India often celebrates its tiger conservation achievements as a global success story. With 58 tiger reserves across 18 states and over 70 per cent of the world’s remaining tigers, the country has crafted an image of triumph. Yet behind this image lies a quieter, more troubling reality the unresolved suffering of forest communities who have paid the price for this conservation model.
The Hegemony Behind Conservation
Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony helps explain how the state secures obedience not just through force, but by shaping public consent. Project Tiger embodies this idea. Over decades, through NGOs, bureaucracy, and media narratives, tiger protection has been framed not only as a national priority but a moral obligation.
This narrative enjoys wide acceptance, even as it expands state control over forests and marginalised communities. The result is a system where the conservation agenda gains near-universal backing, while the voices of forest dwellers remain subdued or absent.
A Conservation Success With Hidden Costs
Launched in 1973 with nine reserves, Project Tiger has grown dramatically. Today, 3,682 tigers (as per the 2022 census) roam India’s protected landscapes. But these milestones overshadow the displacement of 2.54 lakh people from tiger reserves between 1973 and 2021, according to a 2024 University of Arizona study.
The idea of “inviolate space” areas free of human presence is central to India’s tiger strategy. NTCA’s guidelines prescribe a minimum of 800–1,200 sq km of core area for breeding tigers, with up to 3,000 sq km as buffer. This model assumes that human presence is harmful, and relocation becomes the default solution.
The NTCA’s 2024 directive reinforced this approach, urging tiger-range states to relocate 591 villages housing 64,801 families. Dispossession, instead of careful deliberation, continues to dominate policy.
Legal Protections Exist, But Only On Paper
India’s constitutional and legal framework strongly protects forest-dwelling communities. The Forest Rights Act (2006), NTCA guidelines (2008), and LARR Act (2013) mandate informed consent, scientific justification, compensation, and rehabilitation. However, ground realities rarely match these promises.
In Achanakmar Tiger Reserve, villagers reported signing documents they couldn’t read. In Satkosia, rehabilitation sites lacked basic amenities even after seven years. Despite strong laws, relocations often remain coercive, opaque, and poorly executed.
The Colonial Legacy Of Fortress Conservation
The idea that forest dwellers are encroachers stems from British forestry policies that criminalised traditional practices and asserted state ownership of forests. Project Tiger inherited this colonial mindset. Influenced by international conservation groups, urban elites, and selective experts, it championed a Western-style wilderness model that excludes humans.
Shockingly, some tiger reserves were declared even in areas without tigers like Dampa in Mizoram and Satkosia in Odisha simply to fit this model. Here, people were relocated to make way for an imagined emptiness.
When Reform Efforts Are Blocked
The Tiger Task Force report of 2005, led by Sunita Narain, had urged a more scientific and community-inclusive approach. But mainstream conservationists resisted change. Many even portrayed the Forest Rights Act as a threat to wildlife.
This selective empathy was evident in the 2018 Avni case, where public outrage focused solely on the tigress’s death, overshadowing villagers’ struggles with conflict.
Conservation Without Communities Is Unsustainable
Exclusion weakens conservation. When people are forced out or alienated, they stop seeing forests and wildlife as part of their own lives. Resentment grows, and cooperation shrinks.
By contrast, participatory conservation models have succeeded. In Nagaland, persuasion and community pride transformed hunters into protectors of Amur falcons. In Karnataka’s Biligiri Rangaswamy Hills, Soliga Adivasis continue to live alongside tigers using traditional ecological knowledge.
These examples show that successful conservation is rooted in relationship, not removal.
Relocation Must Be A Choice, Not A Mandate
It is important to recognise that not all relocations are harmful. Some families see them as opportunities for better services and livelihoods. The issue is not relocation itself but the absence of democratic choice. Decisions about declaring tiger reserves or relocating villages should involve meaningful consultation, transparency, and consent.
Conservation science must also become more open, participatory, and inclusive of local knowledge.
The Path Forward: Restoring Consent And Trust
If hegemony depends on consent, then India’s conservation future depends on restoring that consent. This can happen only through equity, participation, and trust not coercion, spectacle, or top-down control.
India must rethink tiger conservation not as a fortress to be defended from people, but as a shared space where humans and wildlife can coexist. Protecting tigers and protecting people are not opposing goals. They are deeply intertwined, and India’s conservation success will be meaningful only when it honours both.