Paper short abstract:

Relocated tigers and villagers around Panna Tiger Reserve challenge discourses of disturbance and wildness through their ferality, their refusal of imposed categories of wild nature and tame villager, exposing the tensions of government intervention in human and tiger life in conservation areas.

Paper long abstract:

Through the case of Panna Tiger Reserve, this paper will compare government intervention in the lives of two groups intimately imbricated in Indian conservation: tigers and villagers living in and around tiger reserves. As the name might suggest, tiger reserves, when notified by the government, are intended for tigers, set-up to flourish free of "human disturbance". However, all tiger reserves have a history of human habitation. As a result, state Forest Departments have pursued programmes of village relocation, through which people can be compensated to make space for the tiger reserve and its tigers. In Panna Tiger Reserve, following the local extinction of the tiger population in 2009, the Forest Department implemented a successful reintroduction project, in which tigers from neighbouring reserves were translocated to Panna. The reintroduction project accelerated the already-well-under-way village relocation programmes in Panna. However, in recent years many communities have halted their relocations partway through and now refuse to leave until the Department compensation improves. Locals and tourist visitors alike question the 'wildness' of the relocated tigers, some of which are radio-collared and whose lives have been the site of intense human intervention. These relocated tigers and (not yet) relocated villagers challenge discourses of disturbance and wildness through their ferality, their refusal to cooperate into government-imposed categories of 'wild nature' and 'tame villager', and they expose the tensions, contradictions, limits and problematic outcomes of government intervention in human and tiger life in these contested conservation landscapes.