One day last May, Prakash Bhoir was preparing for his son’s wedding when an unexpected guest appeared before him and his neighbors. But instead of running for their lives, they bowed to him in reverence. The leopard gave them a direct glance before vanishing into the jungle. Later, they would conclude, the leopard had come to bless the newlyweds.
Prakash Bhoir’s house is located in a hamlet of mud-brick homes in the Aarey Forest, which is surrounded by the city of Mumbai. The indigenous tribes living here accept the presence of leopards, and worship them as gods.
The Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) and the neighbouring Aarey Forest cover a combined 115 sq kilometres, and are home to a rich variety of fauna and ecosystems, including the leopards. Together, they’re often referred to as the city’s “green lungs.”
Prakash’s wife Pramila recalls an incident that took place on a pleasant summer evening two years before the wedding. “My kids were inside watching TV as I washed some utensils in the front yard, when all of a sudden a stray cat leapt up and raced into the jungle. At that very place, a leopard with a long golden tail chased the cat in a heartbeat.”
The Bhoir family belongs to the indigenous Warli community. The Warlis are nature worshippers; they call their leopard god Waghdev, defender and protector of the jungle. In addition to many indigenous communities aside from the Warli, Aarey is also home to migrants from smaller towns who have come to Mumbai in search of better opportunities.
In 2019, wildlife photographer Ashwin Nagbal filmed an interview with Prakash Bhoir, documenting his connection to his family’s forest home.
Though leopard sightings are common in Mumbai, humans are not their natural prey, as they avoid attacking animals larger than themselves. In general, large carnivores do not live among humans, but a 2019 study noted that SGNP was home to 47 adult leopards and eight cubs.
Wildlife biologist Nikit Surve, who has studied the leopards here for over a decade, says that the deep-rooted cultural and historical relationship between the Warlis with the leopards, combined with their understanding of the leopards’ ecology, enables them to coexist peacefully with the big cats.
“[The leopards] are masters of camouflage and adaptability,” Surve says. “I have spotted leopards in the SGNP landscape some 80-odd times, but I am sure I would have been spotted by them a thousand times, and they remained hidden to avoid any sort of confrontation.”
A 2018 report discovered that poaching and habitat destruction had reduced India’s leopard population to just 12,852, representing a 90 percent decrease since 1900. The decline is worldwide, and led to the decision by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red Data List to change the category status of leopards from “near threatened” to “vulnerable.”
According to certain estimates, over a million people are living around the borders of the SGNP, making contact between the two species unavoidable, and development threatens to continue to degrade and fragment the leopard habitat. The recent approval of the controversial Metro train car shed project in the Aarey colony, for example, has left the leopards of Mumbai scrambling for space.
Leopards have occasionally preyed upon the Warlis’ livestock, and even attacked their children. Prakash Bhoir kept goats and hens until a few years ago, when he realised the leopard god Waghdev would come for his food and take them away. But the Warlis don’t blame the leopards for the occasional instance of livestock depredation. On the contrary, they feel that it is the humans who are encroaching on the jungle, and not the leopards on the lookout for prey. Prakash too believes that it is the leopard who has the first right there.
A couple of years ago, his granddaughter Ovee had a pet dog named January. One day, the leopard visited and took January away, as well. After that, the Bhoirs decided not to keep any animals in the house. Five-year-old Ovee doesn’t step out in the dark. When her grandfather asks her “why?” She is quick to reply, “in the evening the leopard visits our vicinity, and we have to let him be.”
Every year, on the day of Waghbaras, the festival celebrating the big cat, the Warlis organise a special prayer to appease the leopard at the Waghoba temple. The Warlis believe that if people worship Waghoba and perform the necessary rites, the deity will defend them against the dangers posed by the big cats. And if the leopard still returns to steal their animals or harm their children, the Warlis will blame themselves for not fulfilling their end of the deal.
Tribal families in the Aarey Forest grow food for their own consumption, and sell the surplus. The Bhoir family, for instance, keeps bees, and cultivates a variety of fruit trees including chikoo (sapodilla), papayas, mangoes and bananas. Their traditional knowledge of the area’s flora and wildlife is extensive, and ensures they treat the leopards with the appropriate respect. By contrast, migrant populations can be unaware of necessary precautions, like the need to avoid going out alone after sunset. In November last year, for example, a migrant woman from the north ventured out at night and was attacked by a leopard.
Surve and his team of researchers has teamed up with the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) forest department to develop awareness campaigns for local communities, and organised an official rescue team trained to handle conflict situations. The city has learned that trying to capture, kill or move the cats away from their habitats is not the answer.
“One of the most important battles for leopards in this landscape was to change their public image in people’s minds,” Surve told me. “The management and frontline staff had a significant challenge of changing the leopard’s image […]. And this was achieved by making the media [more] aware.” Relatively leopard-friendly stories described the steep decline in attacks after local populations were alerted to avoiding unnecessary risks.
People have gradually become less inclined to demand that these creatures be trapped and relocated, and they now seek awareness programmes to help them deal with the leopards more effectively, and locals are now extra cautious while venturing out at night–travelling in groups, switching on flashlights and playing music from their phones.
Prakash Bhoir concludes, “The Waghdeva needs space, he has the first right here. Due to encroachment in Aarey and now the metro project, he is unable to live freely. If he goes, then who will guard our homes?”
