Wilbuzz: Nobody killed the leopard

These poachers, posing as “friends of farmers” and roving in fields and forests with powerful rifles, searchlights, dogs and 4x4 SUVs, slaughtered all kinds of wild species under the guise of boar culling.

Last winter, a series of poaching incidents triggered by VIP poachers set the alarm bells ringing in Punjab conservationist circles. These well-heeled poachers were indulging in their nefarious activities at night by misusing the shield of hunting permits issued to rid agricultural crops from wild boar foraging. The Punjab Forests and Wildlife Preservation department has done well this winter to amend and tighten the permit policy to curb its misuse by such VIPs. These poachers, posing as “friends of farmers” and roving in fields and forests with powerful rifles, searchlights, dogs and 4x4 SUVs, slaughtered all kinds of wild species under the guise of boar culling.

Red arrows point to a clutch wire trap, tethered to a fence, that killed the leopard.

However, local poachers using traps and dog packs have been less inhibited by such policy rectifications. Last week, a rotting carcass of a leopard was found strangled by a notorious clutch-wire trap near Majhot village in Balachaur tehsil. Villagers took pictures of the leopard, a species covered under the most stringent sections of the wildlife protection laws, with the wire loop around the neck and anchored to an adjacent agricultural fence. Such clutch-wire traps have caused crippling injuries/deaths to numerous leopards, deer, boars, stray cattle, dogs etc in Punjab, but the culprits are seldom brought to book.

The Majhot killing was compounded by the fact that department officials on ground opted for the denial mode. “The leopard did not die due to a trap. The organs had rotted so the post-mortem could not ascertain the cause of death. We did not register an FIR,” block officer Rajpal Singh told this writer. However, when the damning photos were brought to his notice, divisional forest officer Hoshiarpur Nalin Yadav told this writer: “The incident is being inquired into by the range officer. How did that leopard die just like that? Please send me the photographs”

Otherwise, the consequence is that some of the serious cases are closed as “untraced”. Or, as in the Majhot case, “nobody murdered the leopard”?

Some of Kiran Bhardwaj’s exquisite fish paintings.

Fish of crescent moon nails

The graceful movements of fish have since time immemorial exerted a mystical power on human imagination. Women artists have been entranced by the gentleness of fishes. They have served as a muse and artists have expressed their innermost feelings by imaginative depiction of fishes. Kiran Bhardwaj, an artist with disability connected to childhood polio, revels in fish paintings. A recipient of numerous art awards, Kiran has been travelling from her village in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur district to exhibit her works in Chandigarh’s galleries since 2011. She views fish shoals as an exemplar exhibition of group harmony and happiness, a positive model for a modern humanity riven by violence, conflicts and divisions.

Kiran has a novel way of painting fishes. She shuns brushes, using instead her fingers and thumbs to caress, merge and knead oil paints into her canvases brimming with the vitality of the natural world. Her fingernails, which she keeps long and curved like a waning moon’s crescent, are deployed delicately to etch and bring into sharp relief features such as tail and fins.

Having recently completed her PhD on the lives of Indian artists who triumphed over disabilities, Kiran expressed herself in 30 fish paintings that provided her an outlet for a deepening imagination and a catharsis for the disappointments that welled inside her. “’In my paintings, fish can be seen emerging from a dark tunnel. The tunnel represents the time I retreat into deep thoughts. Emerging fish represent my coming out of those thoughts. The paintings express my search for something that I can visualise on the distant, dark shores but yet to attain. Fish shoals revel in brotherhood, harmonious co-existence and cooperative behaviour to achieve the goals of life. This is why I have been attracted to fishes since my rebirth as an artist,” Kiran told this writer.

I asked Kiran what painting means to her? “Had I not got polio, I would have ended up as a simple village girl with no intense desire to express myself deeply and subtly,’” she replied from her wheelchair, a stoic smile playing upon her lips like ripples gently radiant in sunset rays.

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