Introduction

“…...a conflict can go away only if we move to another domain where coexistence takes place”

Maturana and Varela, The Tree of Knowledge, 1987.

The issue of human-wildlife conflicts increasingly dominates discourse on environmental governance and wildlife conservation. While they are typically treated as emergent dilemmas related to wildlife management and anthropogenic encroachment into forest land (Distefano, 2005; Madden & McQuinn, 2014; Nyhus, 2016), human-wildlife conflicts are not discrete, localized phenomena with direct cause-effect relationships. Rather they are shaped by historic changes in social and cultural practices and the changing perceptions of nature and human-nature relationships influenced by larger political-economic decisions. An examination of the interplay among social, economic, cultural, ecological, and political processes and their relationship with people's lives and livelihoods is necessary to formulate meaningful and responsible responses to conflict (Escobar, 2006). Thus, a context- and site-specific process must be established through a critical and multidimensional analysis (Gupta, 2013).

Human- rhesus macaque conflict in the state of Himachal Pradesh in northern India is a source of contentious debate in political scenarios, and resentment and polarization amongst agriculturalists and wildlife conservationists (Singh & Thakur, 2012; Radhakrishna & Raman, 2016; Hindustan Times, 2019). Crop raiding by rhesus macaques has been identified as the main cause of conflict, and mitigation strategies are designed to reduce rhesus macaque numbers and protect crops from their depredations (Imam & Ahmad, 2013; Saraswat et al., 2015). The most recent strategy adopted has been the declaration of rhesus macaques as vermin, permitting lay citizens to cull them (Ganesan, 2016; Himachal Pradesh Forest Department, 2019). Himachal Pradesh has been at the center of many pivotal environmental movements in the region that protested against commercial forestry and state control over forests and led not only to the establishment of social forestry movement in the region (Arnold, 1990), but also spawned ecological movements in many other parts of the country as well as globally (Kedzior, 2006). The state of Himachal Pradesh is also well known for its community forest protection initiatives and the strong involvement of women’s groups in such initiatives (Vasan, 2001). Viewed against this environmental history, the current social outcry over rhesus macaque crop depredations appears a curious anomaly. The rhesus macaque is described as a 'monkey menace' and portrayed not only as a critical threat to livelihoods of agrarian communities, but also as a significant deterrent to the economic growth of the state, where agriculture (specifically horticulture) is the 'engine of growth' (Chakravarty, 2015; Dept. of Agriculture, Himachal Pradesh, 2019). Surprisingly, no grassroots social or ecological movement has emerged to address the issue; rather the state has been tasked with finding a 'solution' (Himachal Pradesh Forest Department, 2016; Hindustan Times, 2019).

Studies on forest-dependent communities have found that shifts or transformations in their culture and behaviour towards wildlife are deeply impacted by their changing perceptions of nature (Munster et al., 2012; Escobar, 2006). Other studies on human-wildlife conflict also suggest that people’s antagonism towards wildlife may arise from social causes or cultural beliefs rather than actual losses caused by wildlife depredations (Linnell et al., 2003; Naughton-Treves & Treves, 2005; West, 2001). We therefore address the following questions: whether the current response to the human-rhesus macaque interface in Himachal Pradesh indicates a fundamental shift in the way nature and natural systems are perceived by these communities, and if so, what has caused this shift; why communities are not responding collectively to changes in their socio-ecological systems; and what has altered in their relationship with the commons?

We explore these issues through an examination of the social and political complexities of human-rhesus macaque interactions in Himachal Pradesh, with the objective of explaining why the rhesus macaque has been relegated to 'vermin' status in a region with a deep-rooted culture of the centrality of the commons and protection of forest ecosystems.

Published studies on human-rhesus macaque interactions in India largely focus on understanding discrete dimensions of human-rhesus macaque conflict such as rhesus macaque behavior and ecology, the state's responses in terms of policy instruments, and macaque population control strategies (Dolhinow & Lindburg, 1980; Lindburg, 1971, 1976; Pirta et al., 1997; Reddy & Chander, 2016). Studies on rhesus population dynamics provide an understanding of variation in rhesus macaque population levels and behaviour due to changes in forest cover, habitat, and food sources (Singh & Thakur, 2012; Southwick & Siddiqi, 1994, 2011). Researchers have also discussed the efficacy of conflict mitigation strategies such as regulatory control through macaque sterilization and monetary compensation for macaque depredations (Johnson et al., 2018; Reddy & Chander, 2016).

Conflicts, however, are rarely discrete cause-effect situations but rather processual, complex, and interrelated: a manifestation of deep structural changes triggered by global and national economic policies that shape the environment where interactions between species occur (Escobar, 2006; Munster et al., 2012). Political ecology, arising from studies of rural geography and anthropology in the 1970s, is interpreted and recognized in various ways in environmental literature as a “fusion of human ecology and political economy” (Escobar, 1999), a study of ecological distribution conflictsFootnote 1 and the changing relations among social (economic, political) structures and the use of the environment (Martinez-Alier, 2002), or based on the premise that environmental changes are shaped by political processes (Robbins, 2012). Broadly speaking, political ecology is useful in assembling arguments to account for the economic, social, cultural, political, and ecological factors that have shaped the human–environment interface (Neumann, 1992, 2001). A few researchers have used political ecology frameworks to effectively highlight the complexities of human-wildlife interactions in the context of conservation, creation of protected areas, and the associated conflicts with and displacement of people (Margulies & Karanth, 2018; Masse, 2016). The findings that emerge from these studies point to the role of shifting economic policies, food consumption patterns, changes in local demographics, and livelihood strategies in changing the “geographies of human-wildlife encounters” and highlight the need for a political ecological examination of human-rhesus macaque conflict in Himachal Pradesh.

Although a few studies of the human-rhesus macaque interface address the human dimensions of conflict, such as human-rhesus macaque interactions (Wolfe, 2002), conflicts between human stakeholder groups (Anand & Radhakrishna, 2020), and human perceptions regarding rhesus macaques and how they impact macaque conservation (Anand et al., 2018; Saraswat et al, 2015), we currently lack a more integrative approach that draws upon multiple fields to provide a more holistic understanding of the emergence and evolution of this conflict. Hence, our objective is to examine and understand this phenomenon and its multiple dimensions by employing a political ecology framework. Drawing upon the insights gained from coauthor S. Radhakrishna’s long-term research study on the human-primate interface in this region, we conducted a review and analysis of relevant published literature, used Google and Google Scholar as internet search engines for gray literature sources, and bibliographic databases like Scopus and Web of Science to gain access to more specialized journal papers and abstracts (Anand & Radhakrishna, 2017; Gasparyan et al., 2016). We first made a general search using the search string: (wildlife AND political ecology) OR (wildlife AND conflict); (framework OR methodology) AND (wildlife OR ecology) AND (human OR anthropo*); (agriculture AND forests AND Himachal Pradesh); (social movements AND forests AND Himachal Pradesh). We followed this with more specific searches using the following search strings: (rhesus monkey* AND conflict AND policies); (livelihoods OR economic*) AND (rhesus monkey OR wildlife) AND (Himachal Pradesh); (rhesus monkey AND socio-ecological impact). In reviewing the abstracts and papers, we selected cross-references that pointed specifically to political ecological frameworks and analysis of human-wildlife interactions for further review. We thoroughly read the articles and screened them to exclude those that were found to be irrelevant or of only slight relevance to our proposed analysis. Some cross-references from selected articles were accessed and read thoroughly. Our final selection produced approximately 100 articles that included peer-reviewed publications, media reports, and policy documents from the Government of Himachal Pradesh and the Government of India.

We employed the principles of political ecology to: (i) map the various systemic issues that shape the interactions between humans and the rhesus macaque in Himachal Pradesh, (ii) explore their complex interrelationships, and (iii) investigate the shift of their relationship from benign association to one dominated by conflict. Human-rhesus macaque interactions in Himachal Pradesh take place in a historically resilient, socio-ecologically diverse, agrarian mountain ecosystem that is witnessing rapid economic growth due to current developmental priorities of the state (Bingeman et al., 2004). We provide a brief description of the political, socioeconomic, cultural, and ecological setting.

Background

Himachal Pradesh, which was granted full statehood in 1971, has a predominantly rural population (89.97% rural and 10.03% urban according to the 2011 population census). Traditionally, the population has depended on subsistence agriculture, animal husbandry, and forests as their main sources of livelihood (Gauri et al., 2004). Lives and livelihoods are inextricably linked to the commons: forests, open pastures, water sources, and relationships with the associated flora and fauna. Until 1974, pastures and open lands, parts of the forest surrounding villages, riverbeds, irrigation channels, and common paths belonged to the PanchayatsFootnote 2 and were used for the common benefit of the village community (Bon, 2000). Himachal Pradesh, therefore, has a strong cultural, socioeconomic knowledge base and related institutions for governance of these common pool resources (Lal, 2017).

Agriculture dominates the social, ecological, economic, and cultural life of the people of Himachal Pradesh. About 62% of the working population is directly supported by agriculture and the cropping intensity in the state is 174.7%. Most agricultural land is cultivated by the 88% of farmers managing small and marginal landholdings with an average size between 0.4 and 1.4 hectares. Small-scale farmers depend on rain to irrigate their crops, and about 81.5% of cropland is rainfed (Dept. of Agriculture, Himachal Pradesh, 2018; ADB, 2010).

Himachal Pradesh has a relatively high level of human development especially for gender-related and child-related indicators. The region has a strong tradition of cooperative action and social programmes even when it was considered developmentally backward and poor in the early 1970s (Dreze & Sen, 2013). We now examine the major changes that have impacted development activities in the state in more detail.

Agrarian Change and Transformation: A Colonial Legacy

Studies on the historic farming and agricultural practices in the state report that over a period of 2000 years, settled farmers expanded their settlements and terraced agriculture, “moving up the alluvial soils of the region’s many river valleys” (Lal, 2017). The hill farmers practiced mixed cropping on terraces, primarily for subsistence with surpluses sold in regional markets. In principle, all land ownership, including arable lands, lay with the hill rajas or local chieftains, but in practice the peasants generally inherited the use of their terraces over the generations and landholdings were distributed relatively equitably, with far fewer areas cultivated by the landholding elite as compared to many parts of lowland India (Lal, 2017). There was a distinct difference in the agrarian structure and land ownership between the upper and the lower hills and plains regions due to the availability of cultivable land and agricultural productivity. In the upper hill regions, east of the Sutlej River around Shimla, cultivable land was limited with marginal agricultural soil. The low agricultural productivity and extensive areas of commons (pastures, forests and open lands) led to the development of an agrarian economy based on agriculture, livestock rearing, and pastoralism with considerable dependence on forests for livelihoods (Chetan, 1998). In the fertile, agriculturally productive plains, farming was the main source of livelihood, and the role of the forests was much less significant for local livelihoods (Chauhan, 2003).

In 1849, following over 20 years of informal occupation, the British officially annexed the Punjab plains and the hills above them and initiated the first wave of agrarian change in Himachal Pradesh. As in many other parts of the country, when the British took over, they engaged in systematic and decisive intervention in restructuring the agrarian system through reorganization of revenue administration and rights to land as property, the introduction of commercial leases between land owners and local farmers, and systematic periodic settlements in different regions. All this altered the agrarian structures and relations to serve the economic and political objectives of the British (Chauhan, 2003; Tucker, 1982). As Tucker (1982) observes, the primary concerns of the British were (i) to protect India as a market for goods manufactured in Britain, (ii) for India to serve as a source of raw materials for British industries, and (iii) to retain the colonies as a source of land revenue. This laid the foundation for long-term changes in the land use pattern from subsistence and mixed crop-livestock farming of crops such as millet and various beans to commercial farming of wheat, horticultural crops like potatoes, and plantations of tea and tobacco that would generate higher revenue for the state.

When the right of farmers to own property on the land they cultivated was introduced to encourage them to cultivate more land under cash crops, the previously fluid boundaries between fields and forests and the associated communal rights were re-drawn to reflect the change in ownership structure, with farmland and pastures now administered by the Revenue Department, while the Forest Department administered the forests (Tucker, 1982). Alongside the commercialization of agriculture, forests were transformed from commons that served as a resource for both crop farming (mulch, seeds, berries, tubers, etc.) and livestock rearing (grazing grounds, source of medicinal plants etc.) to commercial entities to which local farmers had limited access (Dangwal, 1996). The introduction of commercial interactions into these areas brought about several changes in social caste relations and in turn, to the power relations between the landless farmers and the landholders (Dangwal, 1996) that served to further the colonial commercial interests at the expense of rights of tenant farmers. For example, across the region, cash rents were introduced in place of in-kind rents and were required to be paid every year irrespective of annual agricultural production. Indebtedness among peasants increased rapidly, leading to dependence on moneylenders, landlords, and intermediaries (Chauhan, 2003).

Issues of excessive land revenues forced unpaid labour (begar),Footnote 3 increased alienation from the commons, and pressures on livelihoods gave rise to the peasant unrest in the hill statesFootnote 4 that became more vocal and organized after the Second World War. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the creation of large-scale plantations led to erosion of local forests and associated biodiversity, and commercial interests exploited what remained of the forests for timber, the discontent stemming from the colonial period culminated in the formation of the Chipko Andolan (Kedzior, 2006). This grassroots social movement, led in many places by women, began as a defense of local livelihoods that depended on forest resources now exploited by the timber lobby and the policies of the Forest Department.

Himachal Pradesh has a tradition of informal customary forest governance systems and grassroots institutional structures that are built on consensus. Traditional management methods included: restrictions on cutting or lopping trees, cutting grass, grazing animals, timing of collection of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) (before seed fall), protection of sacred groves and other areas of cultural significance, restrictions on harvesting of trees and plants of religious and/or cultural significance, processes for equitable distribution of forest products and their regulation by local committees, in addition to dispute resolution through community mechanisms (ICIMOD, 2000).

The Western Himalayas, of which modern day Himachal Pradesh is a part, came under direct or indirect British control between 1815 and 1849. Forests were exploited primarily for timber for construction of the national railway system as well as for export to Britain and other markets of the Empire (Dangwal, 2005). The distribution of timber species over different elevations is reflected in the historical pattern of timber operations in the region: bamboo (Bambusa sp.) became commercially important in the tropical moist deciduous zone of the foothills and the terai, while sal (Shorea robusta), the most desirable hardwood for its resistance to termites and fine-grained wood, was overcut in the sub-montane region of the lowland districts (Tucker, 1982). With the large-scale clearance of sal forests, timber operations moved further up the mountains to the moist temperate zone for the majestic deodar (Cedrus deodara) as its “dense and elegant wood was ideal for construction and railway use” (Tucker, 1982). Deodar is difficult to propagate and extensive felling in the nineteenth century destroyed these forests. With changes in technology and production practices, even forests where the trees were unsuitable for railway sleepers began to undergo changes in land use and tree composition. In the subtropical pine zone, the chir pine (Pinus longiiolia) dominated many slopes, but although unsuitable for railway sleepers, after 1900, demand from the resin industry transformed the previously ignored chir pine into the chief plantation tree (Tucker, 1982).

Beginning in the 1860s, the colonial government enacted changes in governance and ownership rights over forests to facilitate large-scale timber production. The Forest Department developed legislation, the Indian Forest Act of 1878, creating legal categories of forests ensuring that the most commercially valuable areas would be in their control as 'Reserved Forests' for timber and silvicultural development and 'Protected Forests' were taken out of local control and reserved for later assessment (Tucker, 1982). This led to a long-standing and bitter conflict between traditional subsistence patterns of residents and the state’s control of timber management (Tucker, 1982; Walia, 2006).

Independent India and Land Reforms in Himachal Pradesh

The second major wave of agrarian transformation in the region occurred after Indian independence from colonial rule in 1947. Increasing agricultural production and attaining self- sufficiency in food production became priorities of the new Government of India. Local land reforms were designed to expand cultivation of horticulture to other parts of the state (Chauhan, 2003), a process accelerated during the 1960s and 1970s as part of the Government of India's well-defined agricultural strategy – the Green Revolution – aimed at agricultural production practices to enhance production and reduce food scarcity and hunger (Sebby, 2010). The agro-climatic conditions in the state favoured horticultural crop cultivation, particularly in the temperate regions, i.e., the districts of Kangra, Bilaspur, Nalagarh, Chamba, Mandi, and Saket (Chauhan, 2003). In the lower valley areas and plains where soil was fertile with access to irrigation, the Green Revolution introduced high yielding varieties of wheat and rice and large areas were cleared to replace mixed and diverse farming of millet and beans with mono-cropping of these cereals. This led to pressure on the middle and upper regions to convert more land to horticulture and commercial farming.

After Independence, there was an overwhelming sense of urgency to modernize India with extensive developments for power, transport, and communications infrastructure (Food Sovereignty Alliance India and Catholic Health Association India, 2018). The rivers and rapids in Himachal Pradesh were highly suited to development of hydroelectric power generators and a number of hydroelectric projects were initiated including the Bhakra Nangal Hydroelectric Project (Sahni, 2013; Economic Survey, 2011–2012), which entailed large-scale clearance of forests (Sahni, 2013). Expansion of paper pulp production and requirements for building timber drove forest policies and management that focused on fast growing species and timber plantations rather than on biodiversity conservation (Tucker, 1982). New road building programmes and expansion of road networks provided access to remote mountain areas and forests, facilitating commercial forestry, and expansion of cash crops, particularly commercial apple cultivation, from the early 1900s led to further clearance of forests in the upper Kullu valley (ibid.).

From the mid-1980s, forests in Himachal Pradesh that had locally been held to be commons that sustained lives and livelihoods and were in turn sustained through a shared stewardship by dependent communities, were transformed into a State-owned (specifically, the Forest Department) resource. That these communities now had to seek permission to enter the forests became a source of resentment (Kedzior, 2006). The State’s new role as the owner-protector and conservator of this ecosystem, despite its own strong focus on resource extraction (according to the State's Forest Policy 1980, the primary purpose of public forests was to produce timber), required that rural communities’ dependence on and use of forest resources be treated as destructive and an impediment to forest health (Walia, 2006). This was validated even at the national level, as evident in the observation from The National Commission on Agriculture in 1976 that “Free supply of forest produce to the rural population and their rights and privileges has brought destruction to the forest and so it is necessary to reverse the process. The rural people have not contributed much towards the maintenance or regeneration of the forests.”

The state’s attempt at afforestation has increased forest area, but this has been through spread of monocultures of Chir (Pinus roxburghii) in the hills and Khair (Acacia catechu) in the lower hills and plains (Walia, 2006). Forest policies thus led to transformation of mixed deciduous and evergreen forests in Himachal Pradesh into monocultures of pine, other conifers, and trees of economic value. Ironically, more recently, the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department proposed a habitat enrichment model to deal with the human-rhesus macaque conflict issue through which a total of 10,000 ha of forest area would be brought under “fruit bearing trees, shrubs and grasses.” This initiative presupposes that enriching forest productivity (and thereby providing more food resources for monkeys) would lead rhesus macaques to prefer forest habitats rather than urban and other anthropogenic areas and thereby reduce conflict (Anonymous n.d.).

Impacts of Economic Liberalisation

The third wave of agrarian transformation in the region occurred due to the impacts of economic liberalization policiesFootnote 5 that were instituted in 1991 and brought changes in agriculture and resource governance (including forests) across the country. The role of the state was reduced and the role of non-state actors, specifically markets, in agrarian practices increased (Singhal, n.d.). This market-driven shift in agriculture led to changes in cropping patterns and crop diversity, which can be summarized under four main trends: (i) increase in area under vegetable crops by approximately 200% from 1995–96 to 2015–16; (ii) a shift away from traditional food crops like rice, wheat, maize, barley, millets, pulses and oilseeds to high value horticultural crops such as apple, apricot, peas, tomato, cabbage, cauliflower, and potato; (iii) primacy of wheat and maize over barley, coarse grains, and rice; and (iv) the emergence of Sirmaur, Una, Kullu, and Bilaspur districts as centres for grain production and Solan, Sirmaur, Manali, Shimla, Kangra as major districts for cultivation of exotic vegetables such as asparagus, broccoli, lettuce, celery, snow peas etc. (Kumar & Hassanzoy, 2013; Hassanzoy, 2012; Dept. of Agriculture, Himachal Pradesh, 2018; Devi et al., 2018).

Rising Tourism and Land Use Changes

The most recent changes affecting the region stem from increasing impacts of tourism. Himachal Pradesh’s picturesque geography and rich biodiversity has meant that tourism has always been an important element of the state's economy, contributing 7.2% to the State GDP in 2016–17 (Kuniyal et al., 2003). However, a big push occurred in the 1990s when there was a sharp rise in number of tourists because of the rising violence and unrest in the state of Jammu and Kashmir (Kuniyal et al., 2003) that put significant pressure on local infrastructure, particularly in the Kullu-Manali region, leading to excessive construction of hotels. The forests were cleared for timber both for construction (specifically Deodhar and Kail trees) and fuel (Kuniyal et al., 2003). Although access to timber has been controlled through a system of timber distribution rights by the state from the nineteenth century for house construction and other specific uses (Economic Survey, 2018–2019), a powerful and affluent timber lobby now dominates largely unregulated timber extraction for construction and other infrastructure needs triggered by the growth of tourism (Kuniyal et al., 2003). Cole and Sinclair (2002) describe significant “loss of arable land and pastureland to the concrete, biologically unproductive landscape of hotels, restaurants, and roads” in the region. Other land use changes reported include the takeover of marginal areas that have been traditionally avoided because of the risk of floods and landslides, a network of nature parks developed for wildlife viewing, and the opening of remote tribal areas for tourists through construction of helipads (ibid.).

More recently, the state put out a Sustainable Tourism Policy in response to an almost threefold increase in the numbers of tourists visiting Himachal Pradesh between 2004 and 2017, wherein the stated mission is improvement of livelihoods: “a tourism policy that accelerates economic development, minimizes social inequality, reduces poverty, conserves tangible and intangible heritage” (Dept. of Tourism and Civil Aviation, Govt of Himachal Pradesh, 2019). The state government is projecting tourism as a growth sector with a plan to increase its contribution to the state GDP from 7.2% in 2016–17 to 18% by 2021–22. Proposed development of tourism infrastructure includes expansion of aircraft landing strips, helipads, etc., in the target districts of Shimla, Kangra, Bilaspur, Una, and Sirmaur (Economic Survey, 2018–19).

While data on the direct impact of tourism on land use are not available, a study produced by the State Council for Science, Technology & Environment, Himachal Pradesh (HIMCOSTE) reports that in several districts, dense forest cover reduced significantly between 1991 and 2015, with maximum reduction of 39.1% in Kinnaur district, while Kullu, Hamirpur, and Sirmaur reported 24.5%, 16.7%, and 5.7% respectively (Sharma et al. n.d.). The study attributes this to the rapid increase in construction of hydroelectric power plants and other development projects. In the mid-hills of Solan district, there was an increase in built up area of 131.49% between 1989–2016, which was accompanied by a 3.79% reduction in forest area (Vaidya et al., 2017). A 2011 study on urbanisation in the tourist-popular destination of Shimla reports that built up area increased from 11.08% to above 17% (excluding the transportation network), while forest cover declined from 61.12% to about 54% (Shekhar, 2011).

Placing the Rhesus Macaque in the Political Ecology Context

We address how the larger regional and geo-political, economic, social and ecological changes in Himachal Pradesh have impacted rhesus macaque populations and the occurrence of human-rhesus macaque conflict.

The rhesus macaque has the largest geographical distribution among non-human primates, ranging from Afghanistan and China through Bhutan and Nepal, to India, Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos (Brandon-Jones et al., 2004; Fooden, 2000). Studies in northern and central India show that the species occurs across a wide range of habitats, from dry scrub forests of lower altitudes to as high as 3000 m in Himachal Pradesh, and in a variety of human dominated landscapes such as agricultural fields, temples, tourist locations, and cities (Anand, 2019; Anand et al., 2021; Pirta et al., 1990; Singh et al., 2016). Group sizes typically vary from about 10–40 individuals, depending on the habitat (Lindburg, 1971; Makwana, 1978; Southwick et al., 1965), but larger groups (36–82 individuals) have been reported in areas with human provisioning (Pragatheesh, 2011). Some studies suggest that rhesus macaque home range sizes (1.3–13.4 km2) vary according to groups sizes (Makwana, 1978), while others indicate that quality of habitat and food availability determine home range size and daily ranging distances more strongly (Pragatheesh, 2011; Sengupta et al., 2015; Anand and Radhakrishna, 2021). The feeding ecology of the species is also influenced by the habitat they inhabit; fruit consumption has been reported to vary from 6%—79% in different groups, and rhesus macaques are also known to feed on seeds, leaves, flowers, bark, arthropods, mollusks, fish, and human prepared food (Fooden, 2000; Sengupta et al., 2015; Zhou et al., 2009). The high adaptability of the species, as evidenced by omnivorous feeding habits, flexibility in group demographics, and large geographic range, accounts for the species being considered the world's best example of primate commensalism (Radhakrishna & Sinha, 2010, 2011; Southwick & Siddiqi, 1994). While rhesus macaques are known to naturally gravitate towards human inhabited areas as they offer easy access to food and shelter (Richard et al, 1989), and have a long history of occasional crop foraging in the Himalayan region (Radhakrishna & Sinha, 2010, 2011; Singh et al., 2016), it is the perceived increase in crop-foraging and house raiding activities that has become unacceptable (Jardhari et al., 2008; Saraswat et al., 2015; Anand et al., 2018).

While most studies on rhesus macaques report their highly commensal behaviour and occurrence largely in agricultural areas, around villages, towns, and cities, along roadsides, canal banks etc., relying on agricultural crops or food handouts (Southwick & Siddiqi, 1994, 2011), earlier studies in Himachal Pradesh report them as living in forest areas away from people, and feeding completely on natural vegetation. Studies in Dehradun in the 1970s report rhesus macaques in forests around the area feeding on more than 100 species of native vegetation without depending on human sources of food (Lindburg, 1971, 1976). Pirta et al. (1990) suggest the clearing and fragmentation of mixed deciduous and evergreen forests and their replacement by monoculture pine plantations in Himachal Pradesh has resulted in reduced food availability for rhesus macaques in the forest areas. Studies on Asian macaques have pointed out the importance of deciduous vegetation for macaque feeding requirements and the low quality of gymnosperm vegetation in fulfilling these needs (Imaki et al., 1994; Yamada & Muroyama, 2010; Anand and Radhakrishna 2021). Drawing from these studies, it seems that clearing of forests leading to loss of habitat and food sources may be one of the reasons for rhesus macaques’ movement towards agricultural areas in this region and thus to greater interactions with humans. Starting from the colonial period initiation of large-scale clearing of mixed forests and replacement with pine through post-Independence to the current era of rapid land use changes due to the growing demands of tourism, the successive and systematic decimation of forests has contributed to serious erosion of habitats and food resources for rhesus macaques in this region.

In a study in north-central India, spanning over 30 years from 1959–60 to 1990–91, Southwick and Siddiqi (1994) demonstrated the impact of transformation of the landscape (increased agriculture, urbanisation, etc.) on commensalism in rhesus macaques. While approximately the same percentage of monkeys lived in commensal (villages, towns, cities, temples, railway stations) and semi-commensal habitats (canal banks, roadsides, parklands) over this 30-year span (88% in 1959–60 and 86% in 1990–91), there was a greater shift from semi-commensal to commensal habitats (from 31.3% to 48.5%) in 1990–91. Although landscape-level changes may have been relatively slower in Himachal Pradesh, it is likely that the socio-political changes discussed above have accelerated rhesus commensalism in the region over the last two or more decades. For example, landscape changes in the form of agricultural expansion have facilitated the commensalism and spread of rhesus macaques into southern India (Kumar et al., 2011), while urbanisation in the Cape Peninsula has led to the increasing presence of chacma baboon populations in anthropogenic habitats and heightened human-primate conflict levels in the region (Hoffman & O'Riain, 2012).

Scarcity in natural food resources may drive primates to forage on crops (Naughton-Treves et al., 1998), however, consuming crops is also a useful feeding strategy, as crops provide greater nutrition than many natural primate foods (Riley et al., 2013; Strum, 1994). Consuming crops allows their young to grow more rapidly than normal and benefit from larger body size (Strum, 2010). While the risks associated with crop foraging are greater than those incurred during natural foraging, the benefits in terms of greater reproduction rates and improved offspring survival rates may offset the risks for crop-raiding primates (Strum, 2010).

The agrarian transformation in a state with scarce land and fragmented and small landholdings is pushing small farmers to bring multiple landholdings under one crop (TERI, 2015), a shift from traditional practices of multi-cropping within a landholding, where each farm would produce small volumes of diverse food crops. Mono-cropping makes larger volumes of the same crop available, but at the same time increases vulnerability to pest attack (Nath, 2007; Seni, 2018) leading to increase in crop loss. In this situation, further crop loss from rhesus crop depredations compounds the challenge for farmers and may aggravate human-animal conflicts.

Farm vulnerability to crop raiding is a function of multiple factors including cropping patterns, crop species, distance from forest edge, size of landholdings, and agroforestry practices (Naughton-Treves et al., 1998; Saj et al., 2001; Wallace & Hill, 2012). Small land holdings such as those typically seen in Himachal Pradesh with trees along the periphery or interspersed providing fuel and fodder are likely to be more vulnerable to crop raiding, as these vegetation strips afford favourable habitats for primate species enabling easy navigation compared to large swathes of uninterrupted mono-cropped fields typical of the plains (Anand, 2019; Anand et al., 2021).

Reports on rhesus macaque conflict intensity in Himachal Pradesh identify the districts of Sirmaur, Kullu, Bilaspur, Mandi, Shimla, Kangra, and Chamba as medium and high conflict areas (Dept. of Agriculture, Himachal Pradesh 2018; Singh & Thakur, 2012). These districts are located mainly in the foothills and valleys known as the Shivalik hill zone and the mid-hill zone. Rhesus macaque conflict is thus high in districts that constitute about 98% of the cultivated area in the State (mid-hill zone – 53%; Shiwalik hill zone – 33%; and high hill zone – 11%). Sirmaur, Una, Kullu, and Bilaspur are areas of high grain production and Solan, Sirmaur, Manali, Shimla, and Kangra are the major districts where exotic vegetables are cultivated (e.g., asparagus, broccoli, lettuce, celery, sow peas, etc.). These are also areas where density and rate of growth of human populations are high. For instance, Bilaspur, Una, Solan, and Mandi are among the districts with high population density (above 200 persons per sq. km), while Sirmaur has medium population density (100–200 persons per sq. km).

These high conflict areas are also locations that have been earmarked by the state for increased horticultural production (HPHDP, 2016). Additionally, some of these districts are also popular tourist destinations and have accordingly seen a surge in development, primarily in the form of increase in built-up area and concomitant decrease of forest area (Kuniyal et al., 2003). Addressing crop raiding by rhesus macaques in Himachal Pradesh is thus a priority for the state given its reported economic impact (perceived and real) on agriculture, especially high value horticulture, identified as a main growth sector for the state. Most high value horticulture is practiced by medium to large farmers who are integrated into the increasingly agribusiness-dominated food system. These farmers dominate the powerful farmers' groups that are lobbying strongly for mitigation of the human-rhesus macaque conflict (Chauhan, 2009).Footnote 6

Understanding the Seeds of Conflict

An overview of the socio-political history of Himachal Pradesh suggests that there may be three important threads to the seeds of conflict between humans and the rhesus macaque in Himachal Pradesh:

(i) Under the colonial regime, land governance policies created a sharp divide in land rights and associated power structures between marginal and small farmers in the upper hills and the medium to larger farmers in the more fertile semi-mountainous and plain areas.

(ii) There was a gradual shift in the relationship between the people and the commons from stewardship led by collective arrangements of governance to the state claiming 'ownership' of the commons (Forest Department as the 'owner' or 'protector' of forests and Revenue Department as the 'owner' or ‘protector’ of other commons such as hills, grazing lands etc.) and requiring local people to seek permission to access them.

(iii) A critical change occurred in the dynamics of collective resistance by local people to any threat to their lives and livelihoods. In contrast to the peasant revolt against oppression by the British and the Chipko Andolan, the present conflict is not a collective people's social movement, but rather is led by politically powerful farmers' lobbies.

Historically, these communities had built resilient socioeconomic systems and cultures based on the understanding that boundaries between fields, forests, and grazing lands were dynamic and constantly changing. Human perceptions of the environment were built on an understanding of interconnectedness, requiring adaptation to and coexistence with other life forms (Bingeman et al., 2004; Kedzior, 2006). The shift from people-led stewardship of the forests and commons to state 'owned' governance of these resources has led to changes in perceptions of the environment in these communities. Any threats to their livelihoods from wildlife are now the state's responsibility, specifically the Forest Department, since it is the 'protector' of the forests and the wildlife (Gauri et al., 2004). In the context of human-rhesus macaque conflict, crop raiding by the rhesus macaque has become a livelihood threat and keeping the rhesus in check is seen as the Forest Department's responsibility (Jardhari et al., 2008).

Another dimension that influences the way people respond in such situations is deeply embedded local cultural and religious values. Here it is useful to draw upon ethnoprimatology, a subfield of primatology that focuses on the human-primate interface and emphasizes the mutual and shared ecologies of humans and primates, for a broader understanding of the issue (Fuentes, 2012; Fuentes & Hockings, 2010). The ethnoprimatological approach is characterized by the acknowledgment that just as humans impact primate ecologies and behaviour, primates also influence human ecologies and behaviour (Dore et al., 2017; Riley, 2018). Applying the ethnoprimatological lens to the human-rhesus macaque interface in Himachal Pradesh lends greater insight into local people’s responses. Firstly, several studies on the human-primate interface point out that cultural and religious beliefs strongly shape attitudes towards a species and tolerance for its activities and/or depredations (Lee & Priston, 2005; Riley, 2010; Radhakrishna, 2017; Pebsworth and Radhakrishna, 2020, 2021). For example, analyzing the different trajectories of human-primate conflict in southern and northern India, Anand et al. (2018) argue that the vermin declaration in Himachal Pradesh reflects the greater frustration of farmers in Himachal Pradesh, and that the roots of this resentment lie in their inability to take forceful retaliatory actions against the species due to their cultural beliefs. Secondly, attitudes towards primates may be influenced by the sacredness of the geography they inhabit (Fuentes et al., 2005; Peterson & Riley, 2013); this may partially explain why, despite their vermin status, people continue to provision rhesus macaques within temple premises in Himachal Pradesh (Sengupta & Radhakrishna, 2020). Thirdly, the politicisation and declaration of macaques as vermin in the state may be influenced by conflicts between human communities as much as it is affected by rhesus macaque depredations. Studies on farmers attitudes towards the rhesus macaques in Himachal Pradesh show that although farmers consider it the responsibility of the forest department to institute measures to control rhesus macaque depredations, they are also critical of forest department-initiated conflict mitigation strategies (Saraswat et al., 2015; Anand and Radhakrishna, 2018, 2020). A similar sense of ambivalence regarding rhesus macaque depredations and resentment against the forest department has been documented by a study on human-wildlife conflict in the neighboring state of Uttarakhand (Jardhari et al., 2008). All these factors illumine why no grassroots social or ecological movement has emerged to address the issue of human-rhesus macaque conflict. Rather it has led to a situation where the state has been tasked to find a 'solution' for the conflict issue.

The increasing inability of local people, particularly the marginal farmers and the communities in the hills, in terms of land and overall capacity to meet their aspirations for socioeconomic mobility has led to many abandoning their fields and migrating for better opportunities in urban areas. As with the neighboring state of Uttarakhand, the inequity and skewed distribution of economic growth in the state along with several other factors contribute to this situation (Venkatesh, 2016). In such an environment, crop raiding by rhesus macaques and the resultant economic losses exacerbates people’s frustration, and since this is a tangible and visible problem, the animal becomes the focal point of conflict. The cumulative effect of these multiple factors lies behind the push to declare the rhesus macaque as 'vermin' (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Factors leading to the declaration of rhesus macaques’ status as vermin in Himachal Pradesh

Full size image

Magnitude and intensity of rhesus macaque crop depredation and damage is often linked to an increase in the numbers of rhesus macaques (Sahoo & Mohnot, 2004). A rhesus macaque population assessment by Singh et al. (2016) reported that in terms of population size there was an overall decline in numbers over 10 years (between 2005 and 2015). However, at a district level, this decline is not uniform. Interestingly, the increase in rhesus population size was reported in the same districts where crop diversification and horticulture are expanding. These are also some of the districts where tourism is on the rise as discussed above. The picture that emerges from these districts suggests that there is a discernible association between rapidly changing agricultural practices, increasing infrastructure to support urbanisation, and emerging economic activities (e.g., tourism, food processing etc.) requiring more clearing of land including forests, and rising numbers of rhesus macaques. Adding to the complexity of how the issue is perceived from a management and mitigation perspective is the view that increase in rhesus macaque numbersFootnote 7 is due to Forest Department's protection of wildlife and hence the only response to this is to reduce their numbers (Saraswat et al., 2015). In the absence of a systemic understanding of the issue and the complex inter-relationships, responses become reactive. As Masse (2016) points out, conflict results from changing relations between wildlife and people (shaped by changing political-economic conditions) and not necessarily an increase in wildlife populations or overlapping spaces of conservation and livelihoods.

Conclusion

Our examination of the political ecology of human-rhesus macaque interaction in Himachal Pradesh exemplifies the premise that human-rhesus macaque interactions are not discrete cause-effect situations, but rather are complex, multidimensional, and interlinked. Such an examination also allows for an understanding of (i) how global and national economic policies have led to deep structural changes in the socioeconomic fabric of the region; (ii) the impact of this on the ecological stability of the region; and (iii) how these in turn shape the environment where the human-rhesus macaque interaction has become a conflict.

Our analysis highlights that the human-rhesus macaque wildlife issue needs to be examined in its entirety as a complex interplay of multiple competing factors. The issue is multi-dimensional and has a direct connection to overall economic policy – more specifically the relationship among agricultural, forest, and land use policies. It is therefore imperative that any strategy to mitigate human-rhesus macaque conflict must look at what is best for the socio-ecological-economic stability of the region and re-envision a development paradigm that the socio-ecological system can sustain, rather than an unbridled economic growth-driven way forward. This is all the more critical in an uncertain and unpredictable future of climate change that is likely to increase the vulnerability of fragile mountain ecosystems and marginal communities. Human-wildlife coexistence in such systems can only be built if the region is viewed as an interconnected socio-ecological-economic system, both in understanding the challenges and in responding to them.