A hunter and humanitarian par excellence

Few are aware that the 70th death anniversary of Jim Corbett, the legendary eliminator of man-eaters in Kumaon, falls on 19th April 2025 and his 150th birth anniversary on 25th July 2025. Today, when the overriding focus is on conservation of wildlife at all costs, it’s hard to imagine Corbett’s world of the early 1900s when the big cats abounded in our jungles, relentlessly preying on humans and livestock, particularly in the Himalayan foothills.

Of Irish descent, Corbett was the penultimate child in a family of 15 children. His father was the postmaster of Naini Tal in what was then known as the United Provinces, a vast area that included Kumaon and Garhwal. To feed the large family, ‘larder hunting’ was a necessity rather than an option. Thus, under his eldest brother’s tutelage, Jim was initiated as a young boy into the adult world of shooting for the pot.

Over the years Corbett eliminated more than a dozen man-eaters that are conservatively estimated to have claimed well over 1,500 lives. Of these, the most notorious was perhaps the man-eater of Champawat, a tiger that reportedly killed 430 people in a chilling six-year reign of terror. A close second was the man-eating leopard of Panar, which accounted for as many as 400 human lives – with concerns being raised about this killer’s unchecked depredations even in Britain’s House of Commons. Then there was the dreaded man-eating leopard of Rudraprayag, responsible for the deaths of 125 people in Garhwal over eight years.

Intriguingly, the ‘temple tiger’, a chronic cattle killer but not a man-eater, was the only carnivore that neither Corbett nor any other hunter could eliminate. Corbett tried his utmost to shoot the killer, but it appeared to lead a charmed life, giving him the slip time and again – as correctly predicted by the priest of the temple in whose vicinity it lurked. A wily beast, it seldom returned to a ‘kill’, somehow sensing that a hunter was after it.

Corbett never failed to personally check the carcasses of the carnivores he shot to ascertain why they had turned killers – usually due to gunshot injuries inflicted by poachers or irresponsible hunters and other natural causes such as age-induced loss of teeth or wounds inflicted by the quills of porcupines or sustained in fights with other animals.

By his own admission, fear often haunted Corbett as much as it did the local villagers who were terrorised by man-eaters. All his life he was particularly terrified of pythons, having once (as a teenager) escaped narrowly after unwittingly stepping on one during a hunt. Nevertheless, his intrepidity was very much in evidence as he relentlessly pursued killer carnivores, alone and on foot, relying solely on his jungle prowess and shooting skills.

Corbett penned six gripping books about his wildlife adventures, the most popular of these being Man-eaters of Kumaon and The Man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag; the former became a best-seller within months of its publication. His narratives consistently resonate with honesty and truthfulness, leaving no doubt about his veracity. He wrote of his hunting successes and failures with equal candour, never gloating over his bags or sparing himself from a fiasco.

Interestingly, Corbett was a reluctant writer who, initially, had to be repeatedly goaded by friends to put his unique jungle adventures down on record. However, when he did get started, he gave it his all. His prose is quite readable, detailed and precise, liberally laced with elaborate topographical particulars retained (as he admits) by his phenomenal memory.

In Jungle Lore, Corbett explains how, from boyhood, he was trained to nurture his acute powers of observation that enabled him to build up his unmatched knowledge of jungle-craft. Indeed, his sharp eyes missed little in the jungle, and this was complemented by his truly photographic memory that enabled him to recall precise details from his jungle exploits over the years. Another asset was his remarkable skill in realistically mimicking the calls of most wild animals.

In My India, one gets an intimate understanding of Corbett’s deep empathy with the poor and socially downtrodden among whom he spent most of his life and about whom he writes so evocatively. He had abiding faith in their unswerving loyalty. Along with his devoted sister Maggie, he often tended the sick (including the malaria- and cholera-stricken forsaken by others) as well as those mauled by wild animals. Besides helping the debt-ridden with his own meagre funds, he sometimes monetarily compensated poor villagers whose livestock – their mainstay – had been killed by the big cats.

Further, fluent in local dialects, Corbett built up a good rapport with the underprivileged, often breaking down social barriers by sharing his cigarettes with them – something few sahibs ever did. Being defenceless against the man-eaters that menaced them and their cattle, the poor regarded Corbett (or ‘Carpet Sahib’, as they fondly called him) as their saviour – and he seldom let them down.

After India gained independence, Corbett and his sister Maggie (both remained unmarried throughout their lives) moved to Kenya, where he died at Nyeri in 1955, three months short of his 80th birthday.  In a fitting finale to his illustrious career as a guardian and protector, in 1952 he was invited to escort Princess Elizabeth (soon to become Queen of England) and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, during their overnight stay at ‘Tree Tops’, the well-known wilderness hotel in Kenya. The veteran hunter was delighted, and, needless to say, the visit of the royal guests was an unqualified success with unexpected wildlife sightings.

Corbett’s heroism in fearlessly tracking down and eliminating killer carnivores had been duly recognised by the Government of India during his lifetime – among the many honours he received was the much-prized ‘freedom of the forests’. After his death, Gurney House, his home in Kaladhungi, was turned into a museum where his memorabilia is on display, drawing visitors throughout the year. The Ramaganga National Park, in the establishment of which he played a crucial role, was renamed the Corbett National Park in 1957. And in 1968 the Indochinese tiger – also called Corbett’s tiger – was rechristened after him: Panthera tigris corbetti.

It was an eloquent tribute to a man who had unmatched knowledge of – and profound respect for – the tiger. Indeed, he once memorably termed it “a large-hearted gentleman with boundless courage” – two attributes that could, with the fullest justification, be applied to Corbett himself.

(The author is a Munnar-based freelance writer)