'Hunting is tempting'

In Assam, 61 poachers surrendered last month. Their confessions lay bare the workings of an entrenched racket, writes TERESA REHMAN

AS HE SMILES, the sharp lines on his forehead and cheeks stress his tough skin and sturdy grit. Twirling his moustache, Dilli Boro — ‘Veerappan’ to his associates — recalls his quarter-century career as a poacher in Assam’s Manas National Park. He rarely returned without a kill, even though he used only a country-made gun. “Poaching is a sport that calls for passion, determination and courage that comes only with experience,” says Boro, who surrendered with 60 other poachers last month, in an exclusive interview with TEHELKA. “You must know the laws of the jungle, sense animal movement, swim, crawl and climb trees.”The surrender has brought quite a turn in their lives.

The 61 poachers — hailing from villages on the park’s southern boundary — now await rehabilitation. Surrendering before Assam’s autonomous Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC), the poachers admit they took to poaching because they lacked livelihood. There are no townships or factories in the region except a tea estate. The villagers — mostly Bodos, apart from some Assamese, Bengalis and Nepalese — are wage labourers or marginal farmers with few resources. Initially, recalls Boro, hunting took place during religious festivals. But the villagers took to rampant poaching during the 1988-98 tribal agitation for a self-governing Bodoland.

In 1992, UNESCO was forced to name the Manas Park, a tiger reserve since 1973, as a World Heritage Site in danger from militants who devastated infrastructure, looted arms and killed staff. Many jobless educated youths joined the violent agitation and soon careened to a poacher’s life. “We had no infrastructure, healthcare, water supply and irrigation,” says Thaneswar Das, an ex-poacher with roots in the Bodo agitation. “There was no work even as a daily-wage labourer.” Authorities agree that alternative livelihood is the key to keeping these poachers away from killing more wildlife.

“Our first goal is to give them jobs,” says Anindya Swargowary, head of the Manas Tiger Reserve, which is part of the park. “Conservation and development have to go hand in hand.” Indeed, ex-poachers such as Boro can be useful in the anti-poaching campaigns. Hunting since a pre-teen, the nimble-footed Boro, 38, claims to know every stretch and hill of these forests. He knows movements of an unseen animal from the smoke of a snuffed matchstick — “avoid the wind so that the animal doesn’t know where we are” — and can spot the hunter just as easily as the hunted.

Most ex-poachers, who grew up in the forests, would bury their guns at places known only to them. A most ingenious ploy saw the last man in a poaching party drag a leafy branch to erase their barefoot prints. “Sometimes, we even drew tiger paws to mislead the forest guards,” says Muneswar Basumatary. On the hunt, they always carried mosquito repellents and nets, essential medicines including painkillers, ration and drinking water. In his career, Boro poached countless hog deer, and wild bison and buffaloes.

He once killed a one-horned rhinoceros and even a tiger, whose skin he sold for Rs 26,000, a fraction of what the middlemen must have fetched from the final buyer. “I was on a treetop to hunt a wild boar when I saw the tiger eye my prey,” recalls Boro. “I was greedy because a tiger meant more money… Of the two hunters, one had to die.” Most ex-poachers say they avoided big game until their poverty turned acute. “I began poaching in desperation after deer, wild pigs and peacocks ravaged my crop,” says Anukul Chandra Das, 45, who hunted only deer and wild boar to sell as meat. His anxiety grew when the forest department offeredhim only a little hay as compensation after elephants destroyed his house. Once, it hired him as a daily labourer but never paid him.

Soon, Das had killed a tiger, whose skin he sold for a meagre Rs 12,000 because the tail was missing from it. IN FACT, these ex-poachers risked their lives for years only to see the middleman get the lion’s share. Usually a townsman called “Dada” — surrogate term for the middleman — took away the skin, horns, teeth and other parts of the poached animals, while these hunters never found out where their kills were sold or what their prices in the international market were. On occasion, their booty rotted away only because they couldn’t make contact with the middleman in time. A visit to the houses of these surrendered poachers is enough to know that they continue to live in terrible poverty. “I had no school uniform, nothing to eat after school,” says Netra Bahadur Rai, 26, a Nepali who started poaching at age 12. “Poaching gave me food.” Another ex-poacher, Naren Boro, hunted hog deer to sell as meat but could never afford it for his family. Says his wife, Sipini: “I don’t know how a deer’s meat tastes.”
On the other hand, poaching ran up bills, too, such as for hiring help to transport big kills. They also paid protection money to Bodo militants: 4 kg off a big deer; 1 kg off a small one; 20 kg off a buffalo. Happy with the surrender of these expoachers, the forest department is now setting up 31 anti-poaching camps across the Manas Park while encouraging the participation of nearby communities. “We are trying to bridge the gap between us and the local people who feel alienated by our conservation efforts,” says Swargowary. Although there are no specific rehabilitation packages for the moment, authorities plan to give each surrendered poacher Rs 10,000, a rickshaw to some and roofing sheets to some others. Some with farmland may get a bullock cart. “Hunting is tempting,” says Anukul Das plainly. “We might go back to it if we don’t get alternative livelihood.”

From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 13, Dated April 5, 2008