363
transcendentalist beliefs in sacred mountains all around them (the Nilgiris Biosphere
Reserve, first of its kind in India; the Kundah Range encompassing Mukurthi
National Park); an afterlife upon those very mountains; and an all-pervasive religion
based upon a particular endemic sub-species, genetically isolated breed of semiwild, ashen gray, buffalo
4
—a rare Asiatic water buffalo, Bubalus bubalis, created by
a female Toda deity, Taihhki(r)shy.
5
This playful deity engendered dairying herds
and temples, both sacred and secular. But the lives of the buffaloes corresponded so
intensely to the lives of the Todas, and of the surrounding ecosystems, that all was
unified.
To this day, every semi-nomadic Toda hamlet (mund)—of which, as of 2020,
there were approximately 75, each on average containing some ten households—is
devoted to the worship, health, and perseverance of their herds. The problem for the
Todas is twofold: they are well aware of surrounding modernity, and to various
degrees partake of it; and their pastoral ecosystems which, for untold millennia they
have depended upon, are being encroached upon by outsiders, with countervailing
priorities.
6
The result is an increasing rate of buffalo hybridization and the loss of
4 “Breeds List – Toda Buffalo,” https://www.breedslist.com/toda-buffalo.htm, Accessed April 12,
2020.
5 op cit., Chhabra, p. 47.
6 For a brief, excellent overview of the displacement of habitat, particularly within biological
hotspots, by increasing human population trends (in this case, encroachment by non-Todas onto
Toda-designated lands), see J. L. R. Abegão, “Where the Wild Things were is Where Humans are
Now: An Overview,” Human Ecology, 2019, 47:669-679, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-01900099-3, August 28, 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019,
https://overpopulation-project.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Abeg%C3%A3o2019_Article_
WhereTheWildThingsWereIsWhereH.pdf. The Author points expressly to the fact that population
growth in high biodiversity areas exceeds that of the global average. He writes, “Cincotta et al.
(2000) assess the global growth rate from 1995 to 2000 was 1.3%, but it was 1.6% in the hotspots.
(Williams 2011)…” Cincotta, R. P., Wisnewski, J., and Engelman R. (2000). Human Population in
the Biodiversity Hotspots. Nature 404(6781): 990–992. https://doi.org/10.1038/35010105. And,
Williams, J. (2011). Human Population and the Hotspots Revisited: A 2010 Assessment. In
Biodiversity hotspots – distributions and protection of conservation priority areas (pp. 61–81),
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3642-20992-5_4. In addition, Abegão cites data for the neotropical
ecosystems like the Congo Basin or Amazon, suggesting that “carrying capacity” translates “into
one subsistence hunter per square kilometer” and that in one study, suggesting “around 150 million
households in the Global South acquiring meat through bushmeat hunting”… “8000 randomly
selected households in 24 tropical and sub-tropical countries, 39% hunted bushmeat and 89% of
the resulting income is dedicated to household dietary need.” Abegão cites: Nielsen, M. R., Pouliot,
M., Meilby, H., Smith-Hall, C., and Angelsen, A. (2017). Global Patterns and Determinants of the
Economic Importance of Bushmeat. Biological Conservation 215: 277–287. https://doi.
org/10.1016/J.BIOCON.2017.08.036. Nielsen, M. R., Meilby, H., Smith-Hall, C., Pouliot, M., and
Treue, T. (2018). The Importance of Wild Meat in the Global South. Ecological Economics 146: 6.
While bushmeat trade is not, to date, the primary driver for competition for space in the protected
areas, deemed sacred to the Todas, human encroachment throughout the Nilgiris has been upwards
of a habitat crisis since the earliest 19
th century conversion of in situ and the significant biodiversity
rarity of a “highland shola-grassland ecosystem, which also includes wetlands” (shola referring to
“stunted evergreen montane forests with trees less than 20 m”); in addition to other Nilgiris vegetation, including “evergreen rainforests, moist deciduous broadleaved forests, thorny scrub forests
41.1 A Non-violent People
transcendentalist beliefs in sacred mountains all around them (the Nilgiris Biosphere
Reserve, first of its kind in India; the Kundah Range encompassing Mukurthi
National Park); an afterlife upon those very mountains; and an all-pervasive religion
based upon a particular endemic sub-species, genetically isolated breed of semiwild, ashen gray, buffalo
4
—a rare Asiatic water buffalo, Bubalus bubalis, created by
a female Toda deity, Taihhki(r)shy.
5
This playful deity engendered dairying herds
and temples, both sacred and secular. But the lives of the buffaloes corresponded so
intensely to the lives of the Todas, and of the surrounding ecosystems, that all was
unified.
To this day, every semi-nomadic Toda hamlet (mund)—of which, as of 2020,
there were approximately 75, each on average containing some ten households—is
devoted to the worship, health, and perseverance of their herds. The problem for the
Todas is twofold: they are well aware of surrounding modernity, and to various
degrees partake of it; and their pastoral ecosystems which, for untold millennia they
have depended upon, are being encroached upon by outsiders, with countervailing
priorities.
6
The result is an increasing rate of buffalo hybridization and the loss of
4 “Breeds List – Toda Buffalo,” https://www.breedslist.com/toda-buffalo.htm, Accessed April 12,
2020.
5 op cit., Chhabra, p. 47.
6 For a brief, excellent overview of the displacement of habitat, particularly within biological
hotspots, by increasing human population trends (in this case, encroachment by non-Todas onto
Toda-designated lands), see J. L. R. Abegão, “Where the Wild Things were is Where Humans are
Now: An Overview,” Human Ecology, 2019, 47:669-679, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-01900099-3, August 28, 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019,
https://overpopulation-project.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Abeg%C3%A3o2019_Article_
WhereTheWildThingsWereIsWhereH.pdf. The Author points expressly to the fact that population
growth in high biodiversity areas exceeds that of the global average. He writes, “Cincotta et al.
(2000) assess the global growth rate from 1995 to 2000 was 1.3%, but it was 1.6% in the hotspots.
(Williams 2011)…” Cincotta, R. P., Wisnewski, J., and Engelman R. (2000). Human Population in
the Biodiversity Hotspots. Nature 404(6781): 990–992. https://doi.org/10.1038/35010105. And,
Williams, J. (2011). Human Population and the Hotspots Revisited: A 2010 Assessment. In
Biodiversity hotspots – distributions and protection of conservation priority areas (pp. 61–81),
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3642-20992-5_4. In addition, Abegão cites data for the neotropical
ecosystems like the Congo Basin or Amazon, suggesting that “carrying capacity” translates “into
one subsistence hunter per square kilometer” and that in one study, suggesting “around 150 million
households in the Global South acquiring meat through bushmeat hunting”… “8000 randomly
selected households in 24 tropical and sub-tropical countries, 39% hunted bushmeat and 89% of
the resulting income is dedicated to household dietary need.” Abegão cites: Nielsen, M. R., Pouliot,
M., Meilby, H., Smith-Hall, C., and Angelsen, A. (2017). Global Patterns and Determinants of the
Economic Importance of Bushmeat. Biological Conservation 215: 277–287. https://doi.
org/10.1016/J.BIOCON.2017.08.036. Nielsen, M. R., Meilby, H., Smith-Hall, C., Pouliot, M., and
Treue, T. (2018). The Importance of Wild Meat in the Global South. Ecological Economics 146: 6.
While bushmeat trade is not, to date, the primary driver for competition for space in the protected
areas, deemed sacred to the Todas, human encroachment throughout the Nilgiris has been upwards
of a habitat crisis since the earliest 19
th century conversion of in situ and the significant biodiversity
rarity of a “highland shola-grassland ecosystem, which also includes wetlands” (shola referring to
“stunted evergreen montane forests with trees less than 20 m”); in addition to other Nilgiris vegetation, including “evergreen rainforests, moist deciduous broadleaved forests, thorny scrub forests
41.1 A Non-violent People