To Hunt or Not to Hunt: Tiger Hunting, Conservation and Collaboration in Colonial India

Abstract

As the Edwardian era came to an end in Britain and its Empire began to decline, the glorious days of tiger hunting in India were being measured against a genuine fear of the total extinction of tigers. This article maps the precarious position of Indian tigers in the hands of hunters against the rising concern over preservation of the species in the first half of the twentieth century. Ranging from the bureaucratic to the overtly sentimental and personal, these attitudes, taken together, reveal a pre-‘Project Tiger’ conservation milieu in colonial India. They help us to judge the cultural status and symbol of the Bengal tiger before it became an iconic species for wildlife conservation in postcolonial India. The various debates and representations of tigers in hunting memoirs often throw light on intricate socio-cultural problems threatening the survival of the cat. In fact, the debates, as much as they spread awareness, ended up strengthening the bureaucratic and sometimes political hold over Indian forests. The article further tracks imperial discourse on the systematization of tiger hunts, which was effectively linked with the preservation of tigers and collaboration with Indians. During the twilight of the British Empire, tiger hunt and tiger conservation would emerge as sites for possible collaboration between Indians and their rulers. As recent efforts at international collaboration to protect tigers have shown, the tiger retains enough sentimental value to secure bureaucratic and political ties between nations.