Suspending IFS officer for Akbar-Sita naming controversy shows how vulnerable Forest Service is

It sends the message to every forest official that their jobs no longer depend just on addressing environmental concerns, health of wildlife; it also depends on naming of animals.

The forest official’s suspension only accords legitimacy to a frivolous issue already dragged too long by a case in the high court. | Representational Image | ANI

The latest casualty in the Vishwa Hindu Parishad-led outrage about two lions named Akbar and Sita in Tripura is the suspension of the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests of the state. According to The Times of India, an ‘investigation’ revealed that he had named the lions, so the state government decided to suspend him.

The job of an Indian Forest Service official in India involves daily field surveys, managing human-wildlife interactions, cracking down on poachers, and even reading reports on the pooping habits of different animals in the region.

The Tripura government’s action reveals an utter lack of respect not just for the particular forest official in question but for the job of forest officers in general. An arm of the government that is more than five decades old, and has within its mandate a range of services needed to manage India’s forests has been reduced to a pawn in an unnecessary blame game.

The forest official’s suspension only accords legitimacy to a frivolous issue already dragged too long by a case in the high court. Instead of standing up to pressure from one particular group alleging hurt sentiments, the government threw its own institution and its cadres to the lions (quite literally) in a bid to pacify them.

Let officers do their job

When a lion named Akbar and a lioness named Sita met in Siliguri’s safari park, sparks flew. Not between the lions, but out of the ears of fuming VHP activists who alleged blasphemy on naming a four-legged vertebrate after a mythological goddess. The case escalated to the Calcutta High Court, which ordered the Tripura government, where the lions had originated from, to rename the lions to avoid controversy.

The matter in itself courted enough jibes from social media users, with some joking about love jihad in the animal kingdom. The lions were asked to be renamed by the court and the case, however ridiculous it may seem to an onlooker, was considered closed.

But the buck didn’t stop there. The court’s involvement was one thing because the case was lodged there and it had to provide a redressal. The state government’s action though—if The Times of India report is accurate—was entirely deliberate and betrays the view that the state holds: the naming of lions was a mistake worthy of suspension.

It sends the message to every other forest official in the country that their jobs no longer depend just on addressing environmental concerns, forest cover, and the health of wildlife in their regions; it also depends on ensuring the non-controversial nomenclature of animals.

Most probably, the PCCF wasn’t even aware of what the two lions were named, nor that they were being sent to the same enclosure. Sita is a common Indian name, given to humans as well as other living beings too. As Justice Saugata Bhattacharya said during the hearing, “What if the name was given out of affection?”

Let forest officials do their job, which has become all the more important in this era of climate change mitigation.

It is unfair for the PCCF to be held accountable for an act that wasn’t even considered an offence until a few days ago. The government is also willingly making a mockery of its own forest institutions, by embroiling them in controversies that they probably didn’t start and are not responsible for.

Views are personal.

(Edited by Theres Sudeep)