Saturday, August 31, 2019

Why The Lion King Should Matter To India Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/opinion/why-the-lion-king-should-matter-to-india Copyright © BloombergQuint


The movie The Lion King echoes how we look at lions in real life – loving them to their deaths.
A fictional movie set in Africa has an unlikely connection to India. That of lions. The Lion King follows the story of Simba, an African lion, and his hero’s journey. He battles a bitter leonine rival, mangy hyenas and an upturned ecological balance to take his ‘rightful’ place as King of the Jungle. And because The Lion King is about saving and cherishing lions, this movie should have special relevance to India: the world’s last remaining Asiatic lion population is here.
In the annals of movie history, animated movies have a vaunted place. Leaping images bring things to life, uplifting us more than just moving us. They target children, but are watched by adults; they show slivers of dread and fear, but also order. They show us worlds we ache to be a part of, mostly because the ending is one of triumph and learning. The Lion King has been remade by Disney almost two decades later—and both movies are hits—demonstrating the universal themes of saving wildlife and nature.
But a lot has changed for Asiatic lions since the last movie, and not in a good way.
A lioness with her cubs at the Gir National Park in Gujarat. (Photograph: Gir National Park)
A lioness with her cubs at the Gir National Park in Gujarat. (Photograph: Gir National Park)
A 2013 Supreme Court order directed the government to relocate some wild lions to Madhya Pradesh, in order to stave off fears of an epidemic amongst the 500 odd Gir population. Wildlife populations in single locations are threatened by natural calamity and disease outbreak – in 1994, a Canine Distemper Virus outbreak had decimated at least thirty percent lions in Serengeti. The virus had jumped from domestic dogs to lions.
Last year, the predicted calamity happened – an outbreak of CDV killed several lions in the Gir landscape. Gir is also overrun with dogs and cattle that can be disease carriers. Official numbers said there were 34 lions deaths, but unofficial sources said the number was higher. The court order was not followed, and disease has come knocking. What could this mean?
Ironically, The Lion King’s particular gaze on lions holds a mirror to how we look at lions in real life.
A lion at the Gir National Park in Gujarat. (Photograph: Gir National Park)
A lion at the Gir National Park in Gujarat. (Photograph: Gir National Park)
The movie has a stylised, anthropomorphised view of lions. The lion is the king of the jungle, and has solid family values, ideas which contribute to its magnificence. Gujarat’s refusal to give up lions for the sake of species’ persistence reflects this human-centric view. On affidavit, the state said it could not part with its lions because they were ‘Gujarat’s pride’ and like ‘family members’ for the state. This familial love would be fine if the fitness of the animals was not at stake.
The CDV outbreak showed the danger of not only keeping all eggs in one basket, but also in loving something the way we want to, as opposed to how the subject needs to be cherished. Cartoons are great ways to communicate about potentially dangerous animals, as they minimise danger and make something look endearingly familiar.
One should not have to point out that cartoons don’t dictate real life, but the state seems to be looking at lions as familiar, domestic creatures more than as wild animals with real habitat needs.
A lioness at the Gir National Park. (Photograph: With permission from Sohail Madan)
A lioness at the Gir National Park. (Photograph: With permission from Sohail Madan)
In a first for big cat conservation, the lions were caught and vaccinated en masse after the outbreak. The state also announced a Rs 350 crore package for lions, which included drones for surveillance, CCTV cameras and medical ambulances.
The enterprise made Gir seem more of a safari rather than a wildlife sanctuary with natural processes. It also broke a tenet of wildlife conservation – of having minimal human intervention, so naturally resilient systems can form. Wildlife is not rounded up and vaccinated like pets in the wild because that interferes with natural selection of resilient animals that develop immunity. And though disease leads to natural population control, we must avoid population bottlenecks that form after habitats are cut off. Genetic studies prove that big cats like tigers are fitter and have more potential for genetic diversity if they disperse, and larger habitat also safeguards from physical risks of disaster.
With one single population on earth, we can hardly afford an infantilisation of the issue. We can’t love lions to their deaths.  
A lioness at the Gir National Park. (Photograph: With permission from Sohail Madan)
A lioness at the Gir National Park. (Photograph: With permission from Sohail Madan)
They are wild animals, and they necessarily need new habitat, rather than CCTV cameras. The Lion King is set in one location, the Pride lands, and even there, disease is not far away.
The lions of real life have their pride lands, but this is not enough: reports of them walking outside Gir, getting hit by trains or falling in wells abound (23 lions have died in this manner since 2017, while 222 lions have died in Gir between 2017-19).
There is also rising conflict outside Gir, and videos of people baiting and teasing lions for tourists have been doing the rounds for years.
And if art is intended to imitate life, the opposite is also true. While the movie literally lionises big cats, it also demonises hyenas. The entire species is shown as itchy, yucky and mean-spirited, which in human terms would be similar to a racist approach towards a community. This depiction perpetuates commonly held stereotypes of scavengers—hyenas are often persecuted in India.
Primitive, cartoonish understanding of animals should not be how we look at things in real life.
A lion at the Gir National Park in Gujarat. (Photograph: Gir National Park)
A lion at the Gir National Park in Gujarat. (Photograph: Gir National Park)
Finally, we can hardly hold movie fictions responsible for colouring our view; the fault lies with planning. The lion seems ready to move to new places, dispersing as far as the sea coast in Gujarat. Despite doing well on lion conservation otherwise, the authorities have caricatured the issue, denying lions their wildness.
We are in danger of believing in a happy ending because we are so fond of something. Yet, happy endings belong to animation movies, not real life. The lion doesn’t need parochial love, it needs space. If anything, we should enjoy cartoons in our free time so we can work for the subject in real time.
On the species’ terms, not ours.
Neha Sinha works with the Bombay Natural History Society.
Views expressed are personal. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BloombergQuint or its editorial team.

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