Experts slam India’s colonial mindset in tiger protection policy

Why are tribals prosecuted for tiger deaths, never the urban ‘white-collared’ poacher? The recent Madhya Pradesh poaching incident explains this attitude.

Five men from a tribal community in Madhya Pradesh, were made to squat on the ground, as forest officials stood around them: the prime accused and his friends who had been arrested for tiger poaching (he allegedly poisoned the tiger that had preyed on his livestock). They were also made to hold up placards with their names boldly printed on them, for the cameras. This time they weren’t shackled with chains as is often norm. This was a trophy for the forest department: tribal tiger poachers nabbed.

The carcass of the tigress, radio-collared, buried in a pit near the Satpura Tiger Reserve (STR) in Madhya Pradesh, was unearthed by forest officials on March 27 this year. The tigress had died nearly a month earlier.

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Now it comes to light that in 2025, Madhya Pradesh, a State with the country’s largest tiger population, recorded 55 tiger deaths, the highest number since Project Tiger was launched in 1973. Of these, 15 were “unnatural deaths” — those caused by human intervention, such as poaching, poisoning, electrocution, or road and rail accidents — accounting for a significant 27% of the total deaths.

The strange story behind the death of this particular tigress has been the discourse among several conservations across the country lately. Ajay Dubey, an environment activist doesn’t buy the argument that it was retaliatory killing by forest dwellers for livestock loss, but that it was the opium syndicate (the carcass was found near an opium field).

In a PIL he filed before the Madhya Pradesh High Court, Mr. Dubey said that the deaths in the State’s tiger reserves are “shocking… and shows that these incidents have happened because of the negligence on the part of officers concerned.” Tigers are dying “under mysterious and often suspicious circumstances, raising serious questions about protection, enforcement, and accountability,” the PIL stated.