Save the Rhinos(e): One-horn or No horn

Save the Rhinos(e): One-horn or No horn

The Government of Assam is apparently weighing the pros and cons of de-horning the rhinos. In this regard, an advertisement appeared in The Assam Tribune, Guwahati dated Wednesday, 19th March, 2014 from the office of the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests [Wildlife], Forest Department, Government of Assam. The advertisement invited opinion of all citizens of Assam on trimming of horns of translocated rhinos and those that strays out of rhino bearing areas from the national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in Assam.

The Great Indian one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros Unicornis) of Assam is the pride of the state for which many foreign and domestic tourists visit Assam, the horn being its real and prized speciality. It is ‘a remarkable cultural heritage to the people of Assam’. The horn of a rhino is not just a mere body part but a vital and integral one having some symbolic connotation.

Wildlife experts claim that de-horning jeopardizes a rhino's own safety and dignity. De-horned mothers may not be able to protect her calves from predators. Trimming of rhino horns is unethical, aesthetically disfiguring, grotesque and an act of desecrating the animal. Moreover, there is no guarantee that poachers will not target the rhinos even with trimmed horns as the horn grows rapidly. Chances of death may also occur if the horn is cut too close to the germinal layer, as happened to a rhino in Majuli after its horn was surgically removed by forest authorities in March, 2013.

Assam has witnessed the loss of over 20 and 40 rhinos to poachers in 2012 and 2013 respectively. In the current year six rhinos have already fallen prey to poachers in February, with the number adding to two more in March. Poaching is an organized criminal activity (more on the evil side) which promises very high and fast returns (the shortest route from rags to riches overnight) albeit involving minuscule risk to the poacher.

The fact that militants have taken to poaching of rhino horns has been proved with the recovery of bullets of AK series rifles from the killing fields. The poorly equipped forest guards manning the parks are of no match to such armed militants. The Assam Forest Protection Force must be trained as done in the Indian defence wings like the Army in order to combat with the insurgents since the Indian defence establishments have the state-of-the-art-techniques to combat terrorism and the necessary training, infrastructure, discipline, etc. to grasp the nettle. Poachers from even neighbouring Nagaland and Manipur have a close nexus with dealers who smuggle illegal wildlife body parts across the border.

The rhino is targeted mainly for its horns because in many Asian countries particularly in south-east Asia mainly China and in the middle-east, it is believed to have some medicinal properties including its use as an aphrodisiac. Hence, the weeding out of the illegal trade- rhino poaching or any wildlife body parts must be not only at the grass-root level involving local community participation from the fringe villages of national parks but must be addressed at an international dais at a broader spectrum as well.

In the western hemisphere, Prince Charles, a long-term wildlife conservation campaigner, along with his son Prince William have made an appeal in the UK for an end to illegal trade of ivory and rhino horn and called on the international community  to ensure protection of Indian wildlife.

Newspapers have been reporting on and off about the late release of funds by the Finance Department meant for wildlife conservation. (Mr Gogoi Senior, are you reading? It won’t burn a hole in your pocket/ exchequer). Even salaries of frontline staff working round the clock from the forest camps to keep poachers at bay, is delayed at times. This is a major impeding factor for the ground staff often ebbing their morale and motivation and eroding their dedication to work.

Even if the poacher is caught, the loophole in the law plus the absence of stringent punishment does not act as a deterrent for the ‘poor’ poacher (soon-to -be -‘rich’). Ground reality (as flashed in TV news) is when a poacher is apprehended the entire village from where the poacher hails, gherao the forest officials. And when a rhino is butchered, the national highway is very often blocked with every A-Z associations and organizations chanting slogans against the forest force right in front of the Forest Department. Arre, how can the officials work under such unexpected and uncalled for pressure, as if their office work pressure is not enough? Do they run chasing-off poachers or run to save their own skin from the public ire? In the melee, a suspected poacher vanishes into thin air or a real one moves away scot-free. The locals instead of providing support to the administration resorts to burning of the effigy of the Forest Minister and forest officers, shouting Murdabad, Murdabad! I am sure there are other peaceful ways to express protest in a democratic and civilized society. Public resorting to vandalism like trashing of forest personnels, damaging emergency rescue vehicles of the government and engulfing it to flames is no solution. Otherwise what difference will be left between us (humans) and the wild beast?

Let’s go by examples: Maheswar Basumatary used to earn his living by lending a helping hand to poachers active in Kasugaon division of Manas NP. Thankfully the scenario changed when he realized his mistake and surrendered to the Government of Assam eight years back. He later joined the Bodoland Forest Protection Force taking part in various operations in nabbing poachers. He was even successful in convincing other poachers to surrender. He is presently occupied in the nurturing and rehabilitation of a rhino calf whose mother fell to the bullets. Maheswar Basumatary’s name is honoured in Jeevan’s “Special 10 of the Year” (Jeevan Initiative is a voluntary association of the state).

We cannot simply copy-paste and ape from Africa where it has been conducted as a means to deter poaching. We cannot be even sure of the ramification on the trimmed-horn rhino in terms of its behavior after the loss, the horn’s role in attracting its mate, mate selection, mating and procreation, mother-baby nursing and nurturing, its use as a body-weapon defence, navigation and removing impediments from its ‘straight’ path etc. Probably the male rhino will look a shade less ‘manly’ (and what about its impact on the rhino’s manliness?) and rob off the feminine beauty and grace of the females. Well, if a section of humans believe that the rhino horn could be used as an aphrodisiac; can’t it also be the same for the living-being on whose body it grows?  Moreover, I surmise not much research has been carried out on the evolutionary aspects of the rhino horn. So, how are we to gauge its latent role in the animals’ evolution? The horn of the rhino cannot be treated as a mere vestigial body part. No parallelism should be drawn to that of cutting one’s (humans) hair or nail with that of rhino’s de-horning. How can the Forest Department vivisect the very animal they are suppose to protect? In this age of animal rights activism, no one has the right to do it, neither poacher(s) illegally nor the Department of Forest, Government of Assam legally. Every animal has the right to move freely with its nose held high.

If one goes by logic, in case there is an imminent physical threat to us, do we increase monitoring, remain alert, take precaution or do we go for a ‘body-part cut remedy’? Sounds illogical, right? Well, if the Government of Assam can propose such an absurd, cruel, weird and illogical move, so can its citizen.

Gathering citizens’ opinion on de-horning of translocated rhinos could mean that there is a cul-de-sac beyond which the Forest Dept gives up because it cannot face the lurking danger? It sure will send a wrong signal to the poachers.

  

Will we have another bank: a ‘One-horned Rhinoceros Bank’ where the valuable horn will be preserved for safe custody? And what is the guarantee that trimmed rhino horns will not be stolen from such banks? When a rhino is killed by poachers at least the public gets to know of rhino poaching. If the rhino horn is stolen from such a bank I doubt if we will ever get to know.

I vividly remember the numerous trips to upper Assam: when we accompanied our parents to our ancestral home in Golaghat, or to visit my two brothers who studied in a boarding school at Digboi or in some of Deota’s official tours to upper Assam. While crossing Kaziranga, my Deota would halt the vehicle on spotting a rhino and all of us would get down silently and quietly watch admiring the rhino esp. it horn from afar, from the national highway as it grazed the grass. And if we were lucky enough we even spotted mama and baby rhinos together. Ah! What pleasure it was for the senses! That was three decades back. In the present context, when I raised the question to my young nephew who is reading in class VIII in Sanskriti- the Gurukul, whether the rhino should be de-horned, his young mind reasoned that “it must never be done because God has created it this way”. “Dumping the rhinos from the frying pan into the fire” is the most apt response on translocated rhinos poached in Manas, as rightly commented by one of my animal activist friends. As it is the translocated rhino will be already traumatized because of change in its habitat. Chopping its horn will be rubbing salt in the wound.

Perhaps the Forest Department, Government of Assam, cannot see the wood for the trees if it decides to de-horn the rhinos as a step to curb poaching. The Forest Minister had stated in the Assembly that the final decision on the matter of de-horning the rhinos would commence only after the expert committee submits its report. If this gets a green signal, de-horning the rhinos would be the most extreme and bizarre measure that cannot be justified from any angle. If translocated or straying rhinos are de-horned, a rhino crash* (pun intended) is inevitable. (*crash or a herd is a collective noun for a group of rhinoceroses).

While voicing my protest against the imminent government move on de-horning, I would at the same time like to salute the forest guards who live in relative isolation in remote forest camps inside the national parks, surveilling the parks 24x7 (my personal observations based on my countless visits to Kaziranga NP, Pobitora WS, Manas NP), working under adverse conditions and circumstances more so during floods; I also salute those who have lost their lives while on duty in trying to shield our one-horned rhinos from the hands of the poacher. I would also commend on the hard-work, dedication and determination of forest officials and personnels of the Forest Department. Managing such a herculean task and colossal force is not everyone’s cup of tea.

While I write this as an animal lover, please take this to be the voice of thousands of citizens who share my viewpoints who cannot write and hence cannot reach you via email or by post; citizens living in other states of India and in other countries who may not be aware of such a government move but who in all probability feel more for Assam as well as feel for the rhinos in Assam, than we do here.

Until then let’s keep our fingers-crossed so that the tide could be reversed. Let’s also hope that we don’t get to see butchered pachyderms anymore and pray for their safety. Amen!

N.B.- Those of you who agree with my opinion, pls write to the PCCF (email:  pccf.wl.assam@gmail.com) voicing your viewpoint before 30^th March, 2014 with the subject- “Opinion on proposed trimming of rhino horns”.

By Karobi Gogoi

The writer is a digital cartographer-GIS Quality Specialist,

an educator and an ardent animal lover (by-fault)

The Tekeli of Curd

The tekeli* of curd

I was young, too young to know about what corruption meant. Now I am in my mid-30s, old enough to know the meaning corruption and its evil tentacles and tendrils in our society.

The locality I grew up in was a safe and secured area. We rejoiced when there was a power-cut, because power-cuts were very few and far between. I am referring to Dispur Capital Campus, the bureaucrat’s colony, where officers both IAS, ACS lived with the other staff of Assam Secretariat.

Let me mention about the two drunkard uncles first (though this has nothing to do with corruption). One was an uncle from UP, I think and the other was a Bengali (the former an IAS and the latter an ACS). To protect their real identities let me name them Mishra uncle and Bhattercherjee uncle respectively.

We, the gang of girls of our neighbourhood, numbering 5-6, would celebrate Jullan-Jatra in the month of August, a festival to worship Lord Krishna and his consort Radha’s milan. The gang of girls would always go from house to house collecting donation. It was in the mid-80s and Rs. Two was what we received on an average from most of the families. Those uncles and aunties who had only son(s) but no daughter would give us Rupees Five since the organizers were all girls. They somehow trusted us- the girls more than the locality boys.

Once my friends elder brother suggested that we should post ourselves near the Post Office since that’s the place where people carrying some money in their pockets and purse flocked to (other than banks). I remember, an old uncle (didn’t know his name) clad in dhoti and kurta gave us a Five paise coin. This he took out very miserly from his kurta pocket. We accepted his offer but from that day onwards we named him 5 paise uncle.

Now let me come back to the two uncles whose love for the "bottle" was more than any work was known to one and all in the locality including us. The gang of girls would split in two groups and would twice collect money for the festival from both of them. In their intoxicated state they could never guess that the girls belonged to the same organizing group. And lo! They in a high state gave us Rs 20 to Rs 25 each. Without these two uncles it would have been difficult for us to celebrate the festival.

Excuse me for diverting from the main point which is corruption. In my growing up years corruption was a task done “under-the-table”. Now in my growing old years I see it as a task done blatantly “over-the-table”.  Perhaps when I was a child there was not much traffic in the city but now with Guwahati’s traffic moving at a snail’s pace I see traffic policemen openly accepting money in broad daylight from truckwallahs and lorrywallahs in the national highway. Now, why won’t the prices of fish, chicken, eggs and other essential items increase if the businessmen had to shell-out money from their pockets at every check gate and traffic point?

Magh Bihu is a time when the prices of everything skyrockets because it is the festival of feasting. In Assam, Magh or Bhogali Bihu is celebrated in mid-January to mark the end of the harvest season and when the granary is full in every household. 13^th January is uruka­­ or Bihu eve, when youngsters are seen building meji (thatched huts made out of bamboo and straw). Since we lived in a colony it was not easy to get bamboo fences and straws. However, we did manage to steal from those houses which were not occupied for a while or from those houses whose family members went to their native places for Bihu. This work of stealing required a lot of plans a month or so before the festival.  First, we had to spot the house which was empty. Once we figured out the house, we would rise early at the crack of dawn, equipped with knife, hammer, spanner etc.

Once we went to steal bamboo fences from a house just near the post office. The house belonged to an aged Bengali couple. Our friend Bhonti (aka Hitler, named so by the neighbourhood boys because her father kept a moustache like Hilter’s) came with the information that just two houses from hers, the Bengali family had gone to the Zoo for a picnic (picnic was so common during December-January in those days). The gang of girls immediately swung into action. We lost no time to collect the equipments to cut the wires and to uproot the fences. It was evening time; dusk had not yet set in, when we were busy with our job. We were so engrossed in our mission that we failed to see the white ambassador halting right in front of the house. Suddenly we heard a man’s voice thundering, hey, hey ki korisa (what you are doing?). All the gang of girls was swift in running (we always won prices in the athletic competition in Ronagali Bihu). We ran from there with the speed of lightning before being caught except Bhonti. She just froze on the spot. Since stealing during Magh Bihu is not a taboo (people steal vegetables, fowls and ducks in the villages in uruka in Assam) she escaped from any harm.

I neither remember the exact year, nor the person or family to whom this incident happened. I came to know from my friends while strolling in the evening (evening walk or cycling was a regular activity for the gang of girls). This family (let me name it as family XYZ for the sake of my reader’s convenience) was a denizen of DCC. The head of the family may have been a corrupt officer (I am writing ‘may’ because I have only heard it; it never made it in the local newspapers). He may have accepted bribes from candidate(s) with the promise of giving a sarkari naukri (government job). I don’t understand why the Assamese community has a fetish for government jobs. No Axomiya father would give his daughter’s hand to an Axomiya businessman in those days. This young government job-seeker hailing from the village may have sold his valuable piece of land in his village which he must have inherited from his father, who in turn must have received it from his father and so on . . .). The officer must have given this fellow the assurance that he would get a job, until a year or two had passed and no job saw the light of the day. However, the job-seeker didn’t lose hope. He would visit the officer’s house in DCC with whatever he could procure from his farmland- pure milk or ghee one day, the sweet-scented joha rice the other, jur the next and so on. The officer’s wife must have also accepted these little offerings from the humble and rustic young village lad.

Once, the same boy brought some home-made laru-pitha (rice-cakes), gur (jaggery), chira (flattened-rice) and a tekeli of sweet doi (curd) during Magh Bihu to the officer’s house. His wife, a home-maker, gladly accepted the boy's Bihu offerings. It must be mentioned here that giving home-made laru-pitha, gur, curd, puffed and flattened rice etc. to relatives and friends is a traditional custom in Assam during Magh Bihu, so is inviting people at home for feasting.

The officer’s wife took out the eatables the next morning for breakfast. People generally eat chira-doi with gur for breakfast on the day of Bihu. The lady of the house kept the tekeli full of doi in the dining-table. They were munching chira-doi when a very strange smell hit their nostrils. The lady went to the kitchen in search of any dead insects mainly mouse but found nothing there. She opened the fridge but only the smell of food emanated from there. The gluttonous husband was merrily feasting when suddenly he threw out. Out came from his mouth the different-coloured stuffing which should have been the white and sweet curd. There was a mixture of yellow in between. When his wife scooped the tekeli, to her utter surprise, she found a layer of yellow s*** hidden below the doi in the tekeli.

When my friends narrated this to me I felt liking puking. Now that I reflect on this incident (which can happen to any person accepting bribe) I can only laugh out loud and say to myself- serves him/ her right, right?

*Tekeli- earthern pot

Life in a boarding

Aditi is unable to connect to her mother on the phone. It’s her and the boarders’ phone call day. Every Thursday and Sunday the boarders’ of Gulmohar call their parents, 4 minutes on Thursdays and 8 minutes on Sundays. She (and K. Padmini, both from Gangtok) is the only one out of the 28 boarders who didn’t get the line. The rest all signed in the phone call register.

The SA 1 examination is going on. Hence, some of the girls study till late night while the others are fast asleep. Aditi too fell asleep thinking she would be unable to speak to her parents.

I get a call somewhere between 10:00-10:30 pm. Generally I don’t pick up calls from boarders parents after 9:30 pm. But today I did when the office phone buzzed and “Aditi’s Ma” appeared on the screen. I went to room no. 4B. Her bed is no. 3, in one corner facing the window (in Gulmohar we call it facing DPS Guwahati). She was fast asleep.

When the rouser call rings in the morning at 5:30 am almost everyone wakes up on time except Aditi. When I take a round to check if everyone is awake and brushed their teeth, she would still be sleeping. I would go to her bed and wake her up gently. Once I was in such a round and as expected she was fast asleep, all curled up in bed. “Wake up, Aditi. Wake up, Aditi”, I told her. She opened her little eyes. I sternly commanded her to get up from bed and go. She was still in a half-sleep-half-awake state when she replied “Go where, Ma’am?” It was for the PT/ Yoga classes I meant. Even though I acted as if I was angry with her for asking such a question when she ought to know her daily schedule followed in the hostel, deep inside I was not. Her question only made me smile from inside.

She spoke to her mother first and asked her why she didn’t keep the phone with her. She told her mother that her tuck was almost over and asked her to come from Imphal to Guwahati to meet her and bring her the special Maggie cooked by her mother. In the hostel, most of the boarders eat uncooked Maggie as they eat Wai-Wai ­- raw.

She asked her mother about her father’s health, if the lump in his face has subsided. In all her innocence she beseeched her mother to pray to the Almighty to cure her father. She was crying when she spoke those words. Hope the one above us sees her tears and listens to her prayer. She later spoke to her father in Hindi and asked him about his well-being. Her tears stopped immediately as she started the conversation with him, as if she didn’t wish him to know that she had cried a moment earlier. I could sense a grim in her face as she spoke to him. She asked her father to “kick that doctor”- the one who was treating him.

I must have waited for more than 4 minutes by her bed. Shabana, Aditi’s roommate got up from her bed and climbed on to Aditi’s bed when she became emotional. Krishna, her other roommate who was sleeping peacefully until then too woke up when she was on the phone. Donu Kena, her Arunachali roommate had just entered the room after studying in the study room when I was about to leave their room. I wished all the 4 roommates good night.

Aditi is a very sweet girl even though she doesn’t spend much time in studying. She was in Sanskriti- The Gurukul, Guwahati before joining Royal Global School, Guwahati. She was my nephew Jonathan’s classmate in her previous school. She is in grade VI A now and seems to know her lessons well since she had already studied in class IV and V in Sanskriti (under ICSE) what she is studying now in grade VI in RGS (under CBSE).

The next day she had her mathematics examination. I went to see if all the girls had assembled in the corridor of the hostel before going down for breakfast. She saw Ginima, the security personnel, making pleats in Ritika (the youngest boarder of Gulmohar) and Shabana’s hair. She too requested Ginima to pleat her hair. While I was watching Ginima arranging Aditi’s hair I saw that Aditi’s left hand had some cut marks. I asked her how she hurt herself. She narrated: “Ma’am, while I was taking out the paint bottles from the rack under the study table, I hand accidentally hit the edge of the table and . . .” She made some strange sound like ‘dharang’ to express what happened later to her. I understood what she meant to say. She never came to me crying seeking some comfort or to ask for medicines to Hemlata, the resident nurse. “Had it happened to delicate girls like Urvashi from grade VII, she would have come writhing in pain, with tears in her eyes and even if it was just for a very minor scratch”, I laughed while saying this to her and the other boarders who had assembled there one by one. “I am a strong girl, Ma’am” was her straight yet simple statement. As she spoke this I looked into her face and squeezed her cheeks as if to praise her. Imagine a girl of only grade VI making such a strong statement. Perhaps I was not that strong when I was of Aditi’s age, with so much of shield against difficulties, sorrows and pains from my parents and siblings and living in a cocooned world. Aditi’s remark set my thoughts rolling- I wondered what had made her say so- her ailing father or her circumstances at home. Life had taught the young girl about “life” at a very early stage. I only wish all my girls- the remaining 27 boarders’ of Gulmohar to be as strong a girl as Aditi, to face life with a smile when they grow into beautiful young ladies even when they face adversities.

The Horseshoe

Nothing could be as rejuvenating for me as a long walk, a walk when my thought process reaches the climax. Every man is a loser at one point of time in their life yet there’s something that keeps the wheel of life moving.

I lost my husband more than 2 years back. Until his death, I have never encountered death at a close range. I lost even my belongings while shifting from Gurgaon to Guwahati and my 2 pet cats. Perhaps God wanted me to grow stronger with each loss.

I have tried to erase my horrendous past but it is thoughts which keep hitting my mind time and again. I try to be as cheerful as possible lest nobody knows the trauma I have gone through. I have observed in some people that the mental scar is visible even in their face. I try to find out in the mirror if I also look like them, with the mental agony engraved in my face.

The other day I had walked down from my mother’s home in Rukmini Nagar in Dispur to my office in Ganeshguri. I had only 1 winter jacket, that too a light one, a gift from my friend Pooja from Gurgaon. I was financially broke and felt ashamed of asking money from my Ma at this age. I knew I had to get another winter jacket to keep me safe from the cold. With my first salary I thought I would spend a part of it on a noble cause. As I reached Ganeshguri, I stopped at a shop which displayed ‘discount’ and I went straight in. I got not one but two winter garments- one jacket and a sweater.

As I was nearing the Ganeshguri flyover and crossing the foot-path I think I saw a beggar with his leg missing. Without even turning for once I took out a coin from my wallet and was about to throw it in his begging bowl when I realized he didn’t had any. I had the coin in my hand and to my embarrassment I didn’t know how best to hide my faux pas. I saw trinkets and rings in neat rows placed above an old cloth. I saw a copper ring and asked him how much it cost. I only wear the wedding ring- a small and simple ring which Arunabh and I got from South Extension market in New Delhi before our wedding. I knew I will never wear the copper ring, there’s plenty in my Ma’s jewellery box which she has collected from her travels across Assam.

I was still wondering what to buy from him to cover my embarrassment, when I saw a horseshoe. A horseshoe is considered to bring good luck to a home if it placed (2 ends facing upwards) in the entrance of the house. I was happy to have seen it in this man’s stall and gladly purchased it for Rs 50.

The person may be physically- handicapped but he didn’t beg for a living. I salute him for his strong determination, for living a life of dignity. He reminded me of another person- a book seller in MG Road of Bangalore who didn’t have hands but who still sold books in the open in the busy MG Road.

I could have got the copper ring instead of shelling out Rs 50 at the time when I was in dire straits. Deep in my mind I knew that someday good luck will come knocking at my door and when it does I will think about the man without his leg.