Dwindling camels bind Indian small community

Anand Khurana, The Statesman/Asia News Network

The camel may have unkindly been described as a horse designed by a committee but for Ilse Kohler-Rollefson, the animal is an essential part of Rajasthan's biodiversity, the key to preserving the identity of the Raika community.

The internationally respected scientist and animal doctor now spends half the year in rugged Rajasthan where once-vast camel herds are in danger of becoming a historical footnote.

Maharajas once rode their high-stepping dromedaries in battles for primacy over Rajasthan's sprawling desert, the Thar. Today, like the state itself, its camels are in trouble and this German "savior" is combining Western medicine and modern management with traditional remedies and age-old pastoral techniques to save local herds and improve the economic prospects of one of India's most marginalized communities.

For centuries, the Raika nomads have hitched their collective fortunes to the loping tread of camelus dromedaries, the one- humped species that thrives in the desert. Now used mainly as fuel-efficient carriers in the vast, barely mechanized hinterlands of India, camels are also the glue that holds the semi-nomadic Raika together, allowing them to maintain a precarious identity and tenuous independence in a quickly modernizing society.

But loss of habitat, disease and sales of camels in times of need have decimated the herds, undermining the livelihood of the 500,000-strong community.

In 1996, after a four-year study, Kohler-Rollefson began prescribing practical remedies, helping to establish Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan, a non-governmental organization, to coordinate a regional effort to save the camels and lobby the government.

Her most publicized achievement has been the forging of a unique and synergistic combination of modern medicine and local ethno-veterinary practices employing herbal and other time-tested Raika treatment for camels.

To ensure the program has long-term benefits, she also helped set up a training center where knowledge about traditional practices is kept alive and "unlicensed" Raika veterinarians and their officially registered counterparts in India and abroad learn from each other.

Dr Kohler-Rollefson is quick to admit that the medical aspect of her work will solve only the most immediate problems. The next hurdle is to restore grazing rights. Her ultimate aim is to return sustainable economic viability and cultural cohesion to the Raika.

Cash-cropping of former grazing tracts and the creation of nature reserves in what was once open pasture has restricted the range of the wandering Raika. Unless something is done, simple mathematics will destroy the community. So Dr Kohler-Rollefson has become a strong proponent for making the nomads conservators of the land as well as livestock.

"If the Raika can reacquire their traditional grazing rights and become full collaborators in managing protected areas," she explains, "it would set a precedent for the similar involvement of pastorialists around the world." A request has also been sent to the High Court in Jodhpur to restore their rights in the Aravalli Hills.

She also believes that pastorialists such as the Raika are the world's "real experts in livestock management" and that the international scientific community has much to learn from them.

"Their knowledge," she says, "is especially vital for the sustainable use of marginal environments."

One Raika nomad recounts that 40 years ago his village had 10,000 camels, but now there are fewer than 1,000. "Ten years from now," he says, "there will be none."

While the count varies, the latest government figures recorded a 50 percent drop in animals under three years of age during a five-year period, more than confirming the worst fears of the Raika themselves.

To her credit, the doctor has more than 70 publications cutting across disciplines like anthropology, animal genetics and breeding. She is also founder of the League for Pastoral Peoples, an advocacy and support group depending on common property resources.

She is also a linguist, having attained a fair degree of proficiency in spoken and written Hindi, Urdu and the Jordanian dialect, besides English, French, Spanish and, of course, German.

In a country with a religion that measures time in cyclical kalpas of 4,320 million years, Dr Kohler-Rollefson's rapid progress is regarded by many as astounding. The training center and other elements of the infrastructure have been expanded, and, she says, "we've reached the point where even government officials seek our advice."

Yet she still sees the need to "build a common multi- stakeholder platform for conservation and development". This, she feels, will eventually happen, especially as "people are at least realizing that pastorialists act as guardians of valuable breeds and protectors of the genetic diversity of livestock".