Salim Ali wasn’t just your next door bird lover. He conducted the first systematic survey of India

Form of words:
a-
A+

FOr Salim Ali, one can love birds from afar—not just physically, but away from the glut of academic jargon.

“I … am completely taken aback by what an ornithologist chooses to dub a bird that is familiar to me,” he said,

Dubbed as the “Birdman of India”, Salim Ali was a pioneer in ornithology who conducted systematic bird surveys across India, in addition to writing several books on his feathered friends, to popularize the study of birds. What began as a young boy shooting sparrows with a toy gun grew into the publication of the subcontinent’s go-to bird book, Handbook of Birds of India and Pakistan, and Padma Vibhushan in 1976.

Salim Ali passed away in 1987, but India is still full of sanctuaries, institutions and birds named after him.

Why wasn’t Salim Ali your next door bird lover?

History needs to remember Birdman, and not just because he championed the interests of birds and worked tirelessly to preserve them. Need to know why.

In a speech given in 1985, Salim Ali said, “I despise purposeless killing, and consider it an act of barbarism, which deserves strong condemnation. But my love for birds is not of a sentimental kind. Essentially aesthetic and scientific.”

India’s Birdman, despite having little institutional backing, was a researcher with his scientific mind, a researcher at heart and an esthetician at heart. For him, a love of birds and nature needed to go beyond matters of the heart. Ali made a clear distinction between his vision and the Gandhian ideal non-violence, which he thought of as an impediment to systematic study.

On the boundary of the ethical debate between killing birds for research and preserving life at all costs, Salim Ali took a controversial position. For them, a “practical and practical approach” was necessary, which had its own undertones of non-compliance. non-violence, However, it would be neither practical nor practical to dismiss Salim Ali’s contributions to ornithology and history.

Read also: Nagaland’s beloved ‘Longleng’ sets a ‘world record’, covers a distance of 1,50,000 km in 4 years

wild means a boy

Ali’s academic distance was not only a later, sophisticated development in life. Born on 12 November 1896, the bird enthusiast failed to maintain a steady academic record, from barely passing the Bombay University matriculation examination to dropping out of St. Xavier’s College in his first year. What attracted the born scientist in him was the forest that surrounded his family’s tungsten mines in erstwhile Burma. After honing his skills in the forests and forming relationships with notable scientists in the forest service in Burma, Ali returned to India in 1917 with an abandoned university degree and eyes full of dreams.

After Salim Ali’s return to India, Father Ethelbert Blatter—a leading botanist in British India at St. Xavier’s College—advised him to pursue zoology. But the road to a professional job was rocky. Due to lack of formal education, Ali was refused a job in the Zoological Survey of India. Later, he went to Germany and studied under the infamous Erwin Stresemann, who later became his Teacher, This event marked the widespread recognition of Ali in German ornithological organizations. In 1950, Ali would strike an assistant position in India with Swiss ornithologist Alfred Schifferli.

Read also: India’s green energy goals have a serious problem – The Great Indian Bustard

Ali’s place in India during and after independence

Despite gaining wide recognition in German ornithological circles, Ali returned in 1930 to an India that lacked funding for scientific research on birds. The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), with which Salim Ali had been familiar since childhood with dreams of studying birds, was in shambles. Frustrated, he moved to Kihim, a village near Mumbai, where he began to study mating habits. weaver In the tradition of the Mughal naturalists. Inspired by his growing fondness for a scientific study, Ali conducted systematic surveys in the princely states of Hyderabad, Travancore, Gwalior, Indore, Bhopal and Cochin. In Survey He was later awarded the title of ‘India’s Birdman’.

As India struggled for independence, Ali was on his way to formalize ornithology as a subject. Until now, with more pressing issues, state and central governments were disregarding funding from institutions such as The Bombay Natural History Society, a 100-year-old research and conservation society. In his dying embers, Salim Ali wrote to Jawaharlal Nehru calling for its revival. From there, a developed ornithological discipline in India was mapped out.

In the mid-1940s, bird enthusiast Indira Gandhi was reading Salim Ali’s book book of indian birds In Naini Central Jail. In the 1960s, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research opened a new economic ornithology unit. In the 1970s, Salim Ali was at the forefront of the Save Silent Valley project, a movement to protect the Silent Valley National Park in Kerala against biodiversity loss by hydroelectric plants. In 1985 he was nominated to the Rajya Sabha.

For young bird watchers, Ali has a word. It’s to love birds without institution and sentimentality, so “when people retire from their official chair, they don’t know what to do. Perhaps with birdwatching, they’ll enjoy their pension longer.”

subscribe our channel youtube And Wire