‘The Mysterious World of Tigers’: Valmik’s vision of saving the big cat

The tiger in India has fared well. There is no question about this. In fact, this has been a very pleasant surprise for me. In the late 1990s, I thought that by the turn of the century, most of India’s tigers would be wiped out, but it did not happen. India still has about 2,500 to 3,000 tigers in pockets of habitat across the land. Given that this same land has to support nearly 1.4 billion people, whom tigers have to coexist with, this is a remarkable feat. It is the result of some very hard work by some committed government officers and some passionate non-governmental partners.

Yes, there is a lot of room for improvement and the management strategies are shoddy most of the time. One of the problems that arises occasionally, and did so recently in Ranthambhore, for example, is conflict between humans and tigers. In May 2025, a tigress called Kankati, the daughter of the tigress called Arrowhead, claimed her second human victim, a park ranger. Kankati and several other tigers had lost their fear of humans because they had grown accustomed to being fed with live bait and were turning into ‘semi-domesticated animals waiting to be fed’, in the words of Dharmendra Khandal. Inevitably, this over-familiarity with humans had tragic consequences with a tiger turning man-killer.

In such circumstances, my view is clear. Immediate steps should be taken to stop whatever practices have led to the tragedy and the guilty tiger cannot be allowed to roam free. Some tigers become nasty killers and must be imprisoned just like humans are for murder. That is really the only way that man and tiger will be able to survive into the future. Such unfortunate developments aside, what does need to be celebrated is the fact that we have managed to make wild tigers thrive in our country. A miracle! The rest of the world has not done as well.

India now holds more than 75 per cent of the world’s tigers. How did we manage to keep this magical animal alive? I think it has to be because of the mindset of our people and their traditional beliefs that gave a special sanctity to the tiger. It was the vehicle of the goddess who brought good fortune and defeated evil. Even if some poachers went after the tiger, many kept away from this dastardly act. It was against their beliefs. The tiger for many was regarded as sacred, a divine creature, and it is deeply embedded in the myth, legend, and beliefs of our people.

The Warli tribal gods existed because of the animal. Phallus-shaped wooden and stone images of the tiger, often daubed in red to indicate their extreme sanctity, were placed everywhere as symbols of fertility, not just for crops but also for marriage and the birth of children. There were festivals dedicated to the tiger god all across India, and there were frequent ritualistic dances in which dancers painted themselves with tiger stripes and then propitiated the tiger god.

The tiger commanded great fear and respect across different religions. A legend of a compassionate prince giving his body to save the life of a starving tigress and her cubs is found in several sacred Buddhist texts. In Siberia, the Udege tribal people also honoured the tiger as their god. To the Udege, the tiger is the spirit of the taiga (evergreen forests) and guardian of the trees and mountains, a divine force of nature. Similarly, many Koreans still believe that their land is blessed by the blue dragon and the white tiger, and that the image of the tiger repels evil spirits and protects people’s fortunes.

Many believe that the tiger first originated in China. Three thousand years ago, during the Shang dynasty, people in the Shaanxi province believed that the tigers symbolised regeneration. In Chinese medicine, the body of the tiger was believed to hold miraculous cures. Tribal communities believed that the white tiger was a part of the Milky Way and from there he protected the earth.

Just as the goddess Durga rides a tiger in her attempt to defeat evil, the Taoist leader in China is shown riding a tiger in his search for a dragon-tiger elixir for eternal life.

In the forests of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, the tribals believed that the tiger was first among animals and had intense supernatural powers, including the ability to transform into a human being. Mnong tribals from the region, much like the Warlis in India, connected the worship of the tiger to the worship of grain. All across Malaysia and Indonesia, people believed in the tiger shaman who could evoke the tiger and then perform miraculous cures on any patient’s body in order to repel sickness and disease.

India boasts of nearly half the world’s tiger population, half the world’s Asiatic elephant population, and an array of other living creatures. One might argue that these animal populations might not have survived at all if people had not maintained a core belief in nature’s power. The Asiatic elephant invoked the spectre of Ganesha, the elephant god; the tiger was the vehicle of Durga.

The future of the tiger around the world today hangs in the balance. We have done a good job of conserving the tiger in India but both here and elsewhere, over the next decade, it’s imperative that government and non-governmental experts partner in genuine ways to manage wild tiger populations.

When you protect tigers, you protect the entire habitat, down to the smallest insect. There is no better way to minimise the impact of global warming or climate change. I hope younger generations will commit themselves fully to the battle to save wild tigers.

— Excerpted with permission from Aleph. Valmik Thapar passed away on May 31