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Royal Tigers and Ruling Princes: Wilderness and wildlife management in the Indian princely states*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2015

JULIE E. HUGHES
JULIE E. HUGHES*
Affiliation:
History Department, Vassar College, New York, United States of America Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Indian princes correlated the preservation and use of well-maintained hunting grounds rich in desirable flora and fauna with the enjoyment of higher status, stronger defences against foreign interference, and more compliant subjects. As a result, they carefully managed wilderness and wildlife in their territories. Major past impacts on environments and biodiversity, with ongoing relevance to the ways in which wildlife and wilderness are perceived in the subcontinent today, emerged from the widespread conviction of these rulers that their attempts to govern ecosystems and wildlife demographics were natural and necessary functions of the state. Evidence drawn from hunting memoirs, shooting diaries, photographs, paintings, archival records, and administration reports from a selection of North Indian states calls into question exactly how, and even if, wildlife or wilderness existed in separation from people and the realm of civilization. The intimate relationship between Indian sovereigns, wilderness, and wildlife, therefore, informs new understandings of princely identity, South Asian environmental history, and elite Indian receptions of European and colonial science and managerial practice relating to forests and wild animals in the era of British paramountcy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 4 , July 2015 , pp. 1210 - 1260
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

*

Note on sources and acknowledgements: my sources range from published materials including the valuable haqīqat bahīda—registers of Maharana Fateh Singh's daily activities—and the richly informative memoirs of state shikaris (huntsmen) in English and Hindi, to period photography and archival documents including the detailed correspondence on forestry and wildlife management conducted between select state officials and British residents. While the voices of the princes’ representatives were readily available on these topics, the princes’ own words proved less accessible. This is largely because the private archives of the princely houses, including the Maharana Mewar Special Archives and the Archival Section, Maharaja Ganga Singhji Trust, have not granted access to scholars researching princely hunting in recent years. I was no exception. I originally obtained some of the materials used here with support from the American Institute of Indian Studies, and with the kind cooperation of the directors and staff of the Rajasthan State Archives, Bikaner and Udaipur, the National Archives of India, and the Maharana Mewar Special Library. I am especially indebted to feedback obtained at the American Society for Environmental History's 2013 conference in Toronto, at the 2013 workshop on Animals and Empire, University of Bristol, and from this journal's anonymous reviewers.

References

1 Wildlife Institute of India students made the discovery in September 2004; the news went public in February 2005. See Johari, Radhika, ‘Of Paper Tigers and Invisible People: The Cultural Politics of Nature in Sariska’ in Shahabuddin, Ghazala and Rangarajan, Mahesh (eds), Making Conservation Work: Securing Biodiversity in this New Century (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2007), p. 48Google Scholar; Sunny Sebastian, ‘Sariska Gets a Tiger’, The Hindu, 29 June 2008, http://www.hindu.com/2008/06/29/stories/2008062960011000.htm, [accessed 17 August 2014]; see also Anindo Dey, ‘After 4 Years, Sariska Gets a Tiger’, Times of India, 29 June 2008, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/flora-fauna/After-4-years-Sariska-gets-a-tiger/articleshow/3176131.cms [accessed 26 September 2014], and Somesh Goyal, ‘Burning Bright Again’, The Indian Express, 3 July 2008, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/burning-bright-again/329552/, [accessed 17 August 2014]; Narain, Sunita, Panwar, H. S, Gadgil, Madhav, Thapar, Valmik, and Singh, Samar, Joining the Dots: The Report of the Tiger Task Force (New Delhi: Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (Project Tiger), 2005), p. 14Google Scholar; Neha Sinha, ‘Echo of 1928 in Sariska Experiment’, The Indian Express, 6 July 2008, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/echo-of-1928-in-sariska-experiment/332229/1, [accessed 20 August 2014].

2 Efforts to obtain tigers began in 1928; see Diwan of Dungarpur, to Political Agent, Southern Rajputana States Agency, 15 November 1928, no. 2651, Government of India, Southern Rajputana States Agency, 261-G of 1928, National Archives of India; Prakash Bhandari, ‘1930: Story of the First Tiger Relocation’, Times of India, 6 July 2008, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/flora-fauna/1930-Story-of-the-first-tiger-relocation/articleshow/3201973.cms? [accessed 26 September 2014]. Although this was likely to have been the first attempt with the aim of reestablishing the species in a specific territory, it was already fairly common for princes to move tigers within their own states for various purposes, send juveniles to neighbouring princes as gifts, and even to ‘seed’ a jungle with a tiger for a visiting VIP to shoot.

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5 On these topics, see especially MacKenzie, John M., The Empire of Nature: Hunting, Conservation and British Imperialism (New York: Manchester University Press, 1988)Google Scholar, and Allen, Charles and Dwivedi, Sharada, Lives of the Indian Princes (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., in association with the Taj Hotel Group, 1984)Google Scholar.

6 There is an extensive literature on masculinity and martial culture in relation to landscape or bhum (land or territory) and concepts of power among the Rajputs. I have found the following of particular value: Harlan, Lindsey, The Goddesses Henchmen: Gender in Indian Hero Worship (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 29–70Google Scholar; Kasturi, Malavika, Embattled Identities: Rajput Lineages and the Colonial State in Nineteenth-Century North India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 64–101 and 172–199Google Scholar; Gold, Ann Grodzins, In the Time of Trees and Sorrows: Nature, Power, and Memory in Rajasthan (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2002), pp. 241–276Google Scholar. Not specifically about Rajputs but nevertheless informative are Waghorne, Joanne Punzo, The Raja's Magic Clothes: Revisioning Kingship and Divinity in England's India (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), pp. 165–188Google Scholar, and Zimmerman, Frances, The Jungle and the Aroma of Meats: An Ecological Theme in Hindu Medicine (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 159–179 and 181–185Google Scholar. For a more direct treatment of masculinity and martial culture in relation to princely hunting than is necessary for the purposes of this article, see Hughes, Julie E., Animal Kingdoms: Hunting, the Environment, and Power in the Indian Princely States (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2012Google Scholar; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2013), pp. 84–136 and 185–221.

7 Ramusack, Barbara N., The Indian Princes and Their States (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 119 and 97Google Scholar; Copland, Ian, The Princes of India in the Endgame of Empire, 1917–1947 (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 15 and 20Google Scholar. Copland characterizes an elite subset of Indian princes as ‘major actors holding centre stage’, Copland, Princes of India, p. 14. Ramusack carefully acknowledges both the ‘substantial authority and power’ of princes in their states, and the processes by which ‘British power gradually restrained sovereign princely authority’, Ramusack, Indian Princes, p. 2.

8 Ernst, Waltraud and Pati, Biswamoy, ‘People, Princes and Colonialism’ in Ernst, Waltraud and Pati, Biswamoy (eds), India's Princely States: People, Princes and Colonialism (New York: Routledge, 2007), p. 4Google Scholar.

9 Ernst and Pati, ‘People, Princes and Colonialism’, p. 4 and n. 6; Bhagavan, Manu, Sovereign Spheres: Princes, Education, and Empire in Colonial India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Cannadine, David, Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

10 This may have been particularly true during the years after Curzon's resignation in 1905 and the late 1920s, during which time the government groomed princes as political allies and developed a policy of non-interference—a policy that would be widely criticized by the early 1930s. The inauguration of non-interference is generally identified as Lord Minto's speech at Udaipur in 1909, see Ashton, S. R., British Policy Towards the Indian States, 1905–1939 (London: Curzon Press, 1982), p. 44Google Scholar.

11 For Jai Singh's experiments with optimizing revenue generation and hunting opportunities in Alwar State in the early twentieth century, which featured the ‘burning and razing of twenty-two villages’ and contributed to the prince's removal from power, see Johari, ‘Paper Tigers and Invisible People’, pp. 53–55.

12 For example, see D. M. Field, Note, in D. M. Field, to Diwan of Dungarpur, Banswara, Partabgarh, and Kamdar of Kushalgarh, 22 August 1928, Government of India, Southern Rajputana States Agency, 261-G of 1928, National Archives of India.

13 Corbett, Jim, Man-Eaters of Kumaon (1944; New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. xvGoogle Scholar. This popular classic has been reprinted numerous times, beginning in 1947. A 1993 Oxford India Paperback edition shows its twenty-fourth impression in 2002. Champion's books sold fewer copies, but Jungle in Sunlight and Shadow had a second impression in 1934, and Corbett credited With Camera in Tigerland with inspiring him to take up photography and only kill man-eaters, see Corbett, Man-Eaters, p. 217. A less well-known author approvingly cites Champion's ‘stout defence of the tiger’ and discusses his observations in both books, see Ryves, V. W., Blang, My Tiger (London: Arrowsmith, 1935), pp. 65–75Google Scholar. For more on the influence of these authors and the shift from guns to cameras, see Rangarajan, Mahesh, India's Wildlife History (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001), pp. 68–93Google Scholar.

14 Cronon, William, ‘The Trouble With Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature’ in Cronon, William (ed.), Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1996), pp. 69–90Google Scholar.

15 Johari, ‘Paper Tigers and Invisible People’, pp. 50, 58, and 74–75.

16 Platts, John T., A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English (London: W.H. Allen & Co., 1884), s. v. ‘jangal’, ‘jhāṛī’, and ‘śikārgāh’Google Scholar; Macalister, George, A Dictionary of the Dialects Spoken in the State of Jeypore’, 1st ed. (Allahabad: Allahabad Mission Press, 1898), s. v. ‘biṛ’Google Scholar. For more, see Gold, Trees and Sorrows, pp. 241–242.

17 Erskine, K. D., Rajputana Gazetteers: The Mewar Residency, Vol. II-A (Ajmer: Scottish Mission Industries, Co., Ltd., 1908), Mewar: pp. 8–9 and 46–48Google Scholar; Dungarpur: pp. 129 and 142–143.

18 It is important to note that princely wilderness was not equivalent to Sanskrit jangala, a characteristic landscape that it could include but was not limited to. On Sanskrit jangala, see Dove, Michael R., ‘The Dialectical History of “Jungle” in Pakistan: An Examination of the Relationship between Nature and Culture’, Journal of Anthropological Research 48, 3 (1992), pp. 231–253CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Zimmerman, Francis, The Jungle and the Aroma of Meats: An Ecological Theme in Hindu Medicine (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), p. 61Google Scholar.

19 Diwan of Dungarpur, ‘Particulars of Rare Animals Which are Specially Protected’ in Mewar Resident and Southern Rajputana States Agency, to Secretary to the Agent to the Governor General, Rajputana, 10 January 1935, no. 150/296/34, Government of India, Rajputana Agency Office, Political Branch, 175-P of 1939, National Archives of India.

20 Finn, Frank, Sterndale's Mammalia of India (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co., 1929), p. 120Google Scholar. Lakshman Singh of Dungarpur was a graduate of Mayo College. In stark contrast to their views on Fateh Singh of Mewar, British officials hailed Lakshman Singh as a progressive reformer. While his throne and title remained far more secure than Fateh Singh's—at least until Indian independence in 1947—the scope of his sovereignty as a prince actively ruling under the ill-defined system of British paramountcy was just as tentative and controversial, see Hughes, Animal Kingdoms, Chapter 6.

21 Littledale, H., ‘Notes on Wild Dogs, &c.’, Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 7, 4 (1893), pp. 497 and 506Google Scholar.

22 Inverarity, J. D., ‘The Indian Wild Dog (Cyon dukhunensis)’, Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 10, 3 (1896), p. 452Google Scholar.

23 Cohen, James A., Fox, Michael W., Johnsingh, A. J. T., Barnett, Bruce D., ‘Food Habits of the Dhole in South India’, Journal of Wildlife Management 42, 4 (1978), p. 933CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Littledale, ‘Wild Dogs’, pp. 497–498.

25 On stereotyped colonial understandings of Bhils and other ‘tribal’ peoples, see Vidal, Denis, Violence and Truth: A Rajasthani Kingdom Confronts Colonial Authority (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 135–140Google Scholar.

26 Littledale, ‘Wild Dogs’, p. 500.

27 Diwan of Dungarpur, ‘Particulars of Rare Animals Which are Specially Protected’ in Mewar Resident and Southern Rajputana States Agency, to Secretary to the Agent to the Governor General, Rajputana, 10 January 1935, no. 150/296/34, Government of India, Rajputana Agency Office, Political Branch, 175-P of 1939, National Archives of India.

28 Diwan of Dungarpur, ‘Particulars of Rare Animals Which are Specially Protected’ in Mewar Resident and Southern Rajputana States Agency, to Secretary to the Agent to the Governor General, Rajputana, 10 January 1935, no. 150/296/34, Government of India, Rajputana Agency Office, Political Branch, 175-P of 1939, National Archives of India.

29 S. Molur, Manis crassicaudata (2008), in IUCN, IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, Version 2012.2 (2012), http://www.iucnredlist.org, [accessed 28 August 2014]; Finn, Sterndale's Mammalia, p. 262.

30 It is eaten and targeted for medical purposes in parts of Africa, see K. Begg, C. Begg, and A. Abramov, ‘Mellivora capensis’ (2008), in IUCN, IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, Version 2012.2 (2012), http://www.iucnredlist.org, [accessed 28 August 2014].

31 Molur, ‘Manis crassicaudata’; Finn, Sterndale's Mammalia, p. 262.

32 Finn, Sterndale's Mammalia, p. 67.

33 Corbett, Jim, Man-Eaters of Kumaon (New York: Oxford University Press, 1944), pp. x and 138–139Google Scholar.

34 Divyabhanusinh, The End of a Trail: The Cheetah in India (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 225–229Google Scholar.

35 Diwan of Dungarpur, to Southern Rajputana States Agent, 15 November 1928, no. 2651, Government of India, Southern Rajputana States Agency, 261-G of 1928, National Archives of India.

36 Diwan of Dungarpur, to Southern Rajputana States Agent, 15 November 1928, no. 2651, Government of India, Southern Rajputana States Agency, 261-G of 1928, National Archives of India.

37 Diwan of Dungarpur, to Southern Rajputana States Agent, 15 November 1928, no. 2651, Government of India, Southern Rajputana States Agency, 261-G of 1928, National Archives of India; according to a much later secondary source, there were only three: Ranjitsinh, M.K., Beyond the Tiger: Portraits of Asian Wildlife (New Delhi: Brijbasi Printers Private Limited, 1997), p. 24Google Scholar; another secondary source claims two: Prakash Bhandari, ‘1930: Story of the First Tiger Relocation’, Times of India, 6 July 2008, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/flora-fauna/1930-Story-of-the-first-tiger-relocation/articleshow/3201973.cms? [accessed 26 September 2014].

38 Diwan of Dungarpur, to Southern Rajputana States Agent, 15 November 1928, no. 2651, Government of India, Southern Rajputana States Agency, 261-G of 1928, National Archives of India.

39 I have used the 1935 area of reserved forest in lieu of the unavailable figure for 1928, Report on the Administration of the Dungarpur State, Rajputana, for the Samvat Year 1992–93 Vikrami, Corresponding with A. D. 1935–36 (Dungarpur: Shri Lakshman Bijaya Printing Press, 1937), p. 18. All conversions between bighās and km2 are based on the standard bighā of 14,400 mi2 in British India; see Baden-Powell, B.H., The Land Systems of British India, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892), p. 459Google Scholar.

40 Karanth, K. Ullas, Nichols, James D., Kumar, N. Samba, Link, William A., Hines, James E. and Orians, Gordon H., ‘Tigers and Their Prey: Predicting Carnivore Densities from Prey Abundance’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 101, 14 (2004), p. 4856CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. Their numbers are for Ranthambore.

41 G. L. Betham, Mewar Resident and Southern Rajputana States Agent, to Secretary to the Agent to the Governor General, Rajputana, 27 September 1937, no. 3939/148/37, Government of India, Political Department, Political Branch, 27(8)-P of 1939, nos. 1–2, National Archives of India.

42 Diwan of Dungarpur, ‘Particulars of Rare Animals Which are Specially Protected’ in Mewar Resident and Southern Rajputana States Agent, to Secretary to the Agent to the Governor General, Rajputana, 10 January 1935, no. 150/296/34, Government of India, Rajputana Agency Office, Political Branch, 175-P of 1939, National Archives of India.

43 G. L. Betham, Mewar Resident and Southern Rajputana States Agent, to Secretary to the Agent to the Governor General, Rajputana, 27 September 1937, no. 3939/148/37, Government of India, Political Department, Political Branch, 27(8)-P of 1939, nos. 1–2, National Archives of India.

44 Ranjitsinh, Beyond the Tiger, p. 24; see also Bhandari, ‘First Tiger Relocation’.

45 Bhandari, ‘First Tiger Relocation’.

46 Diwan of Dungarpur, to Southern Rajputana States Agent, 15 November 1928, no. 2651, Government of India, Southern Rajputana States Agency, 261-G of 1928, National Archives of India; Ranjitsinh, Beyond the Tiger, p. 24.

47 Bhandari, ‘First Tiger Relocation’.

48 Diwan of Dungarpur, to Southern Rajputana States Agent, 15 November 1928, no. 2651, Government of India, Southern Rajputana States Agency, 261-G of 1928, National Archives of India.

49 Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. 11 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908), p. 383.

50 Diwan of Dungarpur, to Southern Rajputana States Agent, 15 November 1928, no. 2651, Government of India, Southern Rajputana States Agency, 261-G of 1928, National Archives of India.

51 Singh, Bijay, ‘The Bhils’ in Ian Malcolm, Indian Pictures and Problems (London: E. Grant Richards, 1907), pp. 71–73Google Scholar.

52 Field, D. M., ‘Foreword’, Report on the Administration of the Dungarpur State, Rajputana, for the Samvat Year 1977–78 (Bikrami) (Corresponding to 1920–21 A.D.) (Dungarpur: Published by Authority, circa 1922), pp. v–viGoogle Scholar.

53 Diwan of Dungarpur, ‘Particulars of Rare Animals Which are Specially Protected’ in Mewar Resident and Southern Rajputana States Agent, to Secretary to the Agent to the Governor General, Rajputana, 10 January 1935, no. 150/296/34, Government of India, Rajputana Agency Office, Political Branch, 175-P of 1939, National Archives of India; Diwan of Dungarpur, to Southern Rajputana States Agent, 15 November 1928, no. 2651, Government of India, Southern Rajputana States Agency, 261-G of 1928, National Archives of India.

54 G. L. Betham, Mewar Resident and Southern Rajputana States Agent, to Secretary to the Agent to the Governor General, Rajputana, 27 September 1937, no. 3939/148/37, Government of India, Political Department, Political Branch, 27(8)-P of 1939, nos. 1–2, National Archives of India; Report on the Administration of the Dungarpur State, Rajputana, for the Samvat Year 1977–78 (Bikrami) (Corresponding to 1920–21 A.D.) (Dungarpur: Published by Authority, circa 1922), p. 20.

55 G. L. Betham, Mewar Resident and Southern Rajputana States Agent, to Secretary to the Agent to the Governor General, Rajputana, 27 September 1937, no. 3939/148/37, Government of India, Political Department, Political Branch, 27(8)-P of 1939, nos. 1–2, National Archives of India.

56 Singh, Kesri, One Man and a Thousand Tigers (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1959), pp. 150 and 153–155Google Scholar.

57 Śikār kā Nakśā, pp. 71–72.

58 Śikār kā Nakśā, pp. 21 and 71–72.

59 Dhaibhai Tulsinath Singh Tanwar, Śikārī aur Śikār (Udaipur: privately printed, 1956), p. 197; Dhaibhai Tulsinath Singh Tanwar, Saṁsmaraṇ: Mahārāṇa Fatah Sinhjī, Mahārāṇa Bhūpal Sinhjī, Mahārāṇa Bhagvat Sinhjī Mewāṛ (Udaipur: privately printed, 1982), pp. 81–82.

60 For the sake of simplicity, my model assumes yearly replenishment of game from outside sources.

61 There were 4,660 mi2 (12,069 km2) forests, of which 72 mi2 (186.5 km2) were reserved, see Erskine, Mewar Residency, pp. 51–52.

62 Karanth et al., ‘Tigers and Their Prey’, pp. 4856–4857.

63 Jhala, Y. V., Qureshi, Q., Gopal, R., and Sinha, P. R. (eds), Status of Tigers, Co-predators and Prey in India, 2010 (New Delhi and Dehradun: National Tiger Conservation Authority, Government of India, and Wildlife Institute of India, 2011), pp. 71 and 76Google Scholar.

64 Hughes, Animal Kingdoms, pp. 121–122.

65 Vidal, Violence and Truth, p. 121. Vidal speaks of two distinct movements that overlapped in the early 1920s, the Bijolia movement and the Motilal movement, which was an off-shoot of the Bijolia movement dominated by the Bhil community, and which later was termed the eki movement, p. 127. For more on the eki movement, see Hari Sen, ‘The Maharana and the Bhils: The ‘Eki’ Movement in Mewar, 1921–22’ in Ernst and Pati (eds), India's Princely States. According to W. H. J. Wilkinson, Mewar Resident, conditions gradually worsened under Fateh Singh after the Political Department inaugurated its policy of non-interference in 1903: without firm guidance his rule devolved into despotism, his officials became corrupt, the administration inefficient, and the justice system inadequate, see Ashton, British Policy Towards the Indian States, p. 76.

66 Diwan of Dungarpur, to Southern Rajputana States Agent, 15 November 1928, no. 2651, Government of India, Southern Rajputana States Agency, 261-G of 1928, National Archives of India.

67 Ranjitsinh, Beyond the Tiger, p. 24.

68 His Highness’ General Shooting Diary, vol. 2 (Bikaner: Government Press, 1941), passim; for more on interwar wildfowling, see Hughes, Animal Kingdoms, pp. 147–149.

69 Śikār kā Nakśā (Udaipur: circa 1931), p. 22.

70 Sharma, G. N. (ed.), Haqiqat Bahida: H.H. Maharana Fateh Singhji 24 Dec., 1884 to 24 May, 1930 (Udaipur: Maharana Mewar Research Institute, 1992–97), wild boar: 1:95, 4:402, 4:482, 4:501, 4:502, 4:539Google Scholar; leopard: 3:129, 4:459, 4:541, 5:198; tiger: 4:490; sloth bear: 4:538; for three more potential kills by Bhupal Singh, see 3:319.

71 June 1921 petitions to the prince addressed the issue of begār, Singh, ‘The ‘Eki’ Movement in Mewar’, p. 158.

72 Fateh Singh, to Lord Reading, circa 1924, p. 10, acc. no. 27262, Maharana Mewar Special Library, Udaipur.

73 Hughes, Animal Kingdoms, pp. 110–111 and 225–235.

74 Hughes, Animal Kingdoms, pp. 229–230 and 257–261.

75 Hughes, Julie, ‘Environmental Status and Wild Boar in Princely India’ in Sivaramakrishnan, K. and Rangarajan, Mahesh (eds), Shifting Ground: People, Animals, and Mobility in India's Environmental History (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014)Google Scholar.

76 Tanwar, Saṁsmaraṇ, p. 75.

77 The rate at which Fateh Singh killed sambar decreased from a decadal average of 17.6 prior to 1921, to a decadal average of 16 after 1921. Fateh Singh was responsible for 14 per cent of sambar killed between 1884 and 1921, as reported in the Śikār kā Nakśā. Assuming he also shot 14 per cent of sambar killed between 1921 and 1930, the total number killed was 114. Assuming Fateh Singh shot sambar steadily over the decade and that all 114 sambar died in Fateh Singh's 186 km2 of game preserves, the reduction in sambar population density per 100 km2 would have been 6.13 animals per year. This number should have had little impact on the opportunities for tiger or leopard predation, especially considering that Fateh Singh's decadal averages for other prey species including chital, chinkara, four-horned antelope, and blackbuck were all between zero and five after 1921, down from just over two for chital and under six for chinkara prior to 1921.

78 Allen and Dwivedi, Lives of the Indian Princes, p. 143.

79 G. L. Betham, Mewar Resident and Political Agent, Southern Rajputana States Agency, to Secretary to the Agent to the Governor General, Rajputana, 27 September 1937, no. 3939/148/37, Government of India, Political Department, Political Branch, 27(8)-P of 1939, nos. 1–2, National Archives of India.

80 Status of Tigers, p. 67; ‘Two More Tiger Cubs Spotted in Sariska,’ Udaipur Kiran, July 21, 2014, http://udaipurkiran.com/two-tiger-cubs-spotted-sariska/, [accessed 27 September 2014]; ‘Two More Tiger Cubs Spotted in Sariska,’ Deccan Herald, 29 August 2014, http://www.deccanherald.com/content/428247/archives.php, [accessed 27 September 2014]; Rajendra Sharma, ‘Two More Tiger Cubs Spotted in Sariska,’ Times of India, 30 August 2014, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/flora-fauna/Two-more-tiger-cubs-spotted-in-Sariska/articleshow/41240207.cms, [accessed 27 September 2014].

81 Status of Tigers, pp. vii, xi, xv, and 69; Sudhanshu Mishra, ‘Big Cat Translocation Programme: Tiger Cub Finally Arrives in Sariska’, India Today, 8 August 2012, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/big-cat-translocation-programme-tiger-cub-finally-arrives-in-sariska/1/212401.html, [accessed 20 August 2014].

82 Nicholson, A. P., Scraps of Paper: India's Broken Treaties, Her Princes, and the Problem (London: Ernst Benn, Ltd., 1930), p. 252Google Scholar.

83 Rank was a contentious issue. Rajput princes generally regarded Mewar as the premier state in India, and certainly among Rajput states, in terms of its ritual ranking. According to the British who assigned gun salute rankings, Mewar was no more prestigious than Bhopal or Indore, and less prestigious than Hyderabad, Gwalior, Jammu and Kashmir, Baroda, and Mysore. Mewari opinion, and to a lesser extent Rajput opinion, considered the rulers of Maratha states like Baroda and Gwalior as decidedly lower in caste and prestige.

84 Because the first volume of the General Shooting Diary has not been made available for consultation, some doubt remains.

85 Ganga Singh's Mewari shoots followed his granddaughter's engagement to Bhupal Singh's adopted son and heir.

86 Ganga Singh also attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the League of Nations in 1924, and the Round Table conferences of the early 1930s.

87 Of the animals involved, 78 per cent were wild boar, tiger, or leopard.

88 C. Raja Raja Varma in Neumayer, Edwin and Schelberger, Christine (eds), Raja Ravi Varma, Portrait of an Artist: The Diary of C. Raja Raja Varma (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 88Google Scholar.

89 Arundhati, P., Royal Life in Mānasôllāsa (Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan, 1994), pp. 34–35Google Scholar.

90 Valerian root is an attractant that works similarly to catnip on many felids, including domestic cats. It is attractive to a majority of adults of both sexes; it does not mimic the scent of a female in heat but rather, by undetermined means, elicits ‘a bizarre mix of play, feeding, and female sexual behavior, whether the cat itself is male or female’, Bradshaw, John, Cat Sense: How the New Feline Science Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet (New York: Basic Books, 2013), p. 115Google Scholar. In fact, some cat attractants can be used to attract rats and canids; see Tucker, Arthur O. and Tucker, Sharon S., ‘Catnip and the Catnip Response’, Economic Botany 42, 2 (1988), p. 219CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

91 Tanwar, Śikārī aur Śikār, p. 30; Singh, Hints on Tiger Shooting, pp. 67–68.

92 K. Singh, Hints on Tiger Shooting, pp. 67–68.

93 Tanwar, Śikārī aur Śikār, p. 32.

94 Tanwar, Śikārī aur Śikār, p. 32.

95 Tanwar, Śikārī aur Śikār, p. 169.

96 The 1890 and circa 1888 cages may have been two-doored as well: in both paintings only one end is visible.

97 ‘Hundreds of Wild Boars from the Jungle Swarming on the Hills near Udaipur, India’, Keystone-Mast Collection, UCR/California Museum of Photography, University of California at Riverside, 1996.0009.W27462 and 1996.0009.WX25861.

98 The precise method of ‘springing the trap’ does not appear to have been built into the cage itself, but instead is likely to have relied on a wire or rope connecting the springing mechanism with the bait. When the bait was disturbed with sufficient force (i.e. a live goat could not do it, but a tiger killing and attempting drag the goat away could), the trap would spring.

99 Lothian, Kingdoms of Yesterday, p. 46.

100 Fraser, Andrew H. L., Among Indian Rajahs and Ryots: A Civil Servant's Recollections and Impressions of Thirty-Seven Years of Work and Sport in the Central Provinces and Bengal (London: Seeley, Service & Co., Limited, 1912), p. 172Google Scholar.

101 Singh, K., The Tiger of Rajasthan (London: Robert Hale Limited, 1959), p. 153Google Scholar.

102 ‘Statement of Durable Articles of Shikarkhana under Budget Animal Department, Samvat 1979’, Darbar Policy Relating to The Finance Department (Gwalior State), vol. 6, Jay Gopal Ashthana (trans.), revised by K. N. Haksar (Gwalior: Alijah Darbar Press, Lashkar, 1925), p. 202.

103 Lothian, Arthur Cunningham, Kingdoms of Yesterday (London: John Murray, 1951), p. 131Google Scholar.

104 Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, My Indian Year, 1910–1916: The Reminiscences of Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, K.G., P.C., G.C.B., G.C.S.I., G.C.M.G., G.C.I.E., G.C.V.O., LL.D. (London: John Murray, 1948), p. 19; cf Lawrence M. Stubbs, ‘Gossip about Tigers’, 2, J. & L. M. Stubbs Papers, South Asian Archive, Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge.

105 Stubbs, ‘Gossip about Tigers’, p. 8.

106 Stubbs, ‘Gossip about Tigers’, p. 3.

107 Sharma (ed.), Haqiqat Bahida, 1:190 and 4:64–5.

108 Tanwar, Śikārī aur Śikār, p. 300.

109 Tanwar, Śikārī aur Śikār, pp. 241–243.

110 Lothian, Kingdoms of Yesterday, p. 98.

111 Sharma (ed.), Haqiqat Bahida 4:367.

112 Singh, Kesri, Hints on Tiger Shooting (Tigers by Tiger) [sic] (Bombay: Jaico Publishing House, 1975), pp. 79 and 80Google Scholar.

113 K. Singh, One Man and a Thousand Tigers, pp. 148–149.

114 K. Singh, Hints on Tiger Shooting, pp. 79 and 83. Note that Singh gives a different accounting of Hero's fate in One Man and a Thousand Tigers, p. 146.

115 K. Singh, One Man and a Thousand Tigers, p. 81.

116 Udaipur: Sharma (ed.), Haqiqat Bahida, 2:5, 2:69, 2:211, 3:65, and 3:71; Tanwar, Śikārī aur Śikār, p. 349; Bikaner: ‘Shikarkhana Budget Estimate for 1914–15’, annotated by Military Member and Ganga Singh, Bikaner State, Army Department, s. no. 59, b. no. 2, f. no. A491–497 of 1915, Rajasthan State Archives, Bikaner; Detailed Instructions Relating to the Visit to Bikaner of Their Excellencies the Viceroy and the Lady Irwin. January–February, 1929 (Bikaner: Government Press, 1929), p. 25; Jaipur: Rudyard Kipling, From Sea to Sea: Letters of Travel, Vol. 1 (New York: Doubleday and McClure Company, 1899), p. 17; K. Singh, Hints on Tiger Shooting, p. 79; Nawalgarh: K. Singh, Hints on Tiger Shooting, p. 79.

117 Undated photograph, Pictorial Archives of the Maharanas of Mewar, Udaipur; Tanwar, Śikārī aur Śikār, p. 312.

118 Tanwar, Śikārī aur Śikār, p. 349.

119 Compare with Surendra Nath Roy's assertions in his History of the Native States of India in Ramusack, Indian Princes, p. 98.

120 ‘Maharaj Kumar Sahib Bhaya Sahib and Rampal Singh 1913’ (1913), by Jagannath Badri Prasad Misra, Photographers, Rewah, C. I., Rewah Album II, D2004.97b.0001, no. 32, ‘Group Maharaj Kumar Sahib Bhaya Sahib Rampal Singh Capt. Pratap Singh 17-12-17’, ‘Maharaj Kumar Sahib 17-12-17’, and ‘Maharaj Kumar Sahib 17-12-17’ (1917), by Jagannath Badri Prasad Misra, Photographers, Rewah, C. I., Rewah Album II, D2004.97b.0001, nos. 49–50 and 52, and ‘Splendour of the Dasserah Durbar Presents a Brilliant Spectacle’ (1936), by Bourne and Shepherd, Calcutta, Rewah Album III, D2004.97c.0001, no. 86, Alkazi Foundation for the Arts.

121 Tanwar, Śikārī aur Śikār, pp. 292–293; witness depositions (circa 7 July 1939), b. no. 18, f. no. 20/6, s. no. 405 of 1939 (1996 VS), Udaipur Jangalāt Śikār, Rajasthan State Archives, Bikaner; petition of the people of Raj Nagar, to Prime Minister (circa 1941), b. no. 20, f. no. 20/2, s. no. 438 of 1940 (1997 VS), Udaipur Jangalāt Śikār, Rajasthan State Archives, Bikaner.

122 For several examples, see Cronon, William (ed.), Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1996)Google Scholar.

123 Diwan of Dungarpur, to Southern Rajputana States Agent, 15 November 1928, no. 2651, Government of India, Southern Rajputana States Agency, 261-G of 1928, National Archives of India.

124 Undated photograph, Pictorial Archives of the Maharanas of Mewar, Udaipur.

125 Gamir Singh Chauhan, circular no. 235, samvat 1965 asar sud 14, book of Mewar Mahakma Khas circulars beginning VS 1951, Rajasthan State Archives, Udaipur.

126 A thorough comparison of wildlife and forest management in British versus princely India is beyond the scope of this article. By the late nineteenth century, British India had more elaborate laws in place, while codification in many states did not occur until the twentieth century. Rules tended to be more complex in British India, where there were more legitimate shooters and more sustained attempts to implement ‘scientific’ management and closed seasons than in the states, where only a handful of individuals could hunt anyway. In terms of state-sponsored catching, relocating, gifting, and displaying of wildlife, the states far outstripped the Government of India in their activities and infrastructure.

127 Report on the Administration of the Dungarpur State, Rajputana, for the Year 1940–41 (Vikrami 1997–98) (Dungarpur: Shri Lakshman Bijaya Printing Press, 1942), p. 32; Report on the Administration of the Dungarpur State for the Year 1942–43 (Vikrami 1999–2000) (Dungarpur: Published by Authority, Shri Lakshman Bijaya Printing Press, 1945), p. 36; Report on the Administration of the Dungarpur State, Rajputana, for the Year 1943–44 (Vikrami 2000–2001) (Dungarpur: Shri Lakshman Bijaya Printing Press, 1946), p. 38. This was true of Village Forests prior to 1935 as well, see Report on the Administration of the Dungarpur State, Rajputana, for the Samvat 1976–77 Bikrami (Corresponding to 1919–20 A.D.) (Rawalpindi: J.R. Thapur & Sons, circa 1921), p. 13; Report on the Administration of the Dungarpur State, Rajputana, for the Samvat Year 1977–78 (Bikrami) (Corresponding to 1920–21 A.D.) (Dungarpur: Published by Authority, circa 1922), p. 12.

128 Dungarpur Administration 1943–44, 40; Report on the Administration of the Dungarpur State, Rajputana, for the Samvat Year 1981–82 Bikrami Corresponding to 1924–25 A.D. (Dungarpur: Shri Lakshman Bijaya Printing Press, 1926), p. 11; Dungarpur Administration 1940–41, p. 33.

129 Dungarpur Administration 1942–43, 36.

130 Dungarpur Administration 1940–41, p. 33.

131 Dungarpur Administration 1943–44, p. 40.

132 Administration of the Dungarpur State for Sambat Year 1966–67 [1909–10 A.D.] (Allahabad: Ram Nath Bhargava, circa 1911), p. 6; Report on the Administration of the Dungarpur State, Rajputana, for the Samwat Year 1970–71 (A.D. 1913–14) (Rawalpindi: J.R. Thapur & Sons, circa 1915), p. 17; Report on the Administration of the Dungarpur State, Rajputana, for the Samvat Year 1973–1974 (Corresponding to 1916–1917) (Rawalpindi: J.R. Thapur & Sons, circa 1918), p. 19; Report on the Administration of the Dungarpur State, Rajputana, for the Samvat 1974–1975 Bikrami (A.D. 1917–1918) (Rawalpindi: J.R. Thapur & Sons, circa 1919), p. 11; Report on the Administration of the Dungarpur State, Rajputana, for the Samvat 1975–76 Bikrami (Corresponding to 1918–19 A.D.) (Rawalpindi: J.R. Thapur & Sons, circa 1920), p. 10; Dungarpur Administration 1920–21, p. 11; Dungarpur Administration 1924–25, p. 5; Report on the Administration of the Dungarpur State, Rajputana, for the Samvat Year 1983–84 (Vikrami) Corresponding with 1926–27 (Dungarpur: Shri Lakshman Bijaya Printing Press, 1928), p. 6; Report on the Administration of the Dungarpur State, Rajputana, for the Samvat Year 1992–93 Vikrami (Corresponding with A.D. 1935–36) (Dungarpur: Shri Lakshman Bijaya Printing Press, 1937), p. 12; Dungarpur Administration 1942–43, p. 25; Dungarpur Administration 1943–44, p. 19.

133 Dungarpur Administration 1943–44, p. 19. The number is 0.833 in trees per bighā. There were 60,000 bighās (80.3 km2) of Village Forests in 1944.

134 These numbers represent, respectively, increases in area of 2.2 per cent, 17.2 per cent, and 1.4 per cent.

135 Dungarpur Administration 1940–41, p. 32.

136 Dungarpur Administration 1943–44, p. 38.

137 Ranjitsinh, Beyond the Tiger, p. 24.

138 Dungarpur Administration 1943–44, p. 43.

139 Vikramaditya Thakur, ‘Logjam: Loss of Commons in Mewas from 1930 Onwards’ in K. Sivaramakrishnan and Mahesh Rangarajan (eds), Shifting Ground, p.240.

140 Shahabuddin, Ghazala, Conservation at the Crossroads: Science, Society, and the Future of India's Wildlife (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2010), p. 44Google Scholar; Rangarajan, Mahesh and Shahabuddin, Ghazala, ‘Displacement and Relocation from Protected Areas: Towards a Biological and Historical Synthesis’, Conservation and Society 4, 3 (2006), p. 373Google Scholar; Radhika Johari, ‘Of Sanctions and Sanctuary-Making: The Cultural Politics of Nature in Sariska Tiger Reserve, Rajasthan, India, 1885–2000’, MA thesis (Toronto: York University, 2003), pp. 113–124; Johari, ‘Paper Tigers and Invisible People’, p. 57.

141 On the difficulties of understanding what any given author means by ‘forest’, see Kathleen Morrison, ‘Conceiving Ecology and Stopping the Clock: Narratives of Balance, Loss, and Degradation’ in K. Sivaramakrishnan and Mahesh Rangarajan (eds), Shifting Ground.

142 India State of Forest Report 2011 (Dehradun: Forest Survey of India, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, 2011), p. 210.

143 Dungarpur Administration 1943–44, p. 38.

144 The estimated area was 2,500 mi2 (6,475 km2); see Report on the Administration of Mewar State for Years 1940, 1941 and 1942 (Madras: Madras Law Journal Press, 1944), p. 11.

145 Status of Tigers, p. 53.

146 Andheria, A. P., Karanth, K. U., and Kumar, N. S., ‘Diet and Prey Profiles of Three Sympatric Large Carnivores in Bandipur Tiger Reserve, India’, Journal of Zoology 273 (2007), p. 169CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

147 Data derived from ‘Wild Life Census Year 2010 Outside Protected Areas (Rajasthan)’ and ‘Wild Life Census Year 2010 Inside Protected Areas (Rajasthan)’, Rajasthan Forest Department (2010), http://www.rajforest.nic.in/cwlw/pdf/Wild%20Animal%20Census_outside_2010.pdf and http://www.rajforest.nic.in/cwlw/pdf/Wild%20Animal%20Census_inside_%202010.pdf, [accessed 25 January 2013].

148 Jai Singh of Alwar similarly aimed to have it all, see Johari, ‘Paper Tigers and Invisible People’, p. 53.

149 Daniel P. Faith, ‘Biodiversity’ in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/biodiversity/, [accessed 20 August 2014].

150 In Mewas, and perhaps elsewhere, ‘the inaction of the locals, Bhils in this case, in opposing the loss of their own resource base’ has been overlooked; they in fact ‘had compelling reasons’ to enthusiastically participate in commercial forestry, see Thakur, ‘Logjam’, p. 239.

151 According to Lakshman Singh such awareness may have come rather late for many princes: ‘Nobody thought princely rule would end at that time. Even in 1945 I never thought it would end, but when Churchill lost that vital election, I thought then that something would happen’ in Allen and Dwivedi, Lives of the Indian Princes, p. 316.

152 Thakur, ‘Logjam’, p. 240.

153 Tanwar, Śikārī aur Śikār, pp. 1–2.

154 Tanwar, Śikārī aur Śikār, pp. 1–2 and 351.

155 Divyabhanusinh, ‘Junagadh State and its Lions’, p. 539. Indeed, Lakshman Singh of Dungarpur reported of Mewar under Fateh Singh: ‘there were five of the nobles plus the Maharana and occasionally the Resident . . . And that was about it. Seven people shooting tigers in an area of 13,000 square miles’ in Allen and Dwivedi, Lives of the Indian Princes, p. 142.

156 Rangarajan, India's Wildlife History, p. 37.

157 Jai Singh of Alwar in particular was guilty of forcibly shifting nomadic graziers out and allowing new revenue-generating settlements and commercial working of some forests in the hunting grounds now inside the Sariska Tiger Reserve. These villages today face relocation; see Johari, ‘Paper Tigers and Invisible People’, pp. 59 and 61–62, and Shahabuddin, Conservation at the Crossroads, p. 13.

158 Lakshman Singh continued to hunt after independence but even he had developed limits: ‘The first time [at Gajner] I had shot with gusto, but this time I said “Bas, that's enough”, because it was a pity to see those birds just drop down on the water’ in Allen and Dwivedi, Lives of the Indian Princes, p. 145. Much later he reportedly attended the 1980 International Symposium on Bustards, see Sunny Sebastian, ‘There's More to the Tiger Tale than Meets the Eye’, The Hindu, 6 July 2008, http://www.hindu.com/2008/07/06/stories/2008070654480500.htm, [accessed 20 August 2014].

159 I have borrowed the phrase ‘authoritarian conservancy’ from one of this article's anonymous reviewers.

160 Because the wildlife management policies of the nawabs of Junagadh succeeded in bringing the Asiatic lions of Gir back from the brink of extinction, an exception may be in order, see Divyabhanusinh, ‘Junagadh State and its Lions: Conservation in Princely India, 1879–1947’, Conservation and Society 4, 4 (2006), pp. 522–540Google Scholar.

161 Divyabhanusinh, ‘Junagadh State and its Lions’, pp. 522–523. For more on management challenges and breakdowns in protected areas today, see Shahabuddin, Conservation at the Crossroads, especially Chapters 1–2, and Johari, ‘Paper Tigers and Invisible People’, p. 56.