FAITH VERSUS CONSERVATION

It's faith vs conservation, as pilgrim throngs inside tiger reserves begin to pose a threat to the ecology

- By Rahul Noronha

THE OLD INDIAN EPICS HAD DIVINITIES streaming into forest land fairly regularly, but it's not a plot device you would have expected to reappear in contemporary times. Yet, Madhya Pradesh’s famed tiger reserves are where the saints go marching in today. The phenomenon has turned them into sites of a new conflict—between faith and conservation. Actually, it’s the scale that’s new. Most of the nine tiger reserves in the state happen to enclose within their jungles some old sacred sites: points of religious or community reverence. And these hubs are registering a perilous increase in pilgrim footfalls every year. So much So that the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has asked the state government to formulate a policy to regulate public movement in tiger reserves.

The hotspots, where the pilgrim rush is so high that it warrants some form of intervention, are Bandhavgarh and Satpura. The Bandhavgarh Fort, located in the tiger reserve's core area, has a shrine revered by the Kabirpanthi community. Traditionally, they travel to the site, dedicated to the mystic poet Kabir, for