Saturday, December 3, 2005
Skinheads in Lhasa
Aniruddha Mookerjee
December 3, 2005
In early October, I found myself in Lhasa, accompanying an adventurous couple from the US. They were keen to drive from Lhasa to Kathmandu, on to Bhutan and eventually end the journey in India at Ranthambore. Just before leaving, Ashok Kumar of Wildlife Trust of India handed me a news report of an investigation into the trade of tiger parts for medicinal use in Tibet. Knowing the single-minded determination of the Chinese, I told him that I'd be surprised if they hadn't cleaned up every shop in Lhasa by now, buried a few shopkeepers or fed them to lammergeyers.
A few years ago in Tibet, trying to trace the routes by which shahtoosh came into India, I was told that there had been a crackdown, and poachers who were caught were made a public example and executed. These methods did have an impact. Recent reports suggest that Tibetan antelope populations are rising in the two valleys sampled.
But this time round, as we explored the Barkhor market in the heart of Lhasa, what we saw was disheartening. The Barkhor circuit, hummed with crowds with prayer wheels or beads engaged in the parikrama. On both sides of the parikrama were shops and street stalls selling knick-knacks, souvenirs and a hundred other things. The chants of Om mane padme hum merged seamlessly with the bargaining and shouting. It could be a Dharamsala street.
All of a sudden, I caught sight of something familiar - yellow with black spots. As we moved closer, it turned out to be a shop selling Tibetan gowns, or chubas as they call them, all either lined with leopard skin on the edges and the collar or the back and lower gown made completely with leopard skin. The larger chubas would have used two skins. This shop had eight such gowns, along with many otter and fox caps. The shop owner told me he had more stock, if I wanted. We tried the gowns, feeling strange and ridiculous. "It is perfect, you look beautiful. like high official."
"What is the price ?"
"Very cheap, cheap... you take it, I pack?"
"What is the price?"
"I tell you very very cheap, cheap. you buy. only 35,000 yuan." He whipped out the ubiquitous small grey calculator that emitted an incongruous 'cheep cheep' sound each time a number was punched. At five rupees to a yuan, this was Rs 1,75,000 for a chuba as a starting price. It's an affront to Tibetan sensibilities if you don't bargain and it is a good-natured game where you test each other's limits before you settle on a price. I started at 5,000 yuan. The man looked grim, but his eyes were smiling. He shook his head and said something in rapid Tibetan to my interpreter.
"He says if you serious buying, he will give good offer, otherwise waste of time."
"So, what's his good price?"
After more parleys and cheep cheeps on the calculator, he said 33,500 yuans.
"Not good, let's go check another shop," I said and walked out.
"But this is best price. Lookee, lookee, no other shop better this. Okay, okay I give you last price, 28,500. okay. 28,000 last last price." We promised to come back later. That day, we found six shops in Barkhor openly selling genuine well-cured leopard skin chubas, at almost the same prices as the first shop. Three shops among these had tiger skin chubas at the back of the shop. These were more expensive, the 'last last price' being 50,000 yuan, near about Rs 2,50,000.
Four shops had fake tiger skins with crude hand-drawn stripes, which they were aggressively promoting as the real stuff. I counted a total of 26 leopard skin chubas, seven with tiger skin and two with tiger skin on the collar and leopard skin on the back and sides - and these were only the ones on display.
By this time, our guide and interpreter was getting a bit worried. What he thought was a good-natured joke on my part was turning out to be a little more involved. He took me aside from the guests: "Why you need to buy these skins here? Don't you get them in your country?"
"I don't get chubas in India," I said.
"True, but this is illegal here. If police catch you, they give you bad time."
"So why are they selling it so openly?"
"Some time back, I think in September, police catch some people, but they are back again. must be some arrangement. much less now."
"So if I can't buy and take it out, who buys them?"
"Oh, people from the north, the rich, who like wearing such things. It is tradition."
But strangely enough, on an earlier trip to northern Tibet five years ago, I'd seen lots of shahtoosh, snow leopard, lynx, otter and fox skins for sale. The otter skins even had signatures on the back. But there were no tiger or leopard skins.
Were the selling of tiger and leopard skins a recent development? Could it be that the market for skins and chubas was an extension of the traditional medicine market?
In the summer of 2004, Debbie Banks, an investigator from Environment Investigation Agency, UK, reported 10 shops in Barkhor market selling leopard and otter skins, but no tiger skins. When she returned in August 2005 with Belinda Wright of Wildlife Protection Society of India, she reported: ". we found there were many more shops in the main Barkhor circuit with skin-covered chubas and we saw tiger skin chubas on display. During this trip, we found 24 tiger chubas and 54 leopard chubas in 38 shops."
A WWF press report in September, issued from Beijing, expressed serious concern about China considering the reopening of the domestic trade in tigers and tiger parts, banned since 1993. "China's plans appear to be limited to the trade of captive-bred tigers for traditional medicine from so-called 'tiger farms'."
But any legal trade would also threaten the world's remaining wild tiger population by making it easier to 'launder' black market tiger parts. Tiger bone has been used as a treatment for rheumatism and related ailments for thousands of years in traditional Asian medicine with absolutely no scientific basis.
Along with some Tibetan-speaking friends, late that evening, we went to a house. I watched in horror as a tailor's pair of sharp scissors neatly ran through three well-cured leopard skins, shaping them for stitching. And a large sewing machine clattered in the next room like a super predator from another world chomping through black rosettes. The person manning it was from mainland China.
The owner of the workshop was Buddhist. He went to the monastery at least once a week and donated a lot of money once a year. Was there a mismatch between what he believed in and what he did? He was genuinely surprised: "Why, I didn't kill them? None of those working here killed them. We may eat a lot of meat, but we don't kill the animals."
It was another 10 days before we entered Ranthambore. As we crossed the second gate from the fort side, a tigress jumped down from the wall and stopped a few feet from our vehicle as my guests watched her mesmerised. She gave them a brief curious look before walking out of the gate.
That evening, she came out with her two-year-old cubs as if to show them off. One of the cubs confidently walked with the mother but the other one was scared of the vehicles and the popping flashbulbs. The mother walked away into the scrub as cheetal and sambhar kept calling. The smart cub plonked down next to the lake, waiting for the other one. But she stood rooted some distance away and meowed for help. This went on for a while until in utter disgust, he walked over and got her out.
I wondered how long it would be before this happy family, worried only about its next meal, would turn into chubas. It made me angry to think for just how long we would continue to be apologetic about our criminals and blame it on poverty and the exponentially rising human and cattle populations?
The writer is director, Wildlife Trust of India
© HT Media Ltd. 2005.