decrease – the only thing the government can do besides running campaigns
that no one watches on Doordarshan is announcing new ways of conducting a
census. This time instead of measuring pug marks they’ve turned to
measuring the excrement of tigers.
The problem can be traced back to when India decided to deport the British
in the name of independence. So what exactly happened? Simple – they made
the tiger the national animal.
A quick survey of all things national in our country reveals the state of
despair they are in:
Sport – Hockey (Destroyed due to lack of governance and by the Board of
Control of Cricket)
Flower – Lotus (We eat the stem and let the petals rot away in their
surrounding muck)
Bird – Peacock (Reduced to being a bookmark and exotic meat)
Song – Vande Mataram (legally banned by a community)
Anthem – Jana Gana Mana (Contentious given the lack of Telengana and
Jharkhand representation)
Network – Doordarshan (Hasn’t produced a programme worth watching since
Jaspal Bhatti’s Flop Show)
Museum – In Delhi (When was the last time anyone went there?)
So is there any surprise they haven’t managed to save the Tiger? As with
any other national thing – people really don’t care. What they do care
about however – is god. There is perhaps no better civic example of
preventing people from defecating on the streets than by installing images
of gods on public walls.
The Tiger doesn’t even get enough credit as monkey’s, elephants and rats.
We all know the monkey issue. Ever since Dara Singh played Hanuman in the
first rendition of TV Ramayana – Indians have happily allowed monkeys to
ravage cities and human beings. Terrorists attacking the Parliament is
obviously a big no no; but if a stray monkey who likes living there bites a
minister – that’s a sign from the gods that you’ll be in power for a very
long time!
The first time India hosted an international sports meet (Asian Games 84)
the mascot was the Elephant (The Appu) as compared to the Tiger (Shera –
who comes up with these joke names parading as ethnic heritage?) who only
got a chance in 2010. Perhaps they knew the condition of the Tiger would be
as good as their stadiums?
More recently the government of India recently announced no elephants will
be kept in zoos anymore since they are best served by being in their
natural habitat. Now personally I don’t agree. Elephants have a better
chance of staying alive in zoos and walking our city streets as compared to
being killed for their tusks in the jungle. But still – given that you
can’t piss off Mayawati (whose election symbol is a big lumbering elephant
crushing its opponents) elephants have to go back to their naturally
friendly environment where everyone would call it Jumbo.
Forget elephants. Even rats get more respect. Go to half the Hindu places
of worship where rats are revered as one of god’s greatest creations.
So given that we have scientific and anthropological data that Indians
don’t mess with god - why has the Tiger not been converted into some god
yet? Why can’t the RSS and VHP come out with guidelines for saving the
Tigers instead of allowing their crushed bones to be part of el-cheapo
Chinese aphrodisiacs? Every time I see an Indian and Chinese comparison on
TV depicting a Tiger fighting a Dragon – it only reminds me that the tiger
is getting extinct. It’s time to drop that box of Kelloggs Frosties and
urge your local community to create Tiger awareness all around. Who knows –
maybe the movement will spread and people will start worshipping it and
maybe we’ll end up saving a few.
It’s a real pity that the group that has gotten our national animal the
most publicity the last 20 years was a Sri Lankan terror outfit. Funnily –
they too are now virtually extinct.
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