On a chilly autumn morning in October 2023, a grey dawn crept slowly across the sky. A sudden murmuring sound outside their camp awoke Priyanka Bharali from an already inadequate sleep. From a distance, she could hear the faint sounds of petrified langurs. She cautiously opened the door of their room, without interrupting the slumber of her roommates who had all gone to bed very late and exhausted the previous night, after frantically attending a false call about a rhino poaching threat.
Bharali then saw two tigers atop the highland adjacent to their camp in the faint morning light. They had probably spent the night sleeping there. “This is what living in a jungle looks like,” shares Bharali, 23, from Garbhaga, a village in the Sivsagar district of Assam. Bharali joined Kaziranga National Park as one of the female frontline forest staff entrusted with the role of safeguarding the Park’s biodiversity.
“The selection process was rigorous, but I was ready to face all the hurdles,” Mitali Boruah, 27, another forest guard tells Mongabay India. When Boruah saw the advertisement for women forest guards job, she jumped at the opportunity as she had always wanted to remain close to nature.
Rashmi Borah, 27, says she never imagined that she would patrol in the jungle with a gun. “Initially it felt very heavy, and my hand trembled during shooting (practice); I was afraid of missing the target, but eventually I aced it,” shares Rashmi who got selected as a forest guard when she just started her life as a newlywed bride in her husband’s house in Jorhat, Assam.
Dipanjali Boraik, 21, had to overcome family objections to apply for this job. “They objected saying it’s a job for the men and I had a tough time convincing them,” Boraik shares, “but now they are very proud of me.”
Bharali, Boruah, Rashmi and Boraik, all from farming families, joined Kaziranga National Park in August 2023, as part of the first group of 108 women forest guards known as Van Durgas, meaning “goddesses of the forest”.
Combatting poaching
Kaziranga National Park spans 430 square kilometres along the Karbi Anglong hills in the south and the Brahmaputra River to the north. National Highway 37 fragments its five ranges – Burhapahar, Bagori, Kohora, Agoratoli, and Biswanath – making Kaziranga National Park susceptible to frequent human-animal conflict. A natural habitat for one-horned rhinos, the last rhino poaching case was officially documented in the region in 2021.
“While they (the Van Durgas) are not specifically recruited to fight poachers, if they suspect the presence of any miscreant who occasionally enters the park during the day, they quickly notify the ranger’s office to take action,” said Suniya Pegu, the person in charge of Van Durgas in the Eastern Agoratoli range.
“Our patrolling starts at 5 am, and we visit specific areas to keep an eye out for any animal deaths or signs of poaching attempts. Later in the day, we patrol by foot near the fences with 7.62 mm self-loading rifles (SLRs), followed by night patrolling, which sometimes lasts until 10 pm,” Boraik explains. They also keep watch throughout the day from several watchtowers near the camp.
Bidyut Bikash Borah, Range Officer of Agoratoli, explains that Van Durgas carry out an area domination exercise, where they control even the adjacent embankment areas inside the park as a preventive measure, to make it difficult for the poachers to enter Kaziranga.
Regarding their role in combating poaching, Kaziranga National Park Field Director Sonali Ghosh said, “The girls are posted in some of the vulnerable camps and are trained in the same aspect as their male counterparts. They also aid greatly in the prevention of poaching by effectively managing the village women who sometimes join the poaching intelligence network.”
“The introduction of women guards may help get input about the poacher movements from fringe village networks, which will aid in controlling this malice,” notes P Shivakumar, the former director of KNP.
Regular training
While the women were trained in the 11th Assam Police Battalion, Dergaon, they were initially not accustomed to living in the jungle, shares Pegu, in charge of the Van Durgas. “We are all trained in combat and emergency management, also in physical fitness, weapon handling, firing, and night drills,” he tells Mongabay India.
“They are very brave; living in the forest was completely new for them,” Range Officer Bidyut says about the Van Durgas adding, “They were apprehensive at first, but they quickly adjusted and are now performing their duties without any complaints.”
“We conduct various types of training at regular intervals which include handling snakes, birding, identifying different trees, grass species, etc. We encourage them to take up new hobbies to keep them motivated and for their mental well-being,” adds Bidyut.
“The majority of the Van Durgas recruited here are from rural backgrounds; some are from local villages near KNP. So, they are somewhat accustomed to the terrain, and after undergoing intense training, they felt more confident about their posting in the jungle,” Ghosh said.
Braving troubled waters
Kaziranga has a history of floods occurring almost every monsoon, when the role of frontline forest staff becomes crucial. “During the floods, the road connectivity to camps gets cut off; there is no electricity with a shortage of clean drinking water,” Boruah says. “Animals including tigers take shelter in highlands very near to our camp.”
“We walk barefoot through the waterlogged area, guiding the mother rhino with calves crossing the water-filled highway. We restrain the vehicle speed, insisting the drivers slow down to curb accidental animal killings,” says Van Durga Boraik.
The guards reach inside the waterlogged forest using inflated rubber boats. “If any animal is stuck, we try to guide their path from a distance,” says Pegu. During floods the highlands are inundated; rhinos and other animals try to migrate towards higher grounds in the Karbi Anglong Hills across the national highway.
“During the July 2024 flood, the NH 715 along the park’s southern edge turned into a battlefield, says Ghosh, adding, “Women frontline staff participated in regulating traffic speed, ensuring safe passage for animals in the nine designated corridors, rescuing and releasing stranded animals while continuing with anti-poaching duties, resulting in the lowest ever animal mortality due to anthropogenic causes. They face strong challenges during floods; unless it’s an extreme emergency, we don’t evacuate camps; we provide medicines and rations through boats.”
There are other challenges that Van Durgas brave too. The camps in the Kaziranga National Park are powered by solar panels, which don’t provide sufficient hours of electricity. “During the darker hours, when we hear animal calls near our room, we can’t switch on lights as animals might get frightened. So, we sit still and keep our torches handy for emergencies,” shares Bharali.
The forest guards also undertake tourist duties by taking the visitors inside the jungle in jeeps. Recalling instances of being chased by rhinos and elephants during vehicle patrolling, Rashmi and Bharali share, “Too many intrusions make the animals furious. We remain very cautious inside the jungle, occasionally blank firing to drive them away.”
While noting that the Van Durgas are role models for everyone, Bidyut concludes, “Working in harsh conditions like this is not easy. Everyone should know their stories of bravery.”
This article was first published on Mongabay.
