DEEP IN THE WOODS

WAS JIM CORBETT A COMPASSIONATE NATURALIST OR AN OPPORTUNISTIC HUNTER? A BIOGRAPHY BY DUFF HART-DAVIS THROWS UP THE QUESTION YET AGAIN

- Emmanuel Theophilus

HERO OF KUMAON
The Life of Jim Corbett
By Duff Hart-Davis
HARPERCOLLINS

Among the many writings by and about Jim Corbett is the remarkable biography modestly titled Carpet Sahib: A Life of Jim Corbett (1986), by Martin Booth. Remarkable not only for the many facets of Corbett's character he brought to the reader, but for the compassion with which Booth renders him a contradictory, fallible, yet endearing man of his time. The new biography by Duff Hart-Davis, coming more than 35 years later, and with its definitive title, was therefore of interest.

While it reads easily, I have to say that I found Hart-Davis's rendering to be part hagiography and part paraphrased and abbreviated versions of Corbett's stories, retaining the raciest parts in Corbett's own words. HartDavis's biography works to idealise Corbett and amplify the idea of him having "acquired a god-like reputation as a destroyer of the man-eating big cats..." and that "the hill folk worshipped him...". It fails to give you a feel of the times and the context of the Raj. The bounty hunting, the large-scale degradation of habitats and prey, that, in fact, resulted in the unusually large number of people being killed and eaten by tigers and leopards. Humans, like other primates, have always been killed and eaten by large carnivores. Forest Department data for Kumaon and Garhwal, for just the eight years between 2014 and 2021, shows that leopards attacked 848 people, of whom 162 were killed, and tigers attacked 89 people, of whom 27 were killed.