Tiger Hunting History

3.1 Historical perspective of wild life:-

(i) Ancient period:- In India, tiger was found as early as the era of the Indus Valley Civilization. Terracotta figurines of tiger have been reported from Harappa. However there is not much evidence till the rule of the Mughals. In Mughal and British India tiger was hunted for prestige as well as for taking trophies. Tiger hunting was a sport for centuries, the consequences were larger during the British Raj due to the use of far superior firepower and an interest to hunt shared by a much larger number of colonial aristocrats. In the Mughal Empire, leisure was a luxury confined to the pleasures of the aristocracy. High cuisine and wine, garden parties, game hunting (shikar), animal

They emulated various Mughal emperors for whom tiger hunting was an element of kingship. But more than emulation, tiger hunting was the symbol in the construction of British imperial and masculine identities during the 19th century. The British had great pretensions to becoming successors to the Mughals during the 19th century. Before they could attain such power, however they had to outdo regional powers, such as Mysore’s Tipu Sultan, who also employed the tiger in his symbolic arsenal. Among other uses, the tiger or the tiger stripe (babri) was used as decoration on his throne; on the uniforms of his soldiers; and on his coins, flags and arms. The symbolic meaning of Tipu’s Tiger was the emblematical triumph over the British. Therefore by killing tigers the British were also symbolically staging the defeat of Tipu Sultan and other Indian rulers who dared to get in the way of Britain’s imperial conquest of India. Tigers also represented for the British all that was wild and untamed in the Indian natural world. Thus, the curious late Victorian and Edwardian spectacle of British royals and other dignitaries being photographed standing aside dead tiger carcasses depicted the staging successful conquests of Indian nature by “virile imperialists”. During the British rule, tigers were killed by the native for their safety, although the strategy was primitive. The British during the initial period before the advent of high velocity hunting rifles adopted the strategies either by waiting for it overnight in sometimes very uncomfortably manchas constructed in tall trees, usually fifteen to twenty feet above the ground, or else to beat for the animal during the middle of the day while riding