this is a summary of an artice published in frontline magazine..
let us have some knowledge about kenneth anderson and why this legend obscured even he lived in south indian forests and wrote many master piece books..
MORE than half a century ago, when the forests of southern India were lusher with vegetation and wildlife abounded in the jungles around Bangalore, there lived a hunter and writer of jungle tales called Kenneth Anderson. That was a different era; the landmark Wildlife Protection Act, which forbids hunting, was passed only in 1972. Anderson wrote eight books and close to 60 stories, mainly about his hunting exploits. Each book consists of short accounts of his encounters with man-eating tigers, leopards and rogue elephants in the jungles
Anderson was born on March 8, 1910, and died on August 30, 1974, of cancer. A group of nature lovers, who have been inspired by his works and are organised in a society called the Kenneth Anderson Nature Society (KANS), are working towards renaming a stretch of the reserve forest in the Melagiri range in Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri districts of Tamil Nadu after Kenneth Anderson to mark his birth centenary. They also want this stretch, where 20 of his stories are set, to be converted into a wildlife sanctuary and named after Kenneth Anderson, a la the Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand, which is named after the famous hunter and writer.
The brief biographical information about Anderson available on one of the Jaico books reads:
“The author [Anderson] was born at Bolarum [near Hyderabad] in the former Nizam’s Dominions, on 8th March 1910. From a young age he was fond of adventure and of the bizarre. He has wandered in many out-of-the-way places, particularly in the jungles of India, where he met with many strange experiences and encountered many unusual characters. His love of hunting and wildlife, together with his fondness for writing, enabled him to publish four books on man-eating tigers and panthers and other wild animals and these have been translated into several languages throughout the world.”
Anderson has contributed immensely to the literary genre commonly known as shikar literature in India. But while Corbett is known world-wide for his works, Anderson remains relatively obscure although the popularity of his work has soared tremendously after the publication of his collected works in two volumes by Rupa (The Kenneth Anderson Omnibus Volumes 1 & 2).
One of the reasons attributed to his relative obscurity is that his claims of having killed several man-eaters are viewed widely with scepticism. Several people who were acquainted with him dismiss his claims that he killed tigers, leopards and elephants
Academic researchers have perhaps ignored him for this reason, whereas several books have been written on Jim Corbett. The most recent one, On Jim Corbett’s Trail and Other Tales from Tree-Tops, published in 2004, is by A.J.T. Johnsingh. (This veneration for Corbett is being examined critically by academics such as Prasanta Das who, in an article titled “Jim Corbett’s ‘Green’ Imperialism” in the April 2009 issue of Economic and Political Weekly questioned the widespread assessment that Corbett was a “compassionate man who had exceptional environmental awareness”.)
S. Theodore Bhaskaran, Tamil film historian and wildlife conservationist, argues that shikar literature was a concomitant of the British imperial class obsession with hunting as a sport,Bhaskaran is sceptical of shikar literature and feels that all hunting tales are exaggerated accounts. “Rather than reading shikar literature and learning to love the forests, it is better that young people read authentic accounts of the forest by writers like Harry. G. Champion, M. Krishnan, Salim Ali, E.R.C. Davidar and Humayun Abdulali,” he says
Another reason for Anderson’s relative obscurity could be, according to Jayaraman Kakarla, secretary of the KANS, that “Jim Corbett was close to the centre of imperial power and was well known among the British ruling class”. It is true that Corbett’s services were often solicited by the government of the United Provinces, and thus his hunting of the man-eaters of Kumaon became a public event sometimes. Besides Corbett lived in another era; he was born in 1875 and left India in 1945 to settle down in Kenya, where he died in 1955.
Another interesting difference between the works of Corbett and Anderson is the number of humans that these cats would kill before being hunted down. While it was usual for Corbett to go after man-eating tigers that had sometimes killed hundreds of victims (between them the Champawat tiger and the Panar leopard had killed 836 human beings while the man-eating leopard of Rudraprayag had killed 125 people before Corbett hunted them down), Anderson hunted tigers that had killed a few people. The feeling that one gets from Anderson’s writing is that he had a wide network of informants in the forest hamlets of southern India. Anderson often visited these villages in his trusted Studebaker during his forays into the forests. The informants kept him posted on marauders.
No documentation of Anderson’s exploits are available – Corbett’s killings have been well-documented – although archival evidence available at the Forest Department library in Bangalore clearly shows that there were reports of man-eaters in the forests of southern India in the 1940s and 1950s.
Anderson’s works can be useful source material for researchers of sociology and social practices of the tribal communities although there is a faint whiff of orientalism in his understanding of these societies. He had a good knowledge of the tribal communities inhabiting the jungles and was well-versed in the field craft of the jungle. His writings are useful to wildlife enthusiasts. Even an amateur reader of Anderson’s stories will acknowledge that he has an amazing felicity with language, especially when describing the forests.
While Anderson’s skills as a raconteur are well known, the problem really begins when one starts critically analysing his claims of having killed scores of man-eating tigers apart from leopards and elephants. Does the work of Anderson extend beyond factual accounts and are his claims exaggerated? While the claims of his stories are hard to verify, it is intriguing that there is no serious work done on the life of this writer. Another question that needs to asked is whether what he wrote needs to be verified at all. Why should anyone spend time examining his claims when they make for excellent stories?
In assessing Anderson’s legacy, perhaps we need to shift the focus from analysing his claims to examining the impact he has had on the tradition of shikar literature in India and the extent to which he inspired individuals to involve themselves in conservation work.
Anderson may or may not have hunted big game and some of his accounts may be fictitious. But there is no doubt that he was a great lover of the forests. He has written in his stories about his concern for the depleting animal population.
In his introduction to Tales from the Indian Jungle, Anderson writes: “He [Anderson] appears to be of the jungle himself, and we get the impression that he belongs there. This is the home for him and here is the place he would want to die; the jungle is his birthplace, his heaven and his resting place when the end comes.”
Hope you all are got some ideas about kenneth and understood why he obscured.. there are many legends like this.. dont let them forgot and please dont make doubt on their claims.. try to understand the forest of their stories.. through them you can love your mother nature..
