THE COLONIAL HISTORY OF TROPHY HUNTING AND THE PRESENT LEGAL REGIME PROHIBITING TROPHY HUNTING IN INDIA

The recent joint position paper by 137 animal right groups to prohibit Trophy Hunting has renewed the debate around the tradition of the trophy hunting and its colonial past. The tradition of trophy hunting as different from the hunting traditions of the natives has been demonstrated by giving the examples from India. The paper further discusses the formation of rules of hunting that originated in Europe and surmounted in the colonies of the East. These rules asserted the colonizers supremacy and superiority over the colonized. By giving example from the India, the article shows that most of these rules were framed as a knee-jerk reaction to conserve the diminishing game population. After the independence, initiatives were taken by Indian Government to restore the irreparable lost caused to the ecology. The recent joint position paper must lead the European and US government to implement strict laws prohibiting trophy import.