A shot of irony: International big-game hunters are holding up Jim Corbett as their mascot

Early in April, while the state of Uttarakhand was reeling under the summary dismissal of its government by the governor, a few of us noticed a small news item. It was about an event held at the town hall in Ramnagar, at the Jim Corbett Park in Kaladhungi. The event marked the arrival, and public display, of a prized hunting rifle belonging to the legendary James Edward “Jim” Corbett.

Top officials of John Rigby and Co. of London, the rifle’s manufacturers and its current owners, were present at the event as were representatives of their business partners, Safari Club International – a US-based global club of big-ticket hunters. Senior officials of the Corbett National Park also attended the function. A top park official thanked the foreign visitors for bringing the fabled rifle all the way from London to Uttarakhand – where Corbett is still a household name – seven decades after it had left the shores of India.

Corbett and Kumaon

As someone who grew up in Uttarakhand in the post-Independence years, one may add that by now, Indians, and the people of Uttarakhand in particular, have come to revere Jim Corbett not so much as an iconic hunter of tigers and leopards, but as a compassionate naturalist and conservationist. True, Corbett had tracked and killed some 33 tigers and leopards in the region, but it was also he who, in 1936, created India’s first tiger reserve – The Hailey National Park – which a grateful government of India renamed after him in 1957.

In her autobiography, my late mother, Shivani, mentions Jim Corbett and his sister coming from Nainital to visit her father, who was vacationing in his ancestral house in nearby Almora. This was around the time Corbett had given up hunting and turned a keen naturalist and conservationist. My grandfather Ashwini Kumar, who had been the Diwan of Rampur state, was an old friend of Corbett’s. The legendary hunter-turned conservationist considered Kumar to be very knowledgeable about the local fauna and flora.

Corbett’s sister, Maggie memsahib, had an unfortunate tic in one eye, which appeared to be blinking all the time. My grandparents’ crusty old cook, Thul Lohani ji, an admirer of “Carpet Sahib” like his fellow villagers, had pushed aside the usual strict Brahminical taboos against serving meals to foreigners, and brought tea to the revered Carpet Sahib and his sister. Later, however, my mother wrote, Lohani ji came in looking grumpy and warned my grandmother about the Corbett memsahib. He claimed that she had winked at him as he served her tea, and therefore merited being watched closely.

When my grandmother laughed and explained the reason, Lohani ji added glumly in Kumaoni, still this sort of thing can make any one suspicious, “nai [no]?”

If Thul Lohani ji were around today, how would he react to the import and display of the Rigby rifle and the sight of senior officials of the Jim Corbett Park publicly lauding its display, when everyone knows the area observes strict restrictions on hunting and the display of firearms, which were imposed by Jim Corbett himself?

Can’t this sort of thing still make any one suspicious, nai?

Corbett’s legacy

A little more about Corbett and this rifle is in order here.

Corbett’s family moved to Nainital in 1862, when he was only four. He grew up in the area, went to school in Nainital, and trekked and roamed the forests all through his childhood and teens. By the time he joined the British army at 19, he had acquired an intimate knowledge about the area, its flora and fauna and was fluent in the local dialects its humble people spoke.

In the British army he was valued as an excellent marksman and was called upon to kill the man-eating tigers bedeviling the lives of thousands of villagers. Between 1907 and 1930, Corbett managed to hunt down 33 man eaters in the region and earned great goodwill among the relieved locals. But towards the end, Corbett also came to firmly believe that Kumaon’s rare flora and fauna must not become hunters’ assets, but be treated as a sacred trust.

Explaining this in his bestselling 1946 book, Man Eaters of Kumaon, he wrote that a tiger begins to attack humans and domestic cattle, not because it is a ruthless predator, but because he is hobbled by an injury or because the balance of nature in the area had been disturbed through unrestricted slaughter of game and human habitation forcing tigers out of their natural haunts that were usually far away from human habitation.

In the early ’30s, Corbett began promoting the foundation of an Association for the Preservation of Game in the United Provinces, as the Uttar Pradesh-Uttarkhand region was known as then. The result was Hailey Park, now known as Corbett National Park. He also settled Chhoti Haldwani as a model village, in Kaladhungi, on the outskirts of the park and taught the villagers how to protect the forests and the wildlife in the area. He taught them that they, and the tigers, could live happily by the forest if they continued to observe its natural territorial laws. In 1947, Jim Corbett left India for Kenya, where he died in 1955. As per his will, his extensive cache of tiger skins, skulls and rifles were auctioned, and the proceeds were donated to charities associated with wildlife conservation.

Among these firearms was the precious .275 Rigby bolt-action rifle that was first bought by the Oxford University Press and later by John Rigby and Co., one of the three oldest makers of firearms in the world, who specialise in making special guns for collectors.

This is the rifle that was displayed at the Corbett Park last month and then later at Rudraprayag and Chhoti Haldwani. It was crafted by Rigby’s fabled craftsmen in the early 20th century and lay in Calcutta for two years after being imported. In 1907, it was presented to Corbett by the then Lieutenant Governor of the United Provinces, Sir John Hewitt, by way of thanks for killing the infamous man eating tigress of Champawat.

The original silver plate on the stock that records the presentation is still gleamingly intact (though it misspells Corbett’s initials as JG, instead of JE Corbett).

Conservationist to mascot for hunters

So, what would be the best way to commemorate Jim Corbett today? As a great tracker-hunter? Or as a committed conservationist – the first to record the wildlife in the Himalayan region in words and on camera, the founder of our first wildlife conservation park and settler of Chhoti Haldwani as a model of cohabitation for man and beast?

Even in his hunting years, Corbett was no ruthless hunter of big game like many of the erstwhile Indian maharajas and the British sahibs. In Man Eaters of Kumaon, Corbett clarified that he accepted the British government’s proposal to hunt man eaters only because they had killed hundreds of unarmed villagers. Even then he accepted the challenge only after two of his conditions were met. One, he would not accept the bounty offered for the task. And two, any bounty hunters who may be out in the area hunting tigers, must be called off before he stepped in.

It therefore may appear somewhat ironic to people like our Thul Lohani ji, that Jim Corbett’s rifle, which was displayed at the John Rigby and Co. booth, was a big draw at a five-day long 44th convention of the Safari Club International in Las Vegas, Nevada, in February. At the club’s 43rd convention last year, 20,000 hunters reportedly spent $2.7 million to obtain special rights through the club to hunt down 317 animals around the globe.

A report said John Rigby and Co. acquired the .275 rifle from a private collector (the sum was not disclosed). The Rigby booth at the convention also showcased a specially crafted reproduction of the Corbett rifle that was auctioned for $250,000. The winning bidder for the replica also received, at a Raj theme party, a special display case and a five-volume specially commissioned, limited edition set of Corbett’s writings bound in blue leather.

John Rigby then took Corbett’s rifle on a world tour, starting from the UK, where the firm had painstakingly collected other Corbett memorabilia that was displayed at all their showrooms. The company has recorded a big upsurge in orders in the past months, so much so that it is said to be considering inducting at least three more gunsmiths.

Marc Newton, the managing director of John Rigby and Co. who had accompanied the rifle to the Corbett National Park, described the gun as, “a real piece of rifle history”, adding that each gun that left the company’s workshop, bore a piece of this rifle’s DNA. Newton told news agency IANS that the reason for their bringing in and displaying Corbett’s rifle in Uttarakhand in India was, “to create an awareness for wildlife conservation and propagating the vision of Jim Corbett.”

A news release at the John Rigby and Co. website said that the proceeds from the sale of the replica Corbett rifle would be used both to fund wildlife conservation progress, and “the protection of hunters’ freedoms globally”.

Wonder if this would have raised Thul Lohani ji’s hackles again?