The Hindu Notes 29th December 2018 - Read Important Articles

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Topic Discussed: The Hindu Notes of 29th December 2018

• Gandhi and the audacity of hope
• A law that defeats its purpose
• Strange deal
• Are India’s laws on surveillance a threat to privacy?
• The new e-commerce policy betrays a muddled view of online and offline retail

Gandhi and the audacity of hope

Amid the normalisation of violence, his record of hope is the best way to acquaint young Indians to him

A sharp symmetry between violence and its opposite has remained unnoticed. It surfaced this year in the murder of Saudi Arabian dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi on Mahatma Gandhi’s 149th birth anniversary, i.e. October 2. The United Nations has named this day as the International Day of Non-Violence. That is the day when over a dozen men were reportedly flown from Riyadh to Istanbul to kill one journalist. They executed their mission in a manner for which few parallels can be found, even in Arabian Nights.

In a familiar tale of this global classic of folklore, a man’s dismembered body is stitched back together by a tailor. Khashoggi’s killers reportedly dissolved his body parts in acid. The mode of killing, the venue and the manner in which the journalist’s body was disposed of mark a new normal in the history of violence.

An ignored synchronicity

The motive for this murder continues to be a subject of intelligent guessing. If suppressing a writer’s voice was the motive, its success and the reluctant response it received are worthy of inclusion in the annals of modernity. The country renowned for the loudest upholding of the human right to freedom of expression has preferred to guard its business interests over guarding this jaded moral edict. The horror got absorbed in the debate over adequacy of evidence about fixing of responsibility. As for us, we as a nation are so occupied with dousing our own internal fires, we ignored the synchronicity of October 2 and the murder in Istanbul.

Apparently, the world we now live in is so used to violence that the manner of killing and disposal of physical remains of a person do not seem all that relevant. In any case, feeling revulsion has little value now as an ethical act. We feel it so frequently that it has lost status among emotions with a moral bearing. Some years ago, I met a small boy who had spent most of his childhood in the kind of colony that is popularly referred to in Delhi as jhuggi-jhopri. Although this term is officially used to refer to a slum, it encompasses the attempts to cover the gruesome living conditions of a metropolitan slum by referring to them in Hindi as a place of improvised huts. The term evokes an image of a village that has reincarnated in a city, but the huts, or jhuggis, are made of recycled tin and plastic, not wood and dry grass. The colony where this boy had grown up was located in Chanakyapuri, the heart of diplomatic New Delhi.

His parents had migrated in search of work from a village in Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh. He had very limited exposure to school life. He recalled it mainly for the beatings he got there. His life outside school was also full of suffering and witnessing of routine violence. He was in the habit of hitting others, including his little sister, hard enough to draw blood. He felt no remorse when that happened. I tried introducing him to art and singing in the hope that colours and rhythms might heal the injuries his little heart had suffered. But he remained a boy without room for emotions. Violence had turned him into a hollow human at an early age. The possibility of even partial restoration was slim. I tried telling him stories and arousing his interest in things he saw on television. It was a struggle because he had learnt very little about the world during the years he had spent at school. When the 2nd of October came, he asked me why it was a holiday. I told him it was Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday. Years have passed but I still remember his puzzled look. Apparently, he had not heard about Mahatma Gandhi. On being told that it was Gandhi’s birthday, he asked, “Who will cut the cake?”

Gandhi’s cake

I recall being amused by that question, but it gathered irony and meaning with the passage of time. It takes little imagination to guess what happens to such children. Where we ought to apply our ability to imagine and foresee is the social landscape inhabited by a growing number of such children. This is the context in which remembering Gandhi, 70 years after his assassination, might be of some precious help. What would Gandhi have said on being told about the violent habits of the boy who wanted a cake to be cut for him? It is not difficult to imagine Gandhi’s commentary. He would point out that roots of violence lay in the conditions that forced the boy’s family to migrate from their village in Bulandshahr to a Delhi slum. This diagnosis is consistent with the critique of modern political economy Gandhi offers in his tract, Hind Swaraj. This little book portrays the omnipresent culture of violence that propels the pursuit of material prosperity at the expense of human bonds and dignity. From Gandhi’s point of view, we are in a mess of our own making. Our disdain for rural distress and alienation from vernacular life are silently catching up with us as a nation and spewing violence through different channels. Politics is one such channel where hatred and bigotry have now gained social sanction.

Many of Gandhi’s ideas look arcane today. If you discuss Gandhi with young people, they ask, “Is he relevant?” After a recent discussion about Gandhi with children, I have realised that his relevance cannot be established by talking about truth and non-violence. Neither of these familiar items of Gandhi’s discourse is easy to communicate. An easier entry into Gandhi’s thought and life might be through hope (picture shows Gandhi at a school at Noakhali, West Bengal, for refugee children). His urge to carry on doing something under adverse circumstances arose from the hope that the human urge to find love will ultimately prevail.

‘A prisoner of hope’

Judith Brown characterised Gandhi as a ‘prisoner of hope’ in her 1989 study of his political career. Despite his hope that truth and non-violence shall prevail, he had to witness the holocaust of Partition. However, his own accomplishments and failures provide us no measure to grasp the nature and logic of his hope.

A law that defeats its purpose

The Transgender Bill omits positive rights and ignores the protections of the ‘NALSA’ judgment

The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2018, passed by the Lok Sabha recently, has caused great alarm. Transgender and intersex activists have protested on the streets, campaigned with parliamentarians and spoken out against the Bill. Is it not an irony that all of this is being done to ensure that the law is not passed? Why is there such a strong resistance to this Bill? Here are the main concerns.

Gender recognition

In the landmark NALSA v. Union of India judgment, the Supreme Court laid down that transgender and intersex persons have the constitutional right to self-identify their gender as male, female or transgender even without medical intervention. The court held: “Each person’s self-defined sexual orientation and gender identity is integral to their personality and is one of the most basic aspects of self-determination, dignity and freedom and no one shall be forced to undergo medical procedures, including SRS, sterilization or hormonal therapy, as a requirement for legal recognition of their gender identity”. Hence, medical procedures should not be required as a pre-condition for any identity documents for transgender and intersex persons, nor should there be any requirement of a mental health assessment. Requiring a person to submit proof of medical treatment or mental health assessment of their gender identity violates one’s right to dignity, the right to be free from unwanted medical treatment and the right to be free from discrimination.

The 2018 Bill in Section 6 establishes a District Screening Committee for the purpose of recognition of transgender persons. This Screening Committee includes a chief medical officer and a psychologist/psychiatrist, which goes to show that medical and psychological tests would be required for grant of change of gender identity. There is no provision in the Bill that gender change would be permitted without medical or psychological treatment.

The Bill also does not allow for recognition of gender identity as male or female. It only allows for an identity certificate as ‘transgender’. This goes against the decision of the Supreme Court, which recognised the right to self-identify oneself as male, female or transgender and would also be forcing intersex persons to get a gender identity as “transgender”.

The U.K.’s Gender Recognition Act 2004 was the first law in the world allowing people to change gender without surgery. Since then other countries, including Argentina, Ireland and Denmark, have passed laws that allow people to ‘self-declare’ their gender, rather than seek approval from a panel of medical experts.

Hence the District Screening Committee needs to be removed from the 2018 Bill. The Bill needs to state explicitly that no medical or mental health examination will be required and applicants will simply need to submit an affidavit attesting the request for a change of gender identity.

Reservations not provided

Debates on the Bill have always included the demand for reservations for transgender and intersex persons in educational institutions and in public employment as they are seen to be crucial for their social inclusion. This was not only mandated by the Supreme Court in NALSA, the Rights of Transgender Persons Bill 2014 too provided for 2% reservation.

Surprisingly the 2018 Bill does not provide for any reservation. It provides in Sections 10 and 14 that there would be no discrimination in education and employment, but these rights are meaningless if transgender persons are not able to get access in the first place. Equality would demand that in order for the trans and intersex community to get access to their basic social rights, there should be horizontal reservation in education and employment provided to them. When the new Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016 was passed, it included reservations of 5% and 4% in education and government jobs, respectively. It is surprising therefore that the 2018 Bill has no mention of similar provisions.

Criminalising lives

The Bill in Section 19 makes it a criminal offence for anyone to compel a transgender person into begging. This has serious implications. A large number of people from the trans and intersex community are engaged in begging and sex work due to discrimination and not having any other opportunities. This provision would lead to members of the trans community being criminalised. When the criminalising of begging itself has been held to be unconstitutional by the Delhi High Court, there is no place for this offence in the 2018 Bill. For too long, gender minorities have been criminalised for being out in the streets and in public, and having this offence in the Bill will lead to further criminalising of transgender lives.

In all these ways the 2018 Bill is seriously flawed. It does not have a whole gamut of positive rights such as the rights of trans and intersex persons to inheritance of property, rights within the family such as adoption and to be free from domestic violence, rights of political participation such as the right to vote and hold public office, and the right to health to include free sex reassignment treatments. It also does not make sexual violence against transgender and intersex persons a criminal offence. The current law on rape is gender specific and transgender persons have no recourse under criminal law for sexual assault.

The Bill is an opportunity to ensure that the constitutional rights of transgender and intersex persons are realised. Let us not lose this opportunity by passing such a flawed legislation.

Netanyahu’s gamble

As Israel heads for a snap poll, corruption allegations will cast a shadow on his campaign

Israel’s ruling coalition’s decision to dissolve Parliament and hold an early election was no surprise. The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose term was scheduled to end next November, has been battling intra-coalition troubles for weeks now. Last month, Avigdor Lieberman, the hawkish Defence Minister, quit and pulled his Yisrael Beiteinu party from the coalition in protest against Mr. Netanyahu’s truce with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that runs the Gaza Strip. That left Mr. Netanyahu with a majority of one seat in the 120-member Knesset. Since then, another crisis convulsed the coalition as a proposed law to regulate the enlistment of ultra-Orthodox men in the military drew flak from religious parties. So far, while all Jewish Israelis are required to serve in the military at age 18, religious students have traditionally got an exemption. The new conscription Bill seeks increased participation of Orthodox Jews. It is required to be passed by January 15, a court-imposed deadline. But the government’s ability to muster the numbers for its passage came under serious doubt as both the Opposition parties and the Orthodox Jewish parties within the ruling coalition have taken a stand against it. It is against this background that Mr. Netanyahu opted to force an election, which will be held on April 9.

In the dissolved Knesset, Mr. Netanyahu’s right-conservative Likud party had 30 members. The electoral system is based on proportional representation, and the Likud is expected to do well again as there appears to be no opposition figure with a profile to take on Mr. Netanyahu. But the four-time Prime Minister has a mixed track record. While he listed the “great achievements” of his government in areas such as security, economy, transportation, tourism and infrastructure at a Likud meeting, he faces criticism for his handling of the Palestinian issue and the security challenges from war-torn Syria. The Netanyahu government completely spurned peace initiatives, promoted settlements in the West Bank and used heavy force against protesters in both the West Bank and Gaza. The two-state solution, which Mr. Netanyahu derided during the election campaign in 2015, is in peril. In Syria, Israel has carried out a series of attacks against what it calls the Iranian presence, deepening the country’s involvement there. Besides, Mr. Netanyahu faces allegations of corruption — he is accused of accepting gifts from billionaire benefactors and reaching illicit deals with media moguls. The Israeli police has recommended indicting the Prime Minister in three cases. If the Attorney-General decides to file a case against him, it could change his electoral chances. Whether Mr. Netanyahu returns to power or not, a fresh mandate should nudge the incumbent towards bold steps to initiate peace with the Palestinians and other powers in Israel’s neighbourhood.

Strange deal

The new e-commerce policy betrays a muddled view of online and offline retail

The Centre’s curiously timed attempt to ‘clarify’ foreign direct investment norms for e-commerce players could end up scuttling investor interest in the sector that has attracted large foreign players and generated thousands of jobs. The fresh restrictions and the clarifications on certain operational aspects could reinforce investor complaints about India being unpredictable in terms of policies. In March 2016, foreign investment up to 100% was allowed under the automatic route for e-com firms engaged in business-to-business transactions using the marketplace model — one where a firm sets up an enabling IT platform to facilitate trade between sellers and buyers. However, FDI was not allowed where the e-com player owned the inventory of goods to be sold, or for business-to-consumer purposes, barring a few exceptions. Now, the rules have been altered for players like Amazon or Flipkart (majority-owned by Walmart) that have made significant investments in India. The policy, to kick in from February 1, 2019, could require a major overhaul in the business model and shareholding structures of such players. For instance, earlier a single vendor or its group firms couldn’t account for over 25% of sales in a marketplace; now the rules bar sales by any entities where the e-com firm has an equity stake. A vendor’s inventory will be deemed to be controlled by the e-com player if more than 25% of its purchases are from the latter or related firms. It’s not clear how this change will help meet the principle enunciated in the policy note — fairness and the creation of a non-discriminatory, level playing field.

Separately, any specialised back-end support for some sellers must now be extended to all vendors, while discounts, cash-backs and preferential subscription services have been made far trickier to implement. An e-commerce marketplace entity will not mandate any seller to offer a product exclusively on its platform under the new rules. But this doesn’t explain what to do when a seller voluntarily opts to sell exclusively on one e-commerce portal over another. The government is clearly keen to quell the long-brewing disquiet among offline retailers over big discount sales and the surge in e-commerce. Yet, it could have waited for the recommendations of a national e-commerce policy task force set up this April. That task force could trigger more policy shifts. India’s retail FDI policy remains muddled — with the debate now focussing on online vs offline trade as opposed to big vs small, or a single brand vs multi-brand retail FDI regime. Globally, India has been taking on protectionism, and this month the Finance Minister said free trade is essential so consumers get the best deal everywhere. The same consumer focus and non-protectionist tenets must be applied for internal trade.

Forays of the Kashmir stag

The hangul, the state animal of Jammu and Kashmir, is an endangered species. But the recent discovery that the animal, long thought to be confined to the Dachigam National Park, has begun using an old migratory route has given fresh hope to conservationists, reports Peerzada Ashiq

It is a chilly December afternoon in the Dachigam National Park. The mild winter sun has no impact on the frozen sheaths around the park’s water bodies. Even dying grass and shrub have been taken over by frost. Located not far from Srinagar and spread over an area of 141 sq km, the denuded forest range of the national park connects south Kashmir’s Tral-Pahalgam axis with central Kashmir’s Ganderbal-Sonamarg axis.

The upper passes of Dachigam, at an altitude of 14,000 ft, received the season’s first heavy snowfall on November 3, which sounded the bugle for the annual migration of the Kashmir stag, locally known as hangul, from the Dagwan river in Upper Dachigam (at an altitude of 7,500 ft) to Lower Dachigam (5,500 ft).

The national park is considered the last undisturbed home of the hangul, a sub-species of the European red deer, in Kashmir. The animal was classified as ‘critically endangered’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

First identified by Alferd Wagner in 1844, the species is believed to have travelled all the way from Bukhara in Central Asia to Kashmir. It is the only sub-species of red deer in India.

A matter of luck

Nazir Ahmad Malik, 50, a forest guard for 20 years and a trekker since the age of nine, is highly regarded for his knowledge of Dachigam’s flora and fauna. A phone call from someone in Muniv, a patch of pasture in Lower Dachigam, alerted Malik to the first sighting of the hangul this winter.

Says Malik: “If a hangul is sighted at 1.30 p.m., it’s good news. Hangul prefer grazing either early in the morning or late in the afternoon. Sighting a hangul is a matter of wild luck. The animal senses human presence much before a human eye can spot it, and makes a quick getaway. The hangul is always ahead of man’s sensory abilities.”

Similar in appearance to the European red deer, the Kashmir stag has a tiny white rump patch and a short dark tail. But unlike its European cousin, its coat is not red, but dark grey and dark brown. The local name, ‘hangul’, is said to have come from either the preferred food of the animal — the Indian horse chestnut (Aesculus indica), also known as ‘Han Doon’ — or its antlers (known as ‘heng’ in the local dialect). The hangul is known to favour ridges facing south, and which receive maximum sunlight, as resting places.

Malik warns against the use of perfume and conversing loudly on our way to spot a hangul. He also advises against chasing the animal, and wants us to keep our distance in case we spot one. However, the 45-minute trek to Muniv does not result in a hangul sighting. Evidently, luck was not in our favour. But Malik is brimming with fresh enthusiasm for the official animal of Jammu and Kashmir; it stems from his having spotted a group of 12 hanguls in the first week of November.

He says: “The group comprised a sub-adult male with five-point antlers, two sub-adult females, and a young female. The rest of them were yearlings. From their weight and their antlers, I would guess that the sub-adult male had visited Dachigam last year too. I expect more of them this year with the fresh spell of snow in the Valley,” says Malik, who loves the sight of inter-mingling hangul herds. Only the stag has antlers.

Malik was lucky to spot a huge herd of 66 hanguls intermingling back in April-May 2015. He says, “I can never forget that sight. But no such happy sighting has happened since then. I am hopeful that this year may throw up a surprise.”

For the first time in many years, in November this year, Malik recorded noises made by rutting stags from seven pasture zones in Dachigam: Reshwodre, Droag, Muniv, Raazinaar, Hydernaar, Chanddernaar and Tcholri. He says, “Last year, it was only from six pasture lands. This indicates that seven big herds are preparing to recruit new mates this winter and, hopefully, produce a new generation of fawns.”

‘Rutting’ refers to the phenomenon wherein an alpha stag starts his courtship with the females (or hinds) in the autumn, with courtship peaking in October. The stag shows off his eight to 10-point antlers and fights it out with the other stags in the herd to win over hinds to form his own harem.

Says the Regional Wildlife Warden (RWW), Kashmir, Rashid Naqash: “Female hanguls keep a watch as stags start bugling in the forest range for new mates. The males have to pass a test. The females are impressed by a stag’s antlers and his ability to protect a female.”

RWW Naqash is also sanguine about the future of a species whose numbers have dwindled alarmingly — from 3,000-5,000 in pre-Partition Jammu and Kashmir to around 214 at present. His optimism is not unfounded.

In the last week of November this year, the first ever satellite-linked, collared female was sighted returning to Dachigam from the species’ summer pastures in the Sindh Forest Division, near Gurez. Though Gurez is very close to the Line of Control (LoC), the guns here have fallen silent since the 1999 war between India and Pakistan. The movement of Indian Army machinery has also reportedly come down. Thanks to this fragile peace, the hangul appears to have rediscovered the traditional route that it used as a summer grazing corridor at least until the 1900s.

Says Naqash: “The movement of the collared hangul on the Dachigam-Wangat-Tulail axis highlights the need to provide a continuous passage for fragmented traditional hangul habitations on the two flanks of the Dachigam sanctuary. This means connecting adjoining sanctuary areas into an unbroken safe zone of 800 sq. km (up from the present 141 sq. km). It is necessary if the hangul is to multiply and survive rising man-made and natural pressures on its habitations.”

Collaring the hangul

Khursheed Ahmad is a scientist who heads the Wildlife Sciences department at the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology-Kashmir. He first come up with the idea, in 2013, of collaring the hangul after witnessing a similar exercise carried out on red deer in Scotland.

Says Khursheed, “We collared a male hangul that year, but it did not leave Dachigam. But the monitoring enabled scientists to study the animal’s movement, seasonal foraging patterns, and other behaviour. We were hoping that it would facilitate better management of this endangered species and help scientists plan some future projects.”

Collecting data around hangul biology, behaviour, and ecology would have helped experts plan management interventions for the long-term survival of the species. However, for unknown reasons, the collared male became untraceable around 2015 and was presumed dead. Scientists concluded that the herds (excluding individual sightings in and outside Dachigam) would restrict their movements to within the Dachigam National Park due to the summer movement of non-local grazers from Jammu to the upper passes and meadows in Kashmir for sheep-rearing.

Says Khursheed, who has studied the hangul for around 20 years, “The male hangul stayed put in Dachigam for two years.” He again collared two females in May this year. “It’s a tedious process. It took us two years to collar these hanguls,” he adds.

Traditionally, the hangul is a long-ranging animal, which, in common parlance means, it travels long distances, and has in the past been spotted in areas ranging from the upper meadows of Kishtwar in the Chenab Valley to Gurez’s Tulail and Dras in Kargil.

Says Khursheed: “We were curious to know if hangul herds are going out of Dachigam or whether they were purely residents... But we found that the hangul did venture out and move towards the Sindh Forest division.” He was much delighted by the new trend, the first of its kind seen after many decades.

The much-awaited movement of a collared hangul, which managed to travel a distance of around 20 km to Tulail in Gurez, is a potential breakthrough for the endangered species, as its new-found mobility could help restore traditional routes, lessen the pressure on Dachigam, and help the species to breed in a better environment.

Another collared hind was found moving towards the Surfrao, Akhal and Kangan blocks of the Sindh Reserve forest and even crossed the mighty Sindh Nallah, but its movement was restricted from Yechihama onwards due to human and livestock grazing disturbances. The animal was found to have spent a few days in and around the Yechihama-Ganiwan forests and meadows and then moved back and forth between Dachigam National Park and the Yechihama-Ganiwan forests through the same route.

However, the migration of the collared hangul and its herds across the treacherous route could not have been easy. In July, a fawn was found trapped at Kangan’s Bonibagh area, down the slopes of Dachigam towards the south. Though a tragic incident, the trapped fawn was another indication that the herd was back to using the corridor to Tulail, which was last known to be active in the early 1900s.

A shikar (hunting) map drawn during the era of Maharaja Hari Singh (1895-1961) mapped the hangul’s presence with multiple corridors. But it also depicted a continuous one from Kupwara’s Keran to Bandipora’s Gurez in north Kashmir to Kishtwar in Jammu, via the upper reaches of Srinagar and south Kashmir’s Pulwama and Anantnag. Says Naqash, “Kishtwar is a broken corridor now. However, the two flanks of the Dachigam could be restored to allow the animal to grow and multiply in a more friendly habitat.”

Buoyed by news of the hangul’s newfound mobility, the State Wildlife Department is now working towards expanding the boundaries of Dachigam towards the Wangat Conservation Reserve and the Sindh Forest Range, south-west of the Raman Nallah in Gurez’s Tulail valley, in north Kashmir’s Bandipora. On the southern flank of Dachigam, Shikar Gah Conservation Reserve in Tral, Khiram Conservation Reserve in Pulwama could be connected for a contiguous passage to Dachigam.

Says Naqash, “There have been sightings of individual hangul in and around Tral and Pahalgam. The easy movement and intermixing of populations from Tral to Dachigam and Tulail could revive its habitat and help the species fight biological and ecological challenges. We have submitted many proposals to the government and hope to make headway soon.”

Conflict takes its toll

The challenges the hangul faces are many. Besides its being poached for ‘trophies’ and its meat, the 30-year-long insurgency and border conflict between India and Pakistan is another major threat to its survival. Militant and Indian Army movements, often with dogs accompanying a patrol party, are chasing the hangul away from its natural habitats and into human populated areas even in Dachigam. In 2017, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) increased its presence at Lower Dachigam in the forest range in order to react to any law and order situation in the nearby colonies more effectively. But it was the hangul that suffered as a result of the fresh movement of troops inside the national park.

Earlier, the Kargil war, in 1999, had forced the Indian Army to restrict the movement of non-local grazers — those who live in the plains of Jammu in the winter and return to the upper reaches of the Kashmir Valley in the summer and tend their flocks there till the winter sets in — to the meadows of Kargil in the summers. This ended up putting extra pressure on the meadows in and around Dachigam, resulting in the displacement of the hangul population from its natural habitat.

Says Naqash, “Though the grazing pressures had disturbed the fawning ground of hangul in Lower Dachigam, the recent relocation of a 100-hectare sheep breeding farm from Lower Dachigam to Khimber on the outskirts of Srinagar has shown quick results... There are reports of hangul sightings already.”

Under pressure on multiple fronts, the hangul’s breeding pattern is also showing some worrying trends. According to official records, the male-female ratio is now 15-17 males per 100 females, down from 23 males per 100 in 2004. This is far below the ideal ratio of 50-70 males per 100 females. The fawn to female ratio is 22 fawns per 100 females, as against the ideal of 30 fawns per 100 females. The fawn survival rate has also declined.

Says Naqash, “Capture myopathy, which is a disease complex associated with capture and human handling, is high among hangul, making it harder for any kind of restrictive captive breeding. It has to thrive only in the wild, without human interference, in contiguous, bigger corridors.”

Khursheed, on the other hand, has other fears: “The skewed sex ratio shows that the population is under constant stress. There is a hypothesis that male hangul foetuses may be getting aborted. It is currently under research as scientists are trying to establish the reasons behind the phenomenon. But such a pattern has been observed in under-pressure animals elsewhere in the world too. That is why we see more females being born than males. More research is needed to draw a conclusive pattern.”

The new corridor, Khursheed says, has given azaadi (freedom) to fawns to cross over into other summer pastures. The animal needs more freedom. Its population will grow on its own, he adds.

The Wildlife Department has also set up vigil and monitoring pickets on the recently discovered corridor towards Gurez in the Sindh Forest Division to ensure the free movement of hangul during summers and help study its migration pattern. One monitoring and control centre has been set up at Haknar Gund in the Dachigam-Wangat belt in central Kashmir. The Wildlife Department has proposed the suspension of vehicular traffic between Srinagar and Sonamarg when the hanguls arrive for a crossover, taking the highway. These pickets will also help keep poachers away.

The department has written to the government to ask security forces, including the CRPF and the Indian Army, to limit the use of patrol dogs in the corridors used by the the hangul.

Says Khursheed, who now plans to collar eight more hanguls to extend the research, “It’s a very serious issue. These dogs prey on the fawns.”

Census next year

Officials admit that the hangul population has seen a decline. Says Naqash: “Numbers and figures are not important to interpret at this stage. Restoring a viable ecosystem for the animal is the first step towards giving an impetus to the endangered species. A fresh census will be done in 2019, which will help us understand any new pattern.”

The hangul, which lives up to 10 years, has a unique role in the region’s food chain. As a major herbivorous animal, it ensures that grassland lines, which are pastures between or above the forest ranges, in the upper reaches survive and are not swept away by the forest ranges. Second, a hangul can satiate the hunger of a leopard for five to 10 days, thereby reducing man-animal conflict.

Forest guard Malik, who has over the years built his own knowledge bank about the animals in Dachigam, believes that the rise in violence in Kashmir has had a definite impact on the behaviour and population of the peaceful hangul. These animals are often found dead when the foot print of the security forces increases in the protected areas. He feels that the species is an ecological barometer to judge the situation in Kashmir.

Says Malik: “When a female hangul delivers a baby, the sisters or female relatives of the mother encircle her. They keep a vigil and offer themselves as diversions in case a predator spots the mother. In many cases, they sacrifice their lives for a new fawn. The hangul is known to sacrifice itself for a new generation. Such an animal deserves our respect.”