The Kharai Camels

A rare, dwindling breed.

- Maneka Sanjay Gandhi

I went to one of the best exhibitions of this year "Living Lightly" in January 2017. The organisers showed the music, food, jewellery, clothes, art and living of 15 pastoral communities in India: the sheep nomads from Kashmir and Andhra Pradesh, the camel herders of Gujarat and Rajasthan among them. In that one hour I learnt a great deal about the communities of people and animals that inhabit India. Did you know that there are black sheep in India and nine breeds of camel? The Banni buffalo, the Kankrej cow, the Kacchi goat and the Sindhi horse are simply unique. The government has done absolutely nothing to conserve these animals – in fact, each one of them is simply seen as meat. It is generations of these pastoral communities that have kept our heritage animals alive.

Let me tell you about the Kharai camel. It is almost extinct, as are most camels in India - because the camel communities are now stopping their gypsy way of life and settling down to other professions. They sell these camels to a gang of butchers from the Uttar Pradesh district of Baghpat – each of whom has over 90 cases on him and is a multimillionaire from killing. This gang comes from one village. They pose as agriculturists and go to camel haats like Pushkar where they flash fake cards, pay the local SDM or the haat magistrate and take away the camels. These are loaded into trucks, 16 at a time, and then taken to Bangladesh via Kishenganj in Bihar and Malda in West Bengal. I have rescued over 2000 so far, but that is out of 50,000 that are going every year.

Anyway, let me come back to the Kharai camels. They are reared by the Fakirani Jat and Rabari communities. While the Rabaris are still in Kachch, the Fakirani Jats are now on the move and have come to Ahmedabad, Bharuch and Bhavanagar in search of the ever-receding mangroves.