Hunting anecdotes are clearly out of place in this age, and serve as nothing more than a sad reminder of a somewhat barbaric past. Especially when they concern the exploits of maharajas, the British, the brown sahibs, the landed gentry, civil and military officials. Most of what is documented in Volume I of The Oxford Anthology of Indian Wildlife ("Hunting and Shooting") is about the natural heritage that was laid waste, and about the carnage in the Subcontinent's bountiful wilds. In defence, the editor says that this is not so much a celebration as "the need to learn creatively from the past".
There has been a significant dearth of nature writing in the Subcontinent when compared to the wealth of literature on the subject in the West. This anthology, in two parts, is one attempt at filling that void. The collection of hunting anecdotes, covering over a century, has been put together from various sources and is well-edited. Some of the accounts are notable for their attention to detail, the description of the landscape and in conveying the thrill of the hunt. Notable among these are the accounts of Jim Corbett, FWF Fletcher, RP Noronha, Sudyam Cutting, James Forsyth and PD Stracey.
However, crucial issues have not been addressed. The editor writes, "Though there are accounts of their [tribal] range of skills and their myriad methods of catching wild animals, this is perhaps the first time that a hunting anthology gives them the attention they deserve". In fact, he clearly does not give the tribals the "attention" they deserve — barring a few references to the skill of the indigenous hunting communities, they find no place in this history of a century and a half, set ironically in their home terrain. The native was the outsider in the sportsman's paradise described in Volume I. They were stereotyped as cruel, with wasteful hunting skills and generally reckless. They were considered rivals for game, which is probably why the editor describes them as the "second set of hunters" in his broad classification. Not the "first", which would have been more natural for indigenous communities who, after all, were here for millennia before the gun and the colonial arrived.
The tribal is ignored even with regard to his participation in the sahib's hunting party. After all, it was the knowledge of the tribal and his expertise of the terrain, as trackers, hunt organisers or simple beaters, which gave the hunters most of their trophies. This knowledge was appropriated in an extractive process that continues to this day — whether in the field of natural medicine or any other. The tribal remains on the periphery, when not regarded as the villain, implicated in damaging the biosphere of South Asia.