Tales of nation and nature

In the opening session, noted historian and writer Mahesh Rangarajan spoke about nature, nation and shared rare tales from Indian history in a discussion moderated by Prof. Aloka Parashar-Sen. “We are living in a significant phase of the 21st century. While the 20th century had only three significant droughts, here we are in our second year and only 15 years have passed in the century so far.

Population and number of countries have increased by four fold after the World War II. The fact that we live in different nations is key for future,” Rangarajan noted. Stating that the borders are defined by the people not by the nature,

“This is against the familiar expressions in many books where borders of regions are defined by geographical landmarks but, look at the number of countries that were divided post World War II; they were not on the geographical and natural lines but, by the desires of the people,” he added.

Delving in to history, Rangarajan spoke eloquently about the debates that happened while choosing the national symbol, bird and animal. “Renowned ornithologist, Dr Salim Ali proposed to make The Great Indian Bustard as the national bird as it is under the verge of extinction and he thought that would save the species.

This was in lines with Teddy Roosevelt’s decision to make Bison the national animal of the US. However, peacock was made the national bird,” he remarked. Rangarajan revelated that the Tiger wasn’t the national animal until the late sixties. “Lion was the national animal, however, they chose Tiger later as it was found in more States,” he said. “The Bengal from its name was dropped after this feat,” he informed.

Recounting the history of the Sunderbans, “It was a rehabilitation centre where refugees from East Pakistan were given shelter. They co-existed with the tigers there. Later, when Sunderbans was made a reserved forest the refugees were asked to leave the place. Not many would know that the Bengal Tiger is also a refugee in Sunderbans; they came from Java and Sumatra,” Rangarajan signed off.