The legend of Manas- Indian One-horned Rhinos

[Samrat Sarkar]

The history of the Rhinos in the Manas National Park of Assam is full of ups and downs. Manas has time and again been badly affected by fierce tussles among different political groups. In 1987 a mass agitation started demanding a separate “Bodoland” in the areas adjoining Manas National Park. That turned into a violent shape within a very short period of time. That time there were still a considerable number of Rhinos living there and the number would be 80, if not more. The situation there deteriorated very fast. Within two years these areas went haywire. The Bodo insurgents resorted to arson on various camps one after another from Kokrajhar in the west to Udalguri on the east. Rifles were snatched. Hundreds of Bodo insurgents infiltrated into the forest areas and illegally occupied lands there. They could not be evicted by the government afterwards. Thereby, the core areas of the Manas National Park turned into a safe hiding place for those Bodo insurgents. No one could estimate as to how many Rhinos were hunted by the insurgents during that period.

Some of us may remember the Range officer named Ibrahim Ali Khan. He was the one who played an instrumental role for upholding the interest of the wildlife of Manas during that period. But ultimately he was abducted and was murdered two months after his abduction in the Bangtol forest. The Bangtol forest does not exist anymore. Many people died during the bloody fight for a separate Bodoland which continued for about one and half decades. No Bodoland formed at the end, but the Rhino population were almost wiped out from the region. Though there should not have been any link between the Bodo insurgency and the wiping out of the Rhino population in the forest, but in this case the fierce political battle took a heavy toll on the Rhinos inhabiting there. The Rhino horns are and were very precious then and fetched a lot of money to the insurgents if they could manage to get one. The bounty were not only used for funding for the insurgent works but also were used for repayment of loans of the princesses.

In the month of September 1993 a princes of Bhutan was caught and arrested in Chiang Kai-shek International airport as she was travelling with 22 Rhino horns. The total weight of the horns was 14.9 Kg. As she was questioned she disclosed that she had purchased those horns from a businessman who collected those horns possibly from Assam. It took two years for her to collect all those 22 horns from him. The investigators came across some more astonishing facts during the questioning sessions. The princes was going to Taiwan to sell those horns so as to repay her loans.

The princes had many trade setups and some of which were in Phuentsholing of Bhutan which is not very far from Assam. Therefore the source of these horns being the Kaziranga and Manas National Parks could not be dismissed right away. And the relation between the illegal hunting and some Bhutanese influential persons being involved with it could not be stroked out completely. That princes was Cambridge educated. She had a diplomatic passport though she should not have one because the Bhutanese government did not even approve Taiwan as a sovereign state till then. We all know that one can evade security checks easily at the airports when one possesses a diplomatic passport. The princes tried to misuse this law for her crooked benefit. It must have taken her great courage and strong connection with other traffickers to collect all these 22 horns and to travel with these horn to some foreign country. When an educated and influential person like her performs this type of actions against some endangered species like the One Horned Rhinos it becomes very difficult for the species to survive. But, things should not have happened in this manner.

The main reason for which the Rhinos have been killed so far is for the preparation of aphrodisiacs, the main ingredients of which are believed to be collected from the Rhino horns. The medicine manufactured with ingredients from Rhino horns, mainly Indian one horned Rhino horns are sold in hefty prices in China, Myanmar, Thailand, Taiwan and Vietnam. In the present day traffickers’ market each kilograms of the Rhino horns is priced anywhere between rupees forty to seventy Lakh. That is why the traffickers risk their lives to go and grab Rhino horns by any means. People say that two male Rhinos survived near the Banshbari Range only due to their unusual behaviours. It is a habit of the Rhinos to repeatedly come to the same spot to defecate. So if these spots are correctly identified it becomes very easy to locate them. In eastern India most of the poaching of Rhinos are perpetrated in this way. Those two male Rhinos of the Banshbari Range survived from the clutches of the poachers as they did not follow this habit.

It is a habit of the Rhinos to repeatedly come to the same spot to defecate