[18:16 @ Rm.111, Kanha Jungle Lodge]
This
morning at 07:30, Faiyaz, Anne and I left the lodge for Mandla in a white
Ambassador – the type of 50s-looking car used for taxis in Indian cities - to
visit the VIPs, to whom we have already sent written invitations, to personally
invite them to attend the panchayat conference. With all this etiquette and protocol and ego stroking and time
killing, who needs incompetence and inefficiency?
The
2.5 hour drive was first to skirt the park on a dirt road in the Buffer Zone,
then on a paved but bumpy road due north.
Enroute, we had a vigorous and laughter-filled discussion about what to
say to these gentlemen. All joking
aside, the conference should concentrate on something that the government
officials and the villagers can agree on and work together at, which to me is
to raise the park fee throughout India and have half of the revenue go towards
the park and the other half towards the villages. If the park can benefit the villagers, then the villagers will do
whatever they can to help protect the park.
It is a long term, self-perpetrating, naturally harmonizing solution.
Our
first VIP was the Collector of Mandla, again another very young looking man,
perhaps not even thirty. Previously,
when we met the Collector of Balaghat and wondered how such a young man could
achieve such a high position, we were told that he won it via a public
exam. Around 10:30, the Collector of
Mandla very casually strolled out of his mansion to the veranda to sit down
with us for chai - in his pajamas and slippers! He originally was skeptical about foreign NGOs, questioning how
their big money could actually benefit the grass roots of India. But after talking to me for about half an
hour, he came on side. I introduced the
park reform idea, and he agreed as far as to say that the proceeds should go
directly to the park management and to the people, not to higher up, meaning
the central government, to have it filtered back down, “otherwise you may never
see it again”, said he, a statement that says volumes of his interest and
seriousness. He ended by saying that he
did have some appointments on March 23rd, but he might postpone some
of the less important one to attend the conference. One down, three to go, or so we thought.
Next,
we went to the offices of the directors of the park. The first official to receive us was Assim Srivastava, Deputy
Director, Buffer Zone. In his usual
affable way, he chatted with us over the issues, and again, he showed agreement
on the park reform idea and that it could be a unifying factor for all
concerned, park and villages alike. He
too indicated that he would attend.
Next,
we dropped in to the Field Director Rajeesh Gopal’s office, and that was when
the shit hit the fan. Totally unlike
his previous agreeable self, he very rudely admonished Faiyaz about Tiger Trust
operating in the park (core + buffer) without proper government documentation,
and such documentation should be filed and signed by the head of TT, namely
Pradeep, and approved by the Wildlife Warden higher up in Bhopal. He pointed at Faiyaz and said, “You have to
be very careful, or you could be in big trouble. These foreigners here can be charged as spies or poachers, and
there would be supporting evidence, believe me. An Iranian man was recently jailed on such charges.” Then he turned to me and asked if I had a
valid passport and what kind of visa I was traveling on, and that was the only
time he even glanced in my direction.
Back around February 20th, when we met him at the Kanha
Interpretation Centre, he was pleasant, even saying that he could give a
slideshow. Now, he told us we cannot do
any more “eco-development” work, including the panchayat conference, and
implicatively even the slideshow meetings, without a proper permit from the
Wildlife Warden in Bhopal. Faiyaz
crestfallen and devastated. Anne was
stunned. I left the building mumbling
“Fucking asshole bureaucrat!”, knowing there is more to that.
Faiyaz
thought so too. Back in the car, after
he had gathered himself together, he said, “Governments do not like NGOs,
because NGOs, by their very existence, means that the government is not doing a
good job. More specifically, I think he
felt very intimidated by the conference, and perhaps interpreted our actions as
inciting a panchayat-vs-official confrontation or even a peasants’ revolt. What he said was telling, ‘Sometimes,
between an NGO and a politician is a very fine line.’ Locally, ‘politician’ is almost synonymous with ‘agitator’, not a
good word in an official’s book.”
Another
telling thing about Tiger Trust is that there was an NGO conference at Mukki
yesterday morning and Tiger Trust, within 2 km from Mukki, was not even
invited. Anne read this as that up to
last month, given its near-inactivity, Tiger Trust was not even a factor in the
local NGO scene. Our previous CIDA
grant money has indeed been pumped into a blackhole.
Time
to quickly regroup. So, the immediate
question is whether the conference has to be cancelled, damn the egotistical
fool. If so, the first order of
business would be to devise an alternative plan that can build on the work that
we have already done. The first thing
that needs to be done is to visit those panchayats we have given slideshows to
and inform them of the cancellation. I
suggested doing an all panchayat petition instead re. the proposed park fee
raise throughout India, and Anne thought it was a good idea. Meanwhile, we will still do the Jabalpur
media conference on March 16, now to use it to blast out tiger conservation and
park reform ideas to the general public of Madhya Pradesh, the self-labeled
“Tiger State”. It’s going to be a
blast, too, tomorrow when Pradeep comes.
[21:34] Just had dinner in the KJL dining pavilion in the company of a
Collector from the neighbouring province of Maharashtra, another young man, and
his wife and small son. Now they’re
watching the Champions of the Wild video.
He said he would like to chat for a little while after the video.
Mr.
Jharia dropped by to see us and he sat down with Faiyaz and Tarun and talked at
length. He received a wireless message
from Gopal. The result of their talk
was a smiling Faiyaz and Tarun, so things don’t seem all that bad. At dinner, Tarun asked to sit next to
me. He seems very sympathetic. Over the last couple of weeks, since the
phone call with Pradeep especially, he’s been very respectful.
It
is thought by more than one person that Tiger Trust has up to last month been
so obscure it was a non-factor, but just over the last three weeks, it has
become such a prominent NGO in the Kanha region that it’s considered a force to
reckon with. So it depends on how one
looks upon NGOs. If you don’t like
them, then now is the time to deal with TT.
It
seems to have become a Catch-22. If TT
is insignificant and ineffective, no problem, and Pradeep is content; if TT is
significant and effective, big problem, and Pradeep? Let’s see what will happen tomorrow.
[21:55] Faiyaz and Tarun just dropped by my room, having just returned
from Baihar to call Delhi and Bandhavgarh.
They informed me that Pradeep has brought Sucheta with him to, as Manoj
had said before, “monitor” our work.
Whatever my response, I must take care not to hurt Sucheta’s personal
feelings or act against her person. I
have to make sure she doesn’t take personally whatever action I will be
taking. But if anything I do will have
to have her permission or have to wait for her to get Pradeep’s permission,
she’d be ramming against a rock cliff.
Given her “yes sir” attitude with Pradeep, my hope for a good working
relationship with her is not high.
After
Tarun has bid his good night, Faiyaz stayed to talk. He’s learned that the best way to get out of earth-bound troubles
is to go cosmic, so he asked me, “According to your predetermined metamorphic
schedule theory, our nations don’t have all the time in the world to work out
their differences. Is that right?”
“Right.”
“How
much time do they have?”
“Not
much.”
“How
much is not much?”
“Decades. If it’s centuries, I don’t think it would be
too many. Certainly not millennia.”
“Why?”
asked Anne, who was talking with me when Faiyaz and Tarun came in.
“Our
increasing and limitless demand on Earth’s decreasing and finite
resources. Once we cross the point of
no return, the end would come very quickly.”
“So,
the time to cut our demand is now,” said Anne.
“And
turn to renewable and nonpolluting technologies,” said Faiyaz.
“So,
do you think we’re going to make it?” Anne asked.
“It
depends.”
“On
what?”
“You
really want to know?”
“Of
course I do.”
“Promise
you won’t tell?”
“Why? Sure, I won’t tell.”
“It
depends on how successful the Earth edition of OMNI-SCIENCE is going to be.”
“I
know you said this jest,” said Anne, “but I can see the sense in it. If people don’t read OMNI-SCIENCE, how are
they going to know about Integrative Transcendence?”
“Why
did you say ‘Earth edition’?” asked Faiyaz.
“Because
it will feature characters of Homo Sapiens of Earth, that’s why. The very latest version of OMNI-SCIENCE in
the Universe, no less,” said Raminothna.