No Just An Affair Of The Heart

Indira Gandhi made conservation a part of political discourse and her leadership on environment remains unparalleled globally

- Prerna Singh Bindra

MY INTRODUCTION to former prime minister Indira Gandhi’s affinity with nature was during a trip to Rajasthan’s Bharatpur National Park a decade ago, where I met an old forester who had guided her during her visit to the park in 1976. “The fact is, Madam PM guided me,” he laughed, adding that during her one-hour walk in the park she identified no less than 90 birds. Such nuggets were to follow my journeys to other parks, and my evolution as an environment journalist and conservationist.

The bird sanctuaries I forayed into at Porbandar (Gujarat), Sultanpur (Haryana), Marine National Park in Wandoor (Andaman) and Borivali National Park in Mumbai (Maharashtra) had one thing in common—they all owed their protected status to Indira Gandhi. A visit to the remote Kolkas Forest Rest House in Melghat Tiger Reserve (Maharashtra) revealed that Indira Gandhi had spent time there as well, and old timers in Dachigam National Park (Jammu & Kashmir) fondly recalled her visits there.

Her empathy for nature was rooted in her upbringing—schooling at Santiniketan; a botanist uncle’s influence; her correspondence with Jawaharlal Nehru and the books he gifted her, particularly Salim Ali’s Book of Indian Birds; her incarceration at the Naini jail where she whiled away the hours listening to birds; and, her nurturing of assorted animals gifted to her father, including tiger cubs!