March 28. —– A fortnight back, the octogenarian Billy Arjan Singh wrote a letter to Dr Manmohan Singh. It is the first time he has knocked at the doors of the PMO. It was a plea to save tigers from extinction.
Recuperating from a recent heart surgery in his house in Dudhwa, Mr Singh explains why he wrote this letter. “I am trying to point out the basic flaws in our wildlife policy,” he told The Statesman. Less than two months back, he was honoured with the 28th J Paul Getty Wildlife Conservation Prize by WWF-India. An award he should have won long ago as Mr Singh has saved several tigers in the Terai region. But a few weeks later, he heard about the sudden decrease in tiger population in the country forcing him to approach
the PMO.
“The government committed the first mistake in 1969 when it handed wildlife protection to the forest department. Forestry is a commercial activity involving destruction of wild animals habitat,” Mr Singh said and added, “I told the PM that giving wildlife to the forest department is akin to asking the Public Works Department to hold the charge of Home Department”.
Disappointed with his efforts being wasted, Mr Singh believes that extinction of the tiger would spell doom to wildlife. “The tiger project is a failure,” he said. At 87, Mr Singh remembers how his life changed after he came to Dudhwa. Born into royalty, he too loved hunting but has not picked up his gun for nearly 45 years. In four decades, he had been responsible for closing down 26 hunting companies.
In 1959, he came to Dudhwa and started cultivation. Impressed with his efforts, in 1976, the then PM Indira Gandhi gifted him a tigress, Tara from the London Zoo. His relationship with Tara was special. Tara gave birth to nine cubs but disappeared in 1992. “I had asked the forest department to put a radio collar on Tara but the department refused,” he said. Tara too became a victim of poaching.
