Manas: Politics that ruined a forest
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manas_National_Park)

Have been planning to write on this for long, but somehow had never ended up putting finger on keyboard—for this at least. That the intention was there is of course beyond doubt. You guys out there, who have cared to check out the ILK albums must have noticed a few snapshots of Manas, posted by yours truly. The plan was to back that up with a bit of journalistic dough, which am finally being able to do now.
The first time I said Manas, friends mistook my destination with the grandiose mountain and lake combo where Shiva is believed to dwell with his consort Parvati—the mass of land that lie no more within our borders. And hearing that I did not have pilgrimage in mind, but a simple thirst to check out a forest lying deep inside Assam (to check on other national parks in Assam, click on http://assamgovt.nic.in/) that had, even three years back, been off-limits to most of India mainly due to poachers and the Bodo movement, did make them a little snooty about the destination.
Actually, the Manas Wildlife Sanctuary has been more or less erased from the mind of the average adventure traveller in India. If you say jungle and Assam, it's generally Kazirangha now. That would not have been the case. The problem is, Manas has worn much of its romance out over the long-drawn period of the Bodo-movement.
While on one hand, it was around that time stripped of its natural wealth—flora and fauna included, the armed movement and disturbed political state of the region, coupled with the remoteness of the place, truly made Manas recede from the tourism map of India.
Things have apparently changed, and changed mainly due to an individual and an agency, both based in Kolkata.
The individual is none other than Sabyasachi Chakraborty—the actor (to know more about his filmography, click on http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0149837/). Our very own Felu-da (again, for all of you, wikipedia comes of help. Click on : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feluda) had actually visited the Kokilabari region of Manas a few years back, just after the agitation had died down and Bodoland was created.
"At that point of time, there was hardly any palce to stay there. We stayed in camps at their som plantations," remembers Chakraborty. And being a wild life enthusiast and a widely travelled person whose computer table should be cramped with CDs containing wildlife photographs, he immediately understood the rot that has set into what had once been the lush green hunting grounds of the Coochbehar Maharajas. But what impressed him was the vivacity of the Bodos. "Ufff, what pork they made! The day we reached, it was late at night, and all they had was pork and rice. My son and me enjoyed it so much that for the next few days of our stay, pig became our main diet—breakfast through dinner," Chakraborty told me one evening at his home after I had finished interviewing him and was exchanging common interests over tea.
Chakraborty came back to Kolkata and contacted a few people. He continued, "Monsoons are bad in the area. And to stop poaching, you needed to have regular patrollings organised all over the forest. The locals were willing, but they didn't have the gears." So Chakraborty talked with a few friends and associates. One of them was the then boss of the Calcutta Fire Brigade. He arranged to send over gumboots and raincoats for the would-be patrollers. Then there were the guys of Help Tourism, off Kalighat. Besides being in the tourism business, what Help has actually specialised in is the developed of community based tourism, especially in the jungles.

Recently, it was their outfit on Bali Island in the Sundarbans where the Pakistan pacer, Sohaib Akhtar who was in India to play in the Indian Cricket League for the Kolkata-based team Knight Riders, visited to see the Royal Bengal Tiger. Thus came into existence the Kokilabari Manas Maozedongri Ecotourism Society, an NGO dedicated towards preservation of the Indian side of the Manas National Forest.
And that was exactly my point. To find out the state of one of the most interesting forestlands in the country— a 950 sq km tract that's five things in one— a national park, a world heritage site, a biosphere reserve, a project tiger reserve and an elephant reserve—that had been declared a World Heritage Site in Danger by the UNESCO in 1992, spread over two countries. The 1992 UNESCO tag was targetted at the Indian side of Manas. That's not a great tag to share for a forestland, but Manas received the monikar by virtue of the rampant poaching, which figured as an offshoot of the Bodo movement. (For other UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Danger, visit http://whc.unesco.org/en/danger/)
Why? What had poaching to do with a political movement like the demand for Bodoland? To that, in my next post.