationships therefore provides evidence to a wide network of interactions that are far from purely antagonistic. It could be inferred that people and wildlife cohabiting in a region can be located within networks of relations, with each actor performing its own specific role typical of its species while at the same time accounting for reflexive and reciprocal interactions with others. The interpretations of these actions have been historically constituted, with local communities evolving a variety of practices and justifications to understand nature and to deal with adversity.

For example, hostility towards wildlife and propitiation are compatible and often go hand in hand. Direct attacks on people and livestock, or crop raiding, are often interpreted by communities in terms of punishment by the animals as response or reciprocity to socio-moral misdemeanours calling for propitiation measures and rituals as corrective initiatives. Reciprocity thus can be used to question as well as resolve immoral aspects of both human and animal behaviour.¹⁰

Although in contemporary times, communities may not literally relate to punishment and propitiation, the relationships between people and pigs are definitely more complex than that of the species as just a problematic pest. In addition to their utility as food or draught animals, animals have been integral to various Indian cultures. The cultural importance accorded to them is by no means insignificant as nowhere else do animals acquire such extensive representation as they do in religious and mythological iconography of the Indian subcontinent.

The erosion of these underlying socio-cultural features either by way of gentrification, assimilation or coercion can lead to a simplified argument that just treats animals as problematic. Without the rich diversity of cultural backdrops, these could eventually affect tolerance and coexistence, and precipitate the ultimate separation of humans from nature. As opposed to industrialized societies of the West, the levels of tolerance for problem species are significantly higher in places such as India. The contrasts in responses to fatalities by wolves and other predators in North America and Europe to that of large cats and elephants in Africa and Asia are examples. This simplification also relates to conservationists’ tendency to assume that peoples’ problems with marauding wildlife will be assuaged by simple utilitarian benefits such as monetary rewards and compensation.

 

Across India, the disruption of traditional entanglements with species such as pigs have catalyzed a more pernicious form of conflict that typically pitches local communities against the state as well as against more powerful interest groups. Historically, these included practices such as colonial and princely hunting traditions such as pig-sticking which though partially beneficial to local communities was also significantly problematic in some regions. While European colonialists revelled in pig-sticking, they prohibited local communities from hunting even crop raiding animals; additionally they also called for more protection in places where wild pig was believed to be on the decline.

In Rajputana, princely rulers practicing their own specific form of pig-sticking prohibited impoverished villagers from harming their pigs, even though the latter destroyed their crops.¹¹ As exclusionary policies related to colonial hunting practices segued into the post-independence conservation phase, conservation legislation and associated restrictions resulted in even more stringent pre-servationist measures.

 

In these situations, local human-animal relations are typically ignored as communities at the fringe are in many cases already disadvantaged groups with poor negotiating capabilities. Agrarian communities are the most affected in the face of wild boar depredations. For example, settler communities in the Western Ghats of Kerala (Travancoreans who migrated to farm the forest fringe during the war-induced famine of the 1940s) were already marginalized and impoverished on account of past trauma in their native villages and uncertain land tenure in their new settlements. While frequent raids by elephants in the initial years catalyzed a shift in crops and further clearing of the landscape (which reduced the frequency of elephant visitations), the new crops were conducive for wild boar. While boars could initially be exterminated and served as a welcome supplement to impoverished settler diets, with the implementation of conservation laws, pigs thrived.

Due to cumulative hardships in the form of elephant raids and chronic wild boar depredation, settlers suffer significantly in terms of hidden impacts and psychological consequences. In these landscapes, while proposals to cull wild pigs have been mooted, it has been met with strong opposition from the animal rights and conservation lobbies.¹² Frequent skirmishes between settlers and state officials (pigs are seen as belonging to the government) have been observed in these landscapes. Retaliatory attacks on other species of conservation significance too have been precipitated as a result of local disenchantment against the Forest Department.

 

As pointed out by several others, the investigation of conservation conflict is often plagued by a poor understanding of local contexts and situations that bring about these conflicts.¹³ Conservationists often tend to ignore local histories of marginalization and numerous other political ecological chains of explanation that bring about these situations. In the case of the Western Ghats, the political motivation for bringing migrants to the fringe was backgrounded by World War II, the Bengal famine and the cessation of rice imports from far away Burma, resulting in a desperate situation for Travancore. Recent recommendations for increasing ecological security in these landscapes¹⁴ are seen as increasing territorialization by the government. Pigs play a central role in these contests between people and the state.

The prohibition of traditional practices such as hunting or that of culling of problem species are also brought about under the pretext of questioning the ecological sustainability of such practices. In the context of proposals for culling, there were fears that such a practice would lead to local extinctions and in the trade in wild meat.¹⁵ In the politics of conservation, it is commonplace for animal rights activists and conservationists to use science as an excuse for pushing personal agendas without actually backing their claims with research. The entanglement of science, politics and ethical leanings needs to be further interrogated as successful conservation in any place is likely to result in a spillover of species outside protected areas, and bringing in its wake conflicts with local livelihoods.¹⁶

 

As one of the most fecund species of mammalian herbivores, the wild pig is quick to breed and multiply, and among the most unlikely species to go extinct in the face of population control measures. Moreover, pigs are clever animals and are known to outwit hunters. However, despite their huge impact on agrarian landscapes, wild pigs remains poorly studied, demonstrating the problematic aspects of asymmetrical research interest on charismatic species. While settler practices are difficult to formalize in terms of traditional rules for hunting, some lessons can also be imbibed from traditional pig hunting communities in places such as the Andaman islands. In the Andamans, where traditional hunting by communities such as the Jarawa and the Ongee are outside the purview of the Wildlife Protection Act, pig hunting remains of paramount importance with strong rituals and practices that regulate consumption and ensure long-term availability of this key species.

 

As we have seen above, pigs and people share a complex relationship. A number of other studies such as those on leopards and elephants also show similar results. Both human-animal conflict and conservation conflict in India needs to be re-examined in the light of this complexity and diversity of relationships. A more nuanced interrogation of conflict calls for a renewed emphasis on multidisciplinary explorations towards avoiding recommendations solely based on single dimensional research (e.g. just compensation), and for a symmetrical evaluation of both people and wildlife in zones of contact.

On the ground, such an approach calls for the exploration of other aspects such as the hidden dimensions of conflict as well as the incorporation of multi-sectoral planning (e.g. health, education, environment) and dialogue. Multi-sectoral planning necessitates not only the integration of different components of conflict but also the treatment of conservation and development as linked enterprises in these areas. Negative perceptions of distributive justice which play a key role in catalyzing contemporary conflict are often backgrounded by uneven development and marginalization of local communities.

India’s forest fringes are populated by a diverse constituency of local communities whose relationships with wildlife are mediated by various religious, occupational and cultural affiliations. Political and historical exigencies have not only brought migrants into these marginalized landscapes, out migration too is a feature of the rural fringe. Simple labels of fringe dwellers as peasants, agriculturalists or tribals are insufficient to understand the engagements between people and wildlife in these dynamic landscapes. Context specific explorations, particularly those that look at local, historical and political ecological explorations, and result in the advancement of specific, contextually appropriate solutions, are required for resolving conflicts in these regions.

 

Recent scholarship has highlighted the existence of local practices and cultural attitudes that mediate relationships between people and wildlife in shared spaces.¹⁷ Though derived from different ethical backgrounds, such traditional practices are nevertheless synergistic with conservation. Moreover, unlike fortress conservation, which creates and reinforces dualisms between people and nature, they offer more inclusive relationships with nature and are also advantageous on account of their legitimacy in local origins and lived experiences. To formalize some of these engagements, there is a need for shared decision making beginning with the democratization of knowledge and action.

While exploring nature’s present, it is perhaps useful to look into the potential of older, more efficient local models that deal with conflict. Such a process not only entails the acceptance of diverse ethical perspectives, but also an openness to solutions, some of which may be unpalatable to diehard preservationists or might seem ‘unscientific’ to the foot soldiers of modern science.

 

Footnotes:

1. Although there is no formally accepted start date, many scientists consider this proposed epoch roughly coincides with the start of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-19th century. P.J. Crutzen and E.F. Stoermer, ‘The "Anthropocene",’ Global Change Newsletter 41, 2000, pp. 17-18.

2. D. Brockington, Fortress Conservation: The Preservation of the Mkomazi Game Reserve, Tanzania. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2002.

3. P. Robbins and S.A. Moore, ‘Ecological Anxiety Disorder: Diagnosing the Politics of the Anthropocene’, Cultural Geographies 20(1), 2013, pp. 3-19.

4. D. Haraway, ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective’, Feminist Studies 13(3), 1988, pp. 575-599.

5. S. Redpath et. al., ‘Understanding and Managing Conservation Conflicts’, TREE 28(2), 2013, pp. 100-109.

6. Examples include, A.G. Gold and B.R. Gujar, In the Time of Trees and Sorrows: Nature, Power and Memory in Rajasthan. Duke University Press, Durham, 2002; S. Ghosal and D.J. Kjosavik, ‘Living With Leopards: Negotiating Morality and Modernity in Western India’, Society and Natural Resources 28, 2015, pp. 1092-1107; M. Barua, ‘Bio-Geo-Graphy: Landscape, Dwelling and the Political Ecology of Human-Elephant Relations’, Environment and Planning D 32, 2014, pp. 915-934.

7. N.L. Peluso, ‘The Politics of Specificity and Generalisation in Conservation Matters’, Conservation and Society 1(1), 2003, pp. 61-64; J. McGregor, ‘Crocodile Crimes: People Versus Wildlife and the Politics of Post-Colonial Conservation on Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe’, Geoforum 36, 2005, pp. 353-369.

8. H. Rangarajan, Varaha Images in Madhya Pradesh: An Iconographic Study. Somaiya Publications, Bombay, 1997.

9. H. Rangarajan, Images of Varahi: An Iconographic Study. Sharada Publishing House, Delhi, 2004.

10. C. Scott, ‘Science for the West, Myth for the Rest: the Case of James Bay Cree Knowledge Construction’, in L. Nader (ed.), Naked Science: Anthropological Inquiry into Boundaries, Power, and Knowledge. Routledge, London, 1996, pp. 69-86; J. Knight (ed.), Natural Enemies: People-Wildlife Conflicts in Anthropological Perspective. Routledge, London, 2000.

11. A.G. Gold and B.R. Gujar, 2002, op. cit, fn. 6; J. Hughes, ‘Environmental Status and Wild Boars in Princely India’, in M. Rangarajan and K. Sivaramakrishnan (eds.), Shifting Ground: People, Animals and Mobility in India’s Environmental History. Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2014.

12. e.g. http://www.fiapo.org/newsandevents/fiapo-unites-over-a-100-ngos-to-oppose-moefccs-move-to-unabatedly-kill-wildlife/; http://www.fiapo.org/our-campaigns/not-vermin/

13. N.L. Peluso, 2003, op. cit., fn. 7, pp. 61-64; J. McGregor, 2005, op. cit., fn. 7.

14. These include the reports of two high level committees headed by Madhav Gadgil and K. Kasturirangan.

15. http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/order-on-wild-boar-shocks-conservationists/article6079714.ece

16. See Jay Mazoomdaar, 10 June 2016, http://indian express.com/article/explained/environment-ministry-culling-controversy-cant-take-away-the-farmers-right-to-life-and-livelihood- 2845157/

17. e.g., S. Ghosal and D.J. Kjosavik, 2015, op. cit., fn. 6.