‘From being hunted to protected, the tiger symbolises India’s awakening’

Mahesh Rangarajan is professor of history and environmental studies at Ashoka University. Speaking to Srijana Mitra Das at Times Evoke, he traces the tale of the magnificent Indian tiger:

- Mahesh Rangarajan

The tiger is iconic to India. A very large carnivore, at a time, hunting it was seen as a symbol of great courage, particularly for kings. In the fourth century, Emperor Samudragupta fought a tiger — a coin thus titled him ‘the conqueror of tigers’. However, in northern and central India, the lion hunt was more prominent — this changed with the arrival of the British. The first British bridgehead was in Bengal where tigers abounded. In the late 18th century, the young son of a British general, Hector Munro, was carried off by a tiger in Sagar Island. This incident was replayed often in English history, with famous ceramic makers, for instance, featuring a grisly image of a massive tiger mauling the hapless British soldier.

After 1850, the British dislike of tigers also became linked to the advance of cultivation and the fact that tigers preyed on domestic cattle too. As draught power came from cows and buffalos, the tiger was seen as halting the growth of profitable agriculture. The Victorians of the late 19th century also had a very literal idea of hierarchy on Earth, with man seen as the pinnacle of creation and European man, its apogee — but here was this animal attacking them. So, the tiger hunt asserted both manly superiority and imperial dominance.