In August of 2005, we handed over the Tiger Task Force report to the then prime minister, Manmohan Singh. His government had asked me to chair this committee and draw up an agenda for the conservation of this flagship species. This came on the heels of an investigation by intrepid journalist Jay Mazoomdar, who had broken the story that the last tiger had disappeared from Sariska National Park in Rajasthan. The government, faced with public outrage, did not do the usual—deny or set up a closed committee to produce recommendations that would invariably be buried. Instead, the committee comprised stellar conservationists and scientists with expertise, independence and divergent views, like the late Madhav Gadgil, Valmik Thapar and H S Panwar, and retired bureaucrat Samar Singh. I still do not know why I was asked to chair this group of greats, but I was certainly in the hot seat. There was immense attention on this scandal of the last tiger. I was roundly criticised as not being a “tiger” person—my work was to find a balance between the habitats of humans and wild animals.
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