On Thursday, our Chief Minister said, “Someone had sent agents to sting me.” Karnataka, it appears, is no longer run by politicians alone. 

Vidhana Soudha has a buzzing population of honeybees!  Not the kind that make honey, but the kind that leave politicians trapped in it, a honey trap.

Last year, Co-operation Minister K.N. Rajanna claimed that 48 MLAs had been honey-trapped and demanded an investigation. Now, the Chief Minister himself says there was a “sting” attack on him!

Clearly, the bees are busy, the honey pots are overflowing and our politicians seem unable to keep their fingers and honey dippers out of them.

The controversy began last year when BJP MLA Basangouda Patil Yatnal hinted that legislators were being lured into ‘sticky’ situations.

Surprisingly, the Congress did not dismiss the allegations. Instead, they joined the conversation, with Rajanna of the Congress declaring that Karnataka had become a “factory for CDs and pen drives.”

He wasn’t talking about the State’s information technology industry prowess. He was not talking about exporting software on CDs but political erotica on CDs.

Since Karnataka’s film industry is called Sandalwood, perhaps its political establishment deserves a parallel name: Scandal-Wood.

Karnataka politics is all about resort politics and CD politics. If resort politics was act one, CD culture is act two and it’s steamier, sleazier and shockingly recurrent.

The practice of using personal scandal to damage political careers is hardly new. In 1973, R.D. Kittur, a Minister in the Devaraj Urs government, resigned amid allegations of impropriety involving a missing woman.

In 2016, 71-year-old Excise Minister H.Y. Meti was forced to resign after television channels aired a clip of him in a compromising position with a woman, a contract employee.

More recently, in 2021, former Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi resigned after a leaked video allegedly showed him promising a Government job in exchange for sexual favours. Then, of course, we have former Hassan MP, Prajwal Revanna.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Karnataka’s political scandals is their limited shelf life. Outrage erupts, television studios fill up, political opponents sharpen their knives and social media delivers its verdict. Then the news cycle moves on and yesterday’s disgraced politician may be tomorrow’s candidate.

For now, in Scandal-Wood, the honey may be sweet, the sting may be spectacular and the political drama that follows may be entertaining but… when the politicians get caught with their fingers in the honey pot, it is the taxpayer who gets screwed.

Need Wildlife Management, Not Just Wildlife Conservation

Speaking at the conclusion of the 72nd Wildlife Week celebrations yesterday, Karnataka’s Chief Conservator of Forests, Kumar Pushkar, announced that the State’s tiger population has crossed 700.

That is indeed a conservation success, but it also means now along with human-elephant conflict, we’ll have human-tiger conflict.

Pushkar made an observation that deserves far more public attention than the headline about tiger numbers. He said Nagarahole-Bandipur landscape is reaching saturation.

In simple terms, what he means is that we have protected tigers so successfully that we have run out of room for them! The consequences are already visible.

This year alone, tigers killed over 6,500 cattle, with livestock now accounting for nearly  40 percent of their diet.

Human-tiger and human-elephant conflict is no longer a future problem. It is here and it is only going to get worse.  

Between 2019 and 2024, elephant attacks claimed over 2,700 human lives, while tiger attacks killed another 349. That is almost one person every day for five consecutive years.

Scientists now warn that by 2070, India could become one of the world’s major hotspots for human-wildlife conflict.

Closer to home, Karnataka is already living that reality, with Kodagu emerging as the worst hit, accounting for nearly 38 percent of wildlife-related deaths in Karnataka.

Elephants continue to dominate the headlines, but coffee growers are increasingly encountering tigers.

Wildlife populations have grown because conservation has succeeded, but forests have not expanded with them. Corridors remain fragmented and the result is a wildlife spillover.

Which raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: Have our forests reached their ecological carrying capacity?

According to our Chief Conservator of Forests, the answer is yes. That being the case, perhaps it is time to shift the conversation from wildlife conservation to wildlife management. The two are not the same.

Conservation focuses on increasing and protecting wildlife populations. Management asks the more difficult question: How many animals can a particular landscape sustainably support while minimising conflict with people?

Around the world, countries have confronted this dilemma and dealt with it, pragmatically.

Namibia and Zimbabwe periodically cull elephant populations where ecosystems can no longer sustain them. Australia culls invasive deer and feral animals. Parts of the United States use tightly regulated population control for alligators, bears and other species where public safety demands it.

Mention the word culling in India, however, and reason often gives way to outrage.

This is not an argument for indiscriminate killing of wildlife. Nor is it a licence to abandon decades of successful conservation. It is an argument for allowing science, not sentiment, to guide policy.

Management options include habitat expansion, restoring wildlife corridors, translocation, fertility control where feasible and selective culling only in exceptional cases.

If Governments refuse to have an honest conversation, frightened villagers eventually will do what they have to, which is retaliatory killing.  

Conservation rescued India’s tigers from the brink of extinction. Now, wildlife management must ensure that this conservation success remains sustainable, both for the tiger and the people who live beside it.

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