The Kaziranga Debate - Wildlife Cringes Or The View From The Fringes?

Nestled in the heart of Assam, Kaziranga National Park was recently mired in a bitter controversy regarding the killing of tribal people in the name of wildlife conservation. To what extent is this kind of security justified, if at all? On their part, the Kaziranga authorities and the government feel they need to strengthen their security, and by no means is Kaziranga the only rhino-bearing area where gun battles between the forest security and well-armed poachers occur resulting in casualties. In this article, Nava Thakuria narrates both sides of the story and gives an account of the series of events and developments that have emerged in this regard.

- Nava Thakuria

That which was revered as a success story in the history of wildlife conservation, has, of late, received immense criticism from the global media. An international tribal people’s rights body even came forward with a boycott call against the abode of the greater one-horned rhinoceros, claiming that the infamous Indian forest reserve had slowly turned into a killing field of innocent tribal people in the name of wildlife protection.

The Concern

Survival International, a London-based tribal rights organization, in a statement expressed its concern that the forest guards of Kaziranga National Park were using extreme power with impunity to kill poachers with an aim to safeguard the precious single-horned rhino. As per the assertion of the international organization, what was shocking was that many tribal people were already killed by the armed forest guards on grounds of mere suspicion.

As the Kaziranga authority continued celebrating the success story of preserving almost two-thirds of the world’s one-horned rhino population, there were few who were willing to listen to the other side of the story. Besides rhinos, the forest reserve, now developed as a tiger project too, gives shelter to a significant number of the Royal Bengal tigers, Asiatic elephants and buffalos, different species of deer, and so on. As opposed to 1986, when single-horned rhinos were identified as endangered, in its 2008 red list, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed rhinos as vulnerable. Poachers continue killing rhinos for the horns that carry a huge sum of money in the international market, thereby feeding the demand for traditional Chinese and Vietnamese medicinal uses.

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