The Delhi High Court, like the rest of the city, has a monkey problem. And it’s just not cute anymore. The court is desperate for solutions.
It’s past lunch-time and the crowd has thinned at the canteen. It’s time for the monkeys to take over. A big monkey jumps on the PVC shed overhead the food stalls, slides down a metal pipe and hops boldly to the marble tables. Just when a lawyer puts down a bowl of gulab jamun, the monkey grabs it and gulps it down. The startled lawyer swiftly scurries away, leaving his file behind. The smaller monkeys soon follow. Hopping from one table to the other, picking chapatis and curd bowls from people’s plates and dustbins.
The court has hired two men to scare the monkeys away with slingshots and people have been asked to not feed the simians in the court premises.
The solutions are also being found inside the courtroom. But the monkeys are here to stay.
And it’s not just the Delhi High Court. In the past, monkeys have terrorised the prime minister’s office, torn apart the home ministry’s files, and created menace at former Vice President Venkaiah Naidu’s official residence.
Measures to control the monkey menace have been plenty. Landmark judgments have been passed, expert committees have been formed, and government tenders have invited agencies to sterilise the animals but nothing seemed to have worked. The monkeys have even been relocated to wildlife sanctuaries, but they always find their way back. They hop tall buildings, destroy vegetation and gardens, and enter homes fearlessly for food.
A lack of consensus between wildlife experts and animal activists on how to solve the monkey menace creates a deadlock.
Now, Delhi has given up and said it just cannot free Delhi of the monkeys.
“There is no way out. The government is helpless,” says Santosh Tiwari, the lawyer representing the Delhi government in an ongoing case in the high court on the monkey menace. “The problem of monkeys is different than stray dogs, cats and birds. Monkeys are difficult to catch. The government has tried different ways, nothing has worked.”
His response came on a PIL filed by advocate Shashwat Bharadwaj in January. Calling it a “grave problem of monkey menace”, Bharadwaj asked how the Delhi government has used the Centre’s Rs 5.43 crore for sterilisation of monkeys.
“This region of Delhi has seen an alarming infestation of the simian population and a consecutive increase in the cases of monkey bites,” Bharadwaj notes in his application.
Everyone talks of monkey menace, but there is no official data on how many of them are in the city, or if their population has increased or decreased over the years. The data on monkey bites is also patchy. There are no takers for sterilisation tenders and relocation hasn’t worked. So, a lot of guesstimates float about.
Can’t capture, can’t sterilise
Delhi woke up to its monkey problem in 2007. In October, Surinder Singh Bajwa, then-deputy mayor of Delhi, fell to his death from his balcony after a monkey attacked him. The same year, in a case filed by New Friends Colony Residents Welfare Association, the Delhi High Court passed an order banning the feeding of monkeys and empowered the municipal corporations to impose fines on violators. Monkeys were to be captured, treated and transported to Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary, where PVC walls would be erected while food collection points were to be set up across the city.
But 15 years later, the monkeys continue to hop out of what remains of the PVC wall and back to human settlements.
“After 2007, there was a vacuum between two litigations. The old orders on the matter have not been complied with. This problem has emerged again because in 2019, the Delhi government received funds to the extent of Rs 5.43 crore to sterilise monkeys. After two years they are saying that they could not do anything because no agency is coming forward (for sterilising monkeys),” says Bharadwaj.
All talk about relocation that activists demand stops at the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary, on the outskirts of Delhi. But the half-hearted attempts at relocation over the years have failed miserably. The so-called forest was just not prepared for the monkey arrivals from the city.
To take the monkeys to Asola sanctuary, they first need to be captured. And in the absence of any natural predators in the city, sterilisation is a solution to control their fast-growing population. After the monkeys are recovered and treated for diseases, they can be released in the sanctuary. Temporary solutions of introducing langurs, langur cut-outs and calls also do not work.
“Monkeys soon realise that the langur cut-outs are not real. The Delhi government once brought langurs, but these are also scheduled (or protected) species. They can’t be tamed unless the environment ministry approves it. Then the government got people to dress as langurs, but that also failed,” says Tapesh Raghav, advocate at the Delhi High Court.
Capturing monkeys is also not an easy task.
“Some of the monkeys are bound to get hurt. They get agitated when they are caged and may get injured,” says Mandeep Mittal, deputy conservator of forests (south), government of Delhi.
The municipal corporations hire monkey catchers for this task. But in Delhi, despite the high rate on offer, no one comes forward.
“In the NDMC area, there has been no monkey catcher for the last three years, even though South MCD is giving Rs 2,400 per monkey,” says Dr Pramod Kumar, medical superintendent, veterinary hospital, NDMC.
Just like capturing, sterilisation attempts have faced similar hurdle — there is no one to sterilise the monkeys.
“The matter was discussed many times. One organisation initially came forward, but when we released the tender, it did not bid. The environment ministry also gave Rs 7-8 crore to the Delhi government for a pilot project where monkeys were to be sterilised and left in the same localities. Tenders were released three times after the grant, but no one applied,” added Kumar.
Also read: Court order, 3-year plan, Rs 5.43 cr fund — nothing is able to end Delhi’s monkey menace
‘Relocating’ back to cities
After the 2007 order, about 25,000 monkeys were relocated to Asola sanctuary, but the conditions there weren’t conducive, says Iqbal Malik, one of India’s first primatologists who designed the Asola Bhatti model.
“The government did not do things as I had mentioned. Instead of one solid piece of PVC, pieces were attached with iron poles which became walking steps for monkeys to come out. No fruit trees were planted. But they made it into a monkey sanctuary. Is a monkey sanctuary made when a board is put up?” she asks.
Despite failing to retain the relocated monkeys, Asola sanctuary continues to be the only place assigned where the monkeys caught in Delhi are brought by the municipal corporations.
The result of poor habitat for the simians inside the sanctuary is evident. They continue to spill out in the nearby residential areas in search of food.
Inside the village’s lanes, the monkeys are a terror. Women sit on charpoys with sticks when their children play in the lanes.
“The monkeys here have bitten more than 25 people. They run after children, enter their schools and even come inside kitchens to take away our food. We have complained so many times, but no one listens,” says Sunil Kumar, a resident of Sangam Vihar village.
Empty packets of chips, which the monkeys picked up from shops, hang from electrical wires criss-crossing the village. A monkey family has made an abandoned house next to a temple their abode. The prasad given to the temple is a constant supply of food for them.
“The monkeys have broken the sheds of the temple to jump inside to take food. They even pass through the metal grills of the temple,” says temple priest Vijay Tiwari. The ropes he had tied on the grill have also been broken.
Aggression and addiction
The aggression of the monkeys, meanwhile, is not unfounded.
Overcoming their initial hesitation of taking food from the humans, the simians are now demanding it, says Malik.
“Monkeys are not domesticated animals. The monkeys see a human and they see food. Their initial shyness of human beings is gone. When they don’t get food, they snatch. They have changed their way of living. We have changed them,” she says.
Experts say that as monkeys have adapted in the cities, they have started eating cooked and processed food, which humans eat. From chips to biscuits, aerated drinks to ice creams, monkeys now eat just about everything they can lay their hands on. And this has led to junk food addiction.
“The monkeys are losing their immunity with the junk food they are eating now. And they are getting infected with Tuberculosis,” says CR Babu, environmentalist and Professor Emeritus, Delhi University.
While living in close proximity to humans can transfer human diseases to monkeys, monkeys also can be the carriers of zoonotic diseases, explains Pulkit Sharma, nature education officer, biodiversity parks programme, government of Delhi.
“Monkeys hold the potential for another pandemic. They are vectors for many zoonotic diseases like herpes and rabies. It is also difficult to identify a sick monkey in the cities as they survive longer in urban areas,” says Sharma.
Also, capturing monkeys separates them from their families, which makes them aggressive.
Also read: Meat, markets and memory—Asha Thadani’s photos explore India’s relationship with animals
Acceptance breeds problem
Monkeys have turned to cities in large numbers mainly because of two reasons: degradation of forests and social acceptance by humans who started feeding them owing to “religious linkages”.
For instance, an invasive plant species from Mexico, prosopis juliflora, introduced by the British to make the barren Delhi ridge green, destroyed the natural habitat of the Rhesus macaques species where they thrived on 91 plant species, Babu explains. And as a survival tactic, the animals moved to where the food was – with the humans.
But this natural adaptation process wasn’t smooth. As monkeys started living among humans, the conflicts started.
A 70-year-old woman in Telangana died this month after she was attacked by monkeys at her home. Last year, a 40-year-old man fell from the roof of his house in Bareilly and died after being chased by monkeys. ThePrint earlier reported how monkeys have created havoc in Agra as aggressive attacks on infants and adults are reported regularly.
The environment ministry replied in the Lok Sabha on March 13 that it does not collect data on monkey attacks and deaths. The health ministry’s data on deaths due to rabies also does not specify if it was because of monkey bites.
Activist vs conservationist
The biggest roadblock, officials say, is the conflicting interest of wildlife conservationists and animal rights activists on how to tackle the monkey problem.
While the conservationists argue that monkeys should live in their natural habitat — forests — the animal activists claim that caging, capturing and sterilising is exploitative and must be stopped.
“There is no consensus,” says Sohail Madan, assistant director, Bombay Natural History Society, a non-profit.
The officials privy to the expert committee meetings, which was formed after the 2007 judgment, say on the condition of anonymity that there is immense pressure from the animal rights activists not to capture, sterilise or relocate monkeys. And that is why, the government is reluctant to take firm steps as per the court orders.
“The activists are self-proclaimed experts who don’t have any scientific knowledge on the subject, but they create a ruckus. They take photos of animal catchers and file frivolous complaints of cruelty against them. So, the catchers don’t come. The same kind of pressure is built on the agencies which want to sterilise the monkeys, so they don’t participate in the bidding process,” says a member of the expert committee requesting not to be identified.
ThePrint reached out to animal rights activist, Maneka Gandhi, and chief wildlife warden of the Delhi government, Sunish Bakshi, but they refused to comment.
Monkeys are a protected species under Schedule 2 of the Wildlife Protection Act. They also serve an important role in the forest ecosystem, says Sharma.
“Monkeys disburse seeds because they have a plant-based diet. A healthy forest will always have monkeys in it. And their population is controlled because of natural predators.”
Culling and clueless
Meanwhile, tired of monkeys destroying crops and affecting livelihoods, states like Himachal Pradesh took drastic steps to end the problem. Four times since 2016, it has declared monkeys vermin — that is, they can be culled if they destroy crops and property. But the monkey problem in the state is back.
“There was a temporary lull, but there were reports that the next generation of the monkeys that came in were much more aggressive,” says advocate Raghav.
Madan explains that Himachal jumped to culling of the monkeys after everything else failed.
“Himachal Pradesh had a rehabilitation programme. They had a relocation as well as a sterilisation programme. They tried everything and then went to culling, which also didn’t work. It’s hard to even kill so many animals. If animals in one area are killed, that niche is going to be occupied by some other social group. So, other monkeys can occupy the same space,” says Madan.
Meanwhile, advocate Tiwari, the public prosecutor in the Delhi PIL filed by Bharadwaj adds that lack of scientific studies has left the government clueless on what to do.
There are no training programmes to train monkey catchers either. And in the absence of any scientific study, the only option is to maintain harmony with nature and with the animals. We can’t take corrective measures every time,” says Tripathi.
What can be done
The solutions to cities’ monkey problem require tactful work at several levels, says Madan.
“Having a good plan on paper usually does not translate into a well executed plan. So, all the solutions we have so far, it seems like nothing works. And for the foreseeable future, I do not see any plan,” says Madan.
The only solution that may work, say wildlife experts, is reviving the natural habitat of the monkeys and then relocating them there in their full social groups (or families), a job that requires detailed observation of each monkey family. Relocating the whole group together is no easy task.
“The second approach is sterilisation, which is essential in absence of a predator as monkeys multiply in such large numbers, and it becomes a menace,” says Babu.
To stop feeding the monkeys, Sharma suggests roping in religious leaders who can educate people to not give food directly to the monkeys.
And lastly, the courts must step in firmly.
“There are people who would say that monkey menace should be controlled and the courts are helpless and the government is helpless. Therefore, the menace remains as it is. But it’s high time for the courts to come and force the laws which they formulate in such a way that the government cannot escape it. That is the only solution,” says Babu.