Valmik Thapar: The Legendary voice behind India’s wild tigers

By Abhijit Roy

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Valmik Thapar, one of India’s most prominent wildlife conservationists and authors who dedicated his life to the study and conservation of wild tigers, particularly in Rajasthan’s Ranthambore National Park, has passed away, casting a pall over the conservation world. Thapar, sometimes known as “India’s Tiger Man,” was the international voice of Indian tigers for many years. Thapar advocated for tighter anti-poaching laws and attempts to safeguard tiger habitats during his five-decade career. Thapar was a pioneer of community-based conservation in India; in the late 1980s, he was one of the founders and driving force behind the Ranthambhore Foundation, a non-governmental organization that worked in almost 100 villages surrounding the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve.  His strategy was innovative, ranging from providing primary healthcare to the community to effectively rewilding degraded and barren areas of land to developing dairy products to promote stall-fed cattle and deter unlawful grazing in the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve. He served on over 150 government task forces and panels, including the prime minister’s National Board for Wildlife. As a participant in the Tiger Task Force, which was established by the UPA administration to examine tiger reserve management in the wake of the Sariska Tiger Reserve tigers’ disappearance. According to Thapar, tigers must be protected from human intervention in specific locations if they are to live for a long time. He stated that a minimal area should be handled solely in its natural state for tigers. He has doubts about India’s Project Cheetah, which aims to reintroduce African cheetahs into the wild. He claimed that India lacks the appropriate habitat and prey base to support free-roaming cheetahs and that authorities lacked experience managing spotted felines in the wild. Thapar has written or edited over 30 books on wildlife, including Land of the Tiger: A Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent (1997) and Tiger Fire: 500 Years of Tiger in India. He has presented and co-produced popular films for channels such as the BBC.

(Author is a columnist. The views expressed are personal.)

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