New Delhi: Wildlife conservationist and historian Dibyabhanusinh Chavda had no intention of writing a book on cheetahs, leave alone launching one. And yet, on a rainy Wednesday evening, he found himself in front of a small audience of dedicated wildlife enthusiasts who were doing just that.
In fact, story of cheetahs of indiaLaunched on May 3 at the World Wildlife Fund office in New Delhi, Chavda’s second book on the subject, End of the Trail: Cheetah in India Published in 1995 went through three printings.
“There is a notable Russian scholar who is doing research on cheetahs in the Masai Mara, and he contacted me during Covid-19 through another friend of ours. He said what are you doing? And I said I’m doing very important, productive work helping my wife wash the dishes and sweep the floor,” he said, as the audience laughed.
He suggested that he rewrite his old book. What emerged was a rich story of cheetahs in India.
Chavda said, “I was doing nothing else than catching butterflies, and so I put pen to paper.”
Read also: From Extinction to Reintroduction: A Brief History of the Indian Cheetah
cheetah story of india
story of cheetahs of india It took two years to complete with contributions from scholars of Pali, Sanskrit, Urdu, Marathi, Arabic and many other languages. It traces the history of cheetahs from pre-historic times to their extinction in the Indian subcontinent.
“The most exciting thing to me is that all this information was really unknown,” Chavda said.
The book, published by Marg Foundation, has a wonderful painting on its cover – a family of cheetahs, a mother taking care of her cubs, resting between rocks and a tall tree. According to the book, this is one of the earliest paintings of wild cheetahs in India, attributed to the Mughal artist Basavan in 1570.
The book has come at a time when the government is trying to bring
This photo back to life. It recently relocated 20 cheetahs from Africa in what is believed to be the world’s largest conservation experiment for a large mammal. However, two cheetahs died in the process.
Although Chavda does not attempt to predict whether the project will be successful or unsuccessful, the “torturous” history of cheetah survival in India suggests that revival will be a long process, lasting at least several decades, he said.
According to noted conservationist MK Ranjitsingh, who was part of the panel, the book is “the finest history of any species” he has seen.
For one, it challenges the popular belief that cheetahs became extinct in 1947, when Maharaja Ramanuja Pratap Singh Deo of the then princely state of Korea (in present-day Chhattisgarh, now called Korea) shot the last three Was.
Instead, the book records the last cheetah sighting in the Indian subcontinent in 1997, in Balochistan – “not 1947, not 1962, not 1972. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the date that’s most important.” “
Vermin to Keeper of the Meadow
Mahesh Rangarajan, professor of environmental studies and history at Ashoka University, also told the audience at the event how historically Cheetah never had an advocate. They were fiercely hunted and regarded as “pests” during British rule, and never captured the popular imagination of Indians afterwards.
“The 1960s transformed the tiger from a trophy animal to a conservation icon. In 1972, the lion became the state animal of Gujarat. The cheetah didn’t find a place,” Rangarajan said. “The cheetah has become a bridge to broaden that sense of consciousness – as happened with the tiger.”
For Ranjitsingh, Project Cheetah has the potential to regenerate what has been decimated over centuries – India’s grassland savannas, home to myriad other species that are endangered, some of them critically, such as the caracal. Considered mostly “barren lands” in India, grasslands are where cheetahs thrive, among other ecosystems.
“The cheetah brings many things with it, as he outlines in his book. This can shift the focus (of conservation) away from a single species to multiple species. Our meadows should be protected by some kind of icon. We are big worshipers of symbols and it should be used.