A tigress in Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, once a princely hunting ground. Photo by Dr Geetha Venkataraman

1972 was a fascinating year in world history for more than one reason. China and the United States broke the ice with a historic meeting in Beijing between the leaders of the two countries. And the birth of Bangladesh opened a new chapter in the history of South Asia.

But it was also a year of two major coups. The first was in April that year when, acting on the advice of the Indian Board for Wildlife, the government of India declared that the country would have a new national animal. The tiger replaced the lion in this iconic role. The latter, confined to one state, Gujarat was promptly made its state animal.

Asked the reason for the shift, the chair of the Board, Dr Karan Singh denied it had anything to do with his nickname, ‘Tiger’. Instead, he argued, the big cat, a denizen of 11 of the 16 states in the Union, was to be a symbol of ‘unity in diversity’.

A year later, the Corbett National Park in north India, the oldest national park in Asia going back to 1937, witnessed the policy follow-up on the tiger’s new status. India launched what was then the world’s largest single wildlife preservation programme, Project Tiger with nine reserves in eight states. The national animal was merely an umbrella with the wider habitat and fellow creatures under a new protective cover.

This was more than a cosmetic makeover as it marked a wider shift towards a consciousness of the environment as a critical dimension of national policy and life. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s own stature was to grow with her being a keynote speaker in the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment the same year. But whereas the speech there focused on the gap between developed and developing nations on the environment, Project Tiger struck a different note.

Here, India’s programme was backed financially by the World Wildlife Fund, then a largely European group, which raised a million dollars for the cause (not all for India). WWF still exists and is famous for its symbol: the giant panda.

Giant pandas are unique to one country: China. And it was here that in the banquet hosted for the Nixon’s that Premier Zhou en Lai of China played a card, a diplomatic coup de grace.

Giant pandas are unique to one country: China. And it was here that in the banquet hosted for the Nixon’s that Premier Zhou en Lai of China played a card, a diplomatic coup de grace.He announced over a toast that the People’s Republic would gift two giant pandas to Washington’s National Zoo.

He announced over a toast that the People’s Republic would gift two giant pandas to Washington’s National Zoo.

These furry bamboo eating bears would be China’s ambassadors to the people, most so the pandas would endear themselves to American children. So the giant panda became a symbol of diplomacy and China too redoubled efforts to protect it in the remoteness of its mountain home.

How does all this matter? Does it? Well, evidently it does, and it has. The idea of the nation as a community of people sharing a past and a future is significant in our times. Many ideas of the nation invoke nature. Think of the rivers such as the Ganga in India or the Yangtze in China or mountains such as Fujiyama in Japan or Mount Kenya in the country of that name.

But there is more to this than metaphor. A more holistic idea of the nation by the late 20th century saw plants and animals as fellow citizens. The idea of peace or justice took on new shape as non-human creatures were viewed in more kindly light. Such ideas were and are not new as many cultures and faiths revere nature. But here the animal, mountain or river became a rallying call to rethink our own relations with nature.

This task can hardly be separated from how humans view each other. Setting aside forest resources for pandas or tigers comes at a cost, often to those who rely on the land for a living. And this, in turn, was an issue of the broader model of development: could there be space for all of us on this, only one earth as the Stockholm conference reminded us?

All life we have ever known has lived and died on it. History has to move from looking at simply how humans contest each other to how we will reshape the fate of the earth. If ecology studies the structure of nature, history shines light on how we got here and gives us the wisdom to prepare for a better future.

Nationalism, often a driver of conflict, can – if enlightened – be also a force for peace. Nature, so often an object of contest, can provide a platform to work together.

Mahesh Rangarajan is Professor of History and Environmental Studies