ABSTRACT
Wildlife is a part of human ecology and they live in close proximity. They did not affect the life of each other till their food chain was disturbed but once it was they started preying on each other. The human-animals conflict existed since long back. However, prior to British rule the conflict between human and wildlife was not huge because people did not interfere much in the wildlife habitation. After the annexation of the province the British government started a tug of war against wildlife as it was considered as hurdle to the extension of cultivation. But the process of the destruction of wild animals did not start abruptly as Mahesh Rangarajan argued that the British rulers were initially concerned with eliminating carnivores and collecting trophies.1 The commodification of wildlife and need for extension of cultivable land led the adaptation of measures for the extermination of wildlife. British government introduced the system of reward giving, appointed shikaris and distributed guns for the destruction of wildlife.Similarly, Ramachandra Guha and Madhav Gadgil also argued that
The Christian Missionaries records also reveal the decrease of the
wildlife population. According to one missionary record, ‘Only a few years ago it was considered unsafe for anyone to come here even in daylight. Wild animals were very numerous. Now there are thousands of settlers located on these rich lands.’3 Though the casualties by wild animals cannot be ignored but the statistics shows that the destruction of the wild animals was more in comparison with the casualties by the wild animals. Through this paper an attempt has been made to study the British polices towards wildlife and its impact.
