OF STRIPES AND SPIRITS

IN KARNATAKA’S BR HILLS, THE SOLIGA COMMUNITY SHOWS WHAT IT MEANS TO LIVE ALONGSIDE TIGERS—NOT IN FEAR, BUT IN FAITH

- Words → HIMAKSHI PANWAR

THE TIGER—BOLD, WATCHFUL, AND WILD—IS AS much a creature of legend as of the forest. With its blazing orange coat and inky black stripes, it is often seen as a symbol of strength. In India, its image is revered: in the North, the tiger serves as the mount of the goddess Durga; in the South, it pulls the chariot of Lord Ayyappa. Yet, reverence alone has not protected this apex predator. Its fate remains entangled in a complex web of human-animal conflict, conservation challenges, and habitat degradation.

As forests shrink and human activity encroaches deeper into the wild areas, tigers are increasingly perceived as threats. Retaliatory killings, poaching, and rapid urbanisation have taken their toll. In this fraught landscape, "Sherni" the 2021 film about a tigress navigating both the forest and the bureaucracy that threatens her existence, stirred public discourse about the fragile relationship between humans and wildlife.

But in Karnataka’s BRT Tiger Reserve, a different story unfolds—one of quiet coexistence. Nestled at the ecological crossroads between the Eastern and Western Ghats, this reserve acts as a vital wildlife corridor, supporting gene flow across species between the mountain ranges. Amidst this biodiversity, the Soliga community—among the few Indigenous groups in India legally residing in a tiger reserve—has lived for generations, guided by tradition, spirituality, and ecological wisdom preserved in folk songs such as the Haduke, which are sung from dusk till dawn and honour the tiger as a divine guardian and the forest as sacred.