It was with mixed feelings I placed the order for this book. I had read Thapar’s previous books and was very disappointed to find how he left out Jim Corbett in his books dealing with the history of tiger conservation in India. Unfortunately, this book is no exception.
Valmik Thapar’s latest book ’’Battling for Survival: India’s Wilderness Over 2 Centuries, (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2003) is another attempt to rehash the history of tiger destruction/conservation in India for the last several decades. I think what Thapar was trying to do was to tell the readers of the mass destruction of tigers in India by sportsmen, rulers and soldiers and the efforts of a handful of people to stop the carnage. According to Thapar, the people who actually tried to preserve the tiger population were Kailash Sankhala, R.W. Burton, Indira Gandhi and himself, omitting the efforts of many other pioneers including E.A. Smythies, P.D. Stracey and Jim Corbett. While Thapar was constantly reminding the readers about his vast contributions to the tiger conservation (including a long list of all his writings), he pathetically failed even to mention the 5 books written by Corbett on Indian wildlife. On the other hand he listed multiple shikar books authored by other sportsmen, who actually contributed to the mass slaughter of the tigers than protecting them.
There is one thing in common among Sankhala, Burton and Thapar. They all felt they were better than Corbett. Sankhala accused Corbett for shooting the man eaters, for he firmly believed (?) that there were no man eaters in India, and it was Corbett’s excuse for shooting the tiger. Burton, a long time British resident in India, on the other hand wrote a book on Man eaters, but conveniently omitted mentioning Corbett, and turned down a request from Bombay Natural History Society to write a review on Corbett’s book in 1952. He stated that Corbett was not well informed about India’s wildlife. Thapar was no exception.
Jim Corbett was responsible for the creation of India’s first national park. Any child could vouch to that. He laid the foundation for the national park with the help of Lord Hailey (then Governor of U.P) and E.A. Smythies (Conservator of Forests, U.P.) They surveyed the area suggested by Corbett and marked the boundaries for the park, and shooting was strictly banned in the area. But you wouldn’t see any of these particulars in this book. Instead it has a lot of useless information about Burton’s suggestions, Sankhala’s works and Thapar’s efforts to praise himself. When reading some of the passages, the reader will feel that he/ she is sitting in a kinder garten play school listening to the teacher’s aid.
Published in New Delhi, the book has no price printed on the dustjacket. The price quoted below was the price paid to obtain the book from Delhi.
Excellent and unbiased books have been written on India’s wildlife in the past, including F.W. Champion’s WITH A CAMERA IN TIGERLAND (Chatto & Windus 1927), E.P. Gee’s WILD LIFE OF INDIA ( Collins, 1964), George Schaller’s THE DEER AND THE TIGER (Chicago University Press, 1967), Gerald Cubitt’s WILD INDIA, Naresh Bedi;s books on Indian Wildlife, THE SILENT VALLEY, HORTUS MALABARICUS and many more. I highly recommend the above books to anyone who is interested in Indian wildlife.
Unfortunately, BATTLING FOR SURVIVAL does not belong in the same shelf with the ones mentioned above. By not printing this volume, they could have saved a few trees in the forest!