By Anushka S

Abstract

Human-wildlife conflicts are rising in Kerala, often leading to tragic encounters like the recent tiger attack in Wayanad. This piece explores how quick-fix policies overlook deeper issues like habitat destruction and the risks faced by marginalized communities.

Introduction

The interaction of man and wild animals has become increasingly common in Kerala with most of these interactions being termed as conflicts as they have caused grievous injuries and sometimes fatalities. The state has recorded 460 deaths and 4527 injuries because of human-wildlife encounters between 2020 and 2024. Such incidents have only strengthened the need for effective policies in order to ensure both the safety of human beings and the conservation of animals to establish harmonious cohabitation. This article looks at one particular human-wildlife encounter and the ways in which the state government responded to it. I shall analyse how policies aimed at tackling wild animals are often temporary and why there is a strong requirement to unearth larger problems that stem from our treatment of nature.

Details of the case

Radha, a 47-year-old coffee plantation worker, woke up early on a chilly January morning to begin her routine shift at the Priyadarshini Estate in Wayanad, Kerala. But what awaited her at 8:30 AM was not another day of hard work–it was a stray tiger that attacked and mauled her to death. What followed was an eruption of furious protests and swift action by forest officials, who declared the tiger a ‘man-eater’ and authorised its killing, deeming it a severe threat to human life. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), issues a set of guidelines to declare big cats as man-eaters. This body under the Ministry of Environment and Forests states in its official document that, “If a tiger/panther begins to seek out, stalk and wait for human beings and has after killing a person, eaten the dead body, it is established beyond doubt that the animal has turned into a man-eater. It is not necessary in such cases to wait till several human lives are lost.” Following this statement of procedure, Kerala’s forest minister, A K Saseendran  in consultation with the Advocate General, Chief minister and other legal experts, took the decision to label this tiger as a man-eater and order for it to be captured and killed. The same tiger also attacked a member of the Rapid Response Team, Jayasurya during the operation on 26th January 2025 to capture it, which remained unsuccessful. By a twist of fate, the tiger was found dead the very next day. The post-mortem revealed that the tiger’s death was caused by wounds on its neck which it may have incurred as a result of territorial fight with another big cat. The officials also found hair, parts of her dress and two earrings of the deceased woman from inside the tiger’s carcass.

Plantations, Marginalised Communities, and the Politics of Blame

Jared D. Margulies in his article  Making the ‘man-eater’: Tiger conservation as necropolitics  asserts that the Indian state makes effective use of necropolitics to assign a tiger’s (which the state considers as dangerous) death as an administrative inevitability. He further states that in doing so, the state very strategically isolates the tiger’s behaviour towards man and ignores larger historical and geographical contexts. By painting this tiger as vicious, as an animal thirsty for human blood, the state blames the animal instead of analysing the role of plantations and state policies in shaping tiger habitats. Margulies’ argument can be applied to the Wayanad case as well. A bit of historical digging reveals that the Priyadarshini estate, where Radha worked, was set up in 1984 in order to rehabilitate bonded tribal people. While this was rightfully seen as a progressive step towards securing rights and better living conditions for the adivasi people of Wayanad, we must also go one step back in history and analyse plantations itself for this would reveal how the stripping of forest land to set up plantations has a pungent colonial reek. They were set up with purely profit motives and continue to function in that way. The plantation is described by Margulies as a place where marginalised people are “maintained within spaces of unrelenting precarity in the name of profit maximisation.” In his article, he also touches upon how estates often employ landless, marginalised workers (many from adivasi or Dalit communities), who are placed in dangerous, ecologically contested spaces for economic survival. We may write this off as a space for offering rehabilitation for the poor but at the same time, we must be extremely cautious in identifying how these spaces operate and which groups ultimately are in danger. In close reading of this argument, the presence of Radha in the Priyadarshini estate is a result of historical and political circumstances. Policy here needs to acknowledge how plantations indirectly put people from marginalised communities at risk, rendering them helpless as this is their only way to earn a livelihood while continuing to live in their hometown. The death of the woman is not just a case of “random human-wildlife conflict” but part of a larger structural issue, where marginalised workers are pushed into spaces of risk while wealthier landowners and estate managers remain insulated from direct exposure to wildlife threats. The tiger’s presence in that space is not an ‘invasion’ but a symptom of historical land dispossession and fragmented habitats. Rather than eliminating the tiger, we must ask: why do plantations continue to exist in these ecologically sensitive zones? Further, since they do exist, the state needs to find ways to make the plantation—formed by felling forests, the habitat of tigers—safer for both species rather than blaming a tiger for having murderous intentions toward humans. 

Way forward: How should we frame wildlife encounter policies?

Firstly, we must understand that killing animals that attack humans is not a viable solution. We will eventually have to learn to cohabitate with wild animals because we have encroached their natural habitat. Governments should come up with policies to prevent attacks. For example, Minister Saseendran after the attack stated that as part of enhanced wildlife management, 100 new cameras will be installed in Wayanad, and 400 AI cameras will be set up across the state by March 31 to strengthen monitoring and prevent wildlife-related attacks. Similarly, the Kerala State Planning Board has come up with other innovative mechanisms such as fencing along the forest boundary, capturing and translocating problematic elephants and tigers using methods such as deploying beehives and recorded tiger roars, growing unpalatable crops as a buffer to farmlands– mainly aimed to provide alternate revenue to farmers in high human-elephant conflict zones (coffee, lemon, chilly) and so on. Such policy interventions are highly impressive and they reduce violence towards animals. However, despite these policies, when conflicts continue, people are naturally inclined towards asking for more aggressive measures towards wild animals. Minister Saseendran promised agitating farmers in Wayanad that the government would soon seek the Supreme Court’s permission to sterilise or cull tigers and elephants that threaten life and property. This led to massive backlash as these animals are also protected under law. Further, the measure to cull animals can lead to severe consequences as Wayanad’s forests, which can support a maximum of 190 tigers, have only 50 tigers. There is no doubt that wildlife encounters have led to tragic and preventable deaths, demanding urgent solutions. However, killing wild animals offers nothing more than a temporary fix. In Radha’s case, we must look beyond wildlife policies and examine the broader challenges faced by plantation workers—providing self-defense training and addressing their working conditions to ensure their safety and security in the long run.

Conclusion

Policy intervention in wildlife is extremely important and states like Kerala who have been dealing with it since years have been doing a commendable job. However, we must not get ahead of ourselves and put on our anthropocentric lenses to claim that human lives are more valuable than animal lives. Animals do not understand administrative boundaries and neither function on human emotions of retribution. Policy has to be strengthened in the ways that we can prevent attacks. Rather than reactive measures like culling, policymakers must invest in long-term solutions that address habitat fragmentation, improve worker safety, and foster coexistence. By shifting from immediate containment to structural change, we can create a more sustainable framework that ensures both human safety and wildlife conservation.

Author’s Bio: Anushka S is a second year student at Jindal School of International Affairs, pursuing a  Bachelors in Political Science (Hons.). Her research interests include the intersection of religious studies and political theory, public policy, social welfare, and developmental growth.

Image Source: പഞ്ചാരക്കൊല്ലിയില്‍ ഭീതിവിതച്ചത് വയനാട് ഡാറ്റാ ബേസില്‍ ഉള്‍പ്പെടാത്ത കടുവ, Man-eater tiger, Mananthavady, tiger attack, Wayanad, Kerala, forest department, wildlife, tiger