The Indian army meets its match

 There is one menace that even the army has not been able to successfully
tackle: the explosion of the monkey population in the Himachal hills.

Rahul Singh


W HY HAVE hill stations like Shimla and Mussoorie become such a mess while a
place like Kasauli - just five hours drive from Delhi and 6,000 feet up in
the Himalayas - retained its charm? Easy. It's mainly because Kasauli is a
military cantonment, with rules and regulations, most of them formulated in
British times and which have, by and large, been strictly followed. Trees
cannot be felled, unless they are found to be 'dead' or if their felling is
otherwise justified - the danger of a forest fire reaching a vulnerable
house, for instance. And no new houses can be built or old houses extended,
the original plinth area being in the cantonment records. You also cannot
rent out your house and the army has the right to take over any house should
it find it is being misused or is needed by the army. Fortunately, this
right has rarely been exercised, with civilians and the armed forces living
in harmony.
The Kasauli Club, which burnt down some years back but has been rebuilt with
great elan, is a symbol of that harmony, the social meeting place of the
town, with civilians, retired and active armed personnel jostling amicably
with each other, playing cards or downing their Patiala pegs. In sum,
Kasauli remains a beautifully green, tree-laden oasis, with clean, bracing
air and, except for the Central Research Institute (CRI) and a couple of
hotels, no houses more than one-storey high (though, ironically, the air
force has been the worst defaulter, having knocked down thousands of trees
and built perhaps the ugliest air base in the hills, while denuding Kasauli's
most famous spot, 'Monkey Point'). The only thing Kasauli can be accused of
is boredom: there is very little to do except walk on the mall and socialise
in the club. But for a writer, or for someone who wants to 'chill out', it
is a haven.
There was a military rationale for cantonments but it has long gone. Kasauli
was set up after the British had defeated the Gurkhas, who then ruled over
this region, in the early 19th century. In fact, the decisive and
closelyfought battle against the Gurkhas took place near Nalagarh in the
Shivalik hills, just two hours drive from Kasauli, and the First Gurkha
Rifles was raised soon afterwards at Sabathu. Ruined Gurkha forts still dot
the countryside. After the Gurkhas, the British took on the Sikhs, which is
how Kasauli came into being. Since I am one of the lucky ones to have
inherited a house in Kasauli, perhaps I am being a little selfish when I say
that I would rather the cantonments stay, even though their rationale may
have disappeared. I have more trust in the army running the place and
keeping it clean and orderly than a corrupt municipality.
However, there is one menace that even the army has not been able to
successfully tackle: the explosion of the monkey population in the Himachal
hills. They are everywhere, in the bazaar - where they snatch the groceries
of unwary shoppers - on the roads, even entering houses, and, of course,
swarming in the trees. Some people keep large dogs to scare them away from
their houses and fruit trees. Notice boards put up at several places by the
cantonment, requesting the public not to feed the monkeys and, thereby,
encouraging their proliferation, are completely ignored.
When I first went up to Himachal, in the early Fifties, the authorities in
some areas paid you Rs 10 for a monkey or langur tail. Bluntly put, these
simians were considered such a destructive menace that you were given an
incentive to shoot them. With Maneka Gandhi around and religious sentiment
being what it is, shooting them, as in the past, seems a no-no. So, the
Himachal authorities have decided on two measures: sterilising and
relocating them. To do that, however, they first have to be trapped, for
which wires are often used. Now, trapping animals is not easy and trapping
monkeys, the wiliest of creatures, even more difficult. Quite a few of them
are able to escape even the wire-traps, but with the wire still biting into
various parts of their bodies.
"Many of them are maimed, with an arm or leg missing, and some die an
agonising death from gangrene," reveals Santosh Kutty, who is attached to
the CRI in Kasauli. He is right. Many of the monkeys that I have seen in
Kasauli, and on the road from Kalka to Shimla, have stumps in place of
limbs, or are horribly disfigured. The trapping, relocation and
sterilisation programme has clearly not been a success.
What's the solution, then? In some parts of Africa, they cull elephants,
because they have become so numerous that they are destroying the habitat
and endangering other animals. Why can't we cull our monkeys? They certainly
aren't on the endangered list. Before Maneka or anybody else gets too worked
up over the question, it might be a good idea to first ask the Himachali
farmer and horticulturist.



Publication: HT; section: Insight; pg:11; Date:12/9/06

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