Thiruvananthapuram: This can seem somewhat similar to Robert Browning's 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin'.
If it was the strange long-coated pied piper at the centre of the story in Brunswick's Hamelin, in Thiruvananthapuram's Vithura village that lies in the shade of the Western Ghats it is the village's champion sharp shooter. If it was cat-killing rats that bothered townsfolk in Hamelin, it is farm-destroying wild boars that are giving nightmares to Vithura's farmers.
This champion shooter, the only active licensed killer in Vithura, has now stopped heeding the villagers' calls for help. He has put his gun down.
Reason: Just like the Mayor who refused the pied piper the 'thousand guilders' he was promised, the Vithura grama panchayat has declined to pay the shooter Rs 1000 it was obliged to pay him for every wild boar killed.
Vithura's curse
Vithura, with a population of less than 20,000, is one of the worst 'wild boar'-infested villages in Kerala. It certainly is the worst in Thiruvananthapuram district.
Official figures show that in 2020-21, 193 cents of agricultural land belonging to five small farmers were destroyed in wild boar attacks. In 2021-22, 11 small farmers together lost 415 cents of their painstakingly cultivated lands to rampaging wild boars. No other village along the fringe of the Ghats in Thiruvananthapuram has suffered so.
Wild boars/swines lay in wait inside the forest and when the night falls they come out like stealthy wind in large packs of 25 to 50 and feast on fields of vegetables and tubers. These wild mammals can flatten two to three cents of agricultural lands in 10 minutes flat.
Assassin's lament
"Since May this year, 25 wild boars have been gunned down in Vithura. I was behind 24 of them," said the shooter who did not wish to be identified. The panchayat should have paid him Rs 24,000 but it has not.
"I don't mind rushing to the help of farmers but I will have to be paid," the shooter said. He uses up two to three cartridges, each costing Rs 300 and above, on one swine.
"We operate mostly in the night and it is very rarely that you get a shot right at its heart or on the spot behind its ear. If that happens it is a knock out. Otherwise, if the bullet hits the stomach or the legs, the beast will go crazy with fury. Then we will have to shoot it again, both to save us and also to give it a clean and as painless a death as possible," he said.
Like a golfer with many-sized clubs, the shooter also uses a variety of guns -- 12-bore shotguns, rifles, pistols and revolvers -- to hunt wild boars. Pistols and rifles for long range shots and revolvers for close range ones.
Earlier, when it was the Forest Department's responsibility to sanction the killing of wild boars, the payment was prompt. He is a sports shooter with a national licence, a state champion in 2006.
As a licensed shooter for the department, he claims to have gunned down more than 300 wild boars. "They used to pay me Rs 1000 for every kill and an additional Rs 500 to bury the carcass. The officials used to come to my house, make me sign a voucher for the amount and in a fews days' time the money would be transferred to my account," he said.
Elected wildlife wardens
On May 25 this year, the LDF government took a major policy decision to divest the Forest Department of its powers to order the killing of a wild boar. It placed this power in the hands of local body chiefs, who were then officially designated as honorary chief wildlife wardens.
The thinking was that elected representatives were better placed than forest officials to understand farmers. It was also reasoned that bureaucratic involvement lengthened the response time.
As expected, the decision quickened the response to a wild boar attack. The shooter did not have to wait for any approvals. "The panchayat had issued me a blanket order asking me to shoot down any wild swine found on revenue land," he said.
But this boldness was not reflected in the payment. "The panchayat officials say they can pay me only after conducting more discussions," the shooter said. "So I thought let them discuss as much as they want. In the meantime, I will let my guns rest," he added.
Betrayal and after
When spurned, the pied piper of Hamelin lifted his long pipe to his lips again. The shooter with no hidden powers like the pied piper just unloaded his gun and locked it up in his cabinet.
Still, this had an effect, though not as dramatic as what happened in Hamelin after the pied piper started blowing his new notes.
The shooter started getting frantic calls. "I get 10-15 calls a day from farmers in my village. It has become a nuisance but there are moments when you are also made to feel guilty," the shooter said.
"The other day, a man who called me sounded so desperate and angry that he threatened to commit suicide if I did not help him. He said half his tapioca plot was already destroyed. I lied to him that the Forest Department had cancelled my licence," he said.
President's lament
However, unlike the slimy Mayor of Hamelin, the Vithura panchayat president was not acting smart. He was not trying to shove the shooter aside after the job was done. He is just confused, not conceited.
"The government order issued in May this year giving us powers of a chief wildlife warden did not specify the amount we had to pay the shooters. It has also merely said the carcass should be scientifically buried but what this scientific process or how much should be paid for it have not been stated. That is why we have not been able to pay the shooters. There is also concern that audit objections will be raised if payment is made without getting specific directions," Vithura panchayat president V S Baburaj told Onmanorama. "We have asked the government to clarify," he said.
This ambiguity has prevented many nearby panchayats like Tholicode, Palode and Peringammala , all of them suffering as much as Vithura, from issuing 'shoot at sight' orders.
First shoot, then think
However, there are panchayat heads who did not wait for the government's clarification, or even seek one.
"It is true that the May 25 order is silent on the payment but our board met recently and decided to pay shooters what they were getting earlier, Rs 1000 for one dead wild boar and an additional Rs 500 to bury it," said Alex Thomas, the president of Kodenchery panchayat in Kozhikode, the first panchayat in Kerala to shoot down a wild boar after local body chiefs were made wildlife wardens last May.
"If shooters refuse to work, our farms will be laid to waste. There could be audit objections but we thought farmers' livelihoods were far more important," Thomas said.
