'Project Tiger' review: Retelling the tiger's tale

‘Project Tiger’ comes alive not when the camera zooms in on a tiger’s glittering yellow eyes, as magnificent as they are — it does when you see grainy footage of tiger skins folded neatly like Jaipur blankets and being sold in a grimy little shop in Kolkata’s New Market area. And then you hear environmental activist and writer Bittu Sahgal narrating how, when hunting tigers was first banned, the trophy-collecting ‘shikari lobby’ appealed against it, claiming it was their ‘right’ to kill tigers. They lost. 

It gets better (we mean worse, of course) when a little later, you get to see a cold storage room piled high with carcasses of poached tigers — body parts, teeth, skin, and claws, all fighting for space.

An ambitious documentary, ‘Project Tiger’ is a tale of enterprise, politics, conservation and controversy. At its narrative heart is India’s dogged effort to save its ‘national animal’, kick-started by former prime minister Indira Gandhi, who famously spearheaded the fight against the dwindling tiger numbers. Respected voices such as Ullas Karanth, Valmik Thapar, Bittu Sahgal and Belinda Wright serve as experts as well as emotive narrators; for ‘Project Tiger’ is undeniably one of the most extraordinary conservation efforts ever undertaken.

The film is easy on the eye, inspiring even. However, it skims over the forced relocation of indigenous communities and the murky politics behind poaching.

While it briefly addresses the man-tiger conflict, it sidesteps ethical complexities; of killing a man-eating tiger, for instance. Still, it is a reminder of what’s possible when scientific effort meets political will.