WhileJataayu’ssorrow-ladentale is part of the mythological, literary, pictorial, sculptural and performing heritageofourland,weareassuredby biologists that for millions of years the grand bird has been part of our ecological heritage. And true to Jataayu’spromisetheIndianvulture has performed its dharma, scavengingandcleaningupourenvironment.

All of a sudden in the last decade of the previous century, our vultures started dying by the hundreds of thousands.Whenconcernedcitizens started worrying about the fate of Jataayu’s descendants, our government predictably retreated into its usualpatternofdenial.Indiarefused to even participate in the international research seeking the causes for the declining vulture population.

Nepal and Pakistan took up a more constructive attitude and finally the PeregrineFoundation(certainlynot anIndianentityandalmostcertainly a sinister imperialist neo-colonialist organisation) established that vultures were dying because the carcasses of cattle and sheep (the naturalfoodofthevultures) werefullof a chemical called diclonefac. This chemical is a drug prescribed for animals by veterinarians.

Civic organisations like the Bombay Natural History Society started pleading with the government to ban diclonefac, especially because a substitute drug is available. But our noble government in Delhi (which is so quick to make decisions about how many bodyguards to assign to its inflated pompous leadership) kept dithering. Apparently the ministryofenvironmentwasinfavourof the ban, but other ministries were not. Given that there are hundreds of ministers and three hundred officers of secretary rank in imperial, imperious Delhi, who knows who objected?Sufficeittosaythatittook almostadecadeforourgovernment to impose a weak ban. Dealers who had inventories on their shelves were allowed to continue to sell diclonefac till they exhausted their stocks. We are speedy in banning books or closing down dance-bars; I wonder why this great concern for the dealers of the killer chemical? The tragedy is that there is another drug appropriate for human prescription which contains diclonefac.

Veterinariansandfarmershavesimply switched to this one and the ban on diclonefac is not working.

AtfirstIthoughtthatthepowerful lobby of diclonefac manufacturers must have lobbied and fixed the system against the vultures who have neither votes nor lobbying power.

But it turns out that this is not the case as the revenue from this drug is not of material consequence to the industry. The real problem, we are told, is that the substitute drug is more expensive and therefore inimical to the interests of our noble kisaans.WhenIwasinformedabout this, I could not stop laughing for several minutes. Here is a government that spends Rs 200,000 crore (or is it Rs 300,000 crore?) on subsidies and which writes off Rs 60,000 crore of loans and it does not have a measly few tens of crores to subsidise the environmentally safe substitute for diclonefac.

To love a country means that one loves not just the pursuit of power in itscapitalcity.ToloveIndiaistolove herhills,valleys,plains,plateaux,estuaries, deltas, marshlands, deserts, rivers, lakes, water-bodies, habitationsandwildernessesandofcourse tolovetheplants,trees,animalsand birds that have been with us mythologicallyandbiologicallyforever.

Itis thislovethatourcleverleadersseem to lack. The finance minister announced funding for a tiger protection force in his recent budget speech. There has been no movement since then. The proposed funding will doubtless be returned at the end of the fiscal year with appropriatedeductionsfortea, biscuits and airfares for committees (or should we call them commissions or better still “task forces” to suit the linguistic sensibilities of the consultants who are popular with our ministers and secretaries).

And yet there is no excuse at all.

We can so easily subsidise diclonefac’s substitute, we can so easily pay decent salaries and provide needed equipment to our forest guards.

Leftists will not object; the NDA will not obstruct; WTO will not penalise and it will cost less than the annual ministerial/secretarial travel bills of just one department in Delhi. Are our leaders determined to go down in history as they who presided over the extinction of the tiger and the vulture? Are they not scared of Jataayu’s curse as we poison his descendants? Our son Raghav is currently engaged in “doing” a project on vulturesaspartof thecompulsory“ environmental studies” subject in his syllabus. If only the HRD ministry could set the syllabus and save our wild-life, how wonderful would our country be? I was explaining to him that some thirty odd years ago I was living in the Cumballa Hill area of Bombay (sorry Mumbai) and from our balcony we could see magnificentspecimensofthesemightybirds hoveringaroundtheParseeTowerof Silence. They are all gone today and that ancient people have to violate theirreligiouspreceptsandcremate their dead. Being young he is yet to turncynical.Hedrawscomfortfrom thefactthatvoluntarycitizensorganis ationsinourcountryliketheBombay Natural History Society and overseas like the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds are working on“captivebreeding”ofvulturesalthough they are yet to see much success.

He argues that civic action can substitutegovernmentapathy.

I just worry that his children will have to rest content with paintings of Jataayu and photographs of the greatIndianvulture.Thelivemodels will have disappeared for good.

The writer divides his time between Mumbai and Bangalore jerry.rao@expressindia.com

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