monkey inspector's report | a simian history of journalism in india

8/12/2019 Monkey inspector's report | a simian history of journalism in india

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MONKEY BUSINESSN THEIR TIME, DELHI'S MONKEYS HAVE CAUSED ENOUGH TROUBLE TO EARN A

PLACE IN A SANCTUARY ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF THE CITY.

rom 2009 to early 2011, I lived in a south Delhi barsati which had an enormous terrace area. When Imoved in,this open space looked sad and empty, so I spent many thousands of rupees doing it up with all

inds of plants.Then came the monkeys. A team of five to ten. On finding the kitchen locked, they wouldreak the pots, and sometimes eat the plants. No flower was allowed to bloom.
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replaced the mud pots with heavy cement ones. The monkeys broke fewer of them but ate more shootsnd leaves. They would come at night. Soon they'd come at dawn, and make such a commotion I'd wakep terrified. Mild banging on the door wouldn't ward them off, nor would the other tactics I tried. I was afraidf them. They could be aggressive and strong and these traits were multiplied because they operated inangs. I felt caged in the small room of my large barsati. All I could do was share my misery on Facebook.Be careful," a friend warned in a comment, "they once killed the deputy mayor of Delhi."

n October 2007, Sawinder Singh Bajwa, the then deputy mayor, was trying to fend off monkeys from thealcony of his home. He fell off the terrace and died. Ironically, in the election he had recently won for thehartiya Janata Party, the opposition Congress had made the "monkey menace" a major issue. Apart from

tealing food and clothing like dacoits, biting people, and scaling the parliament building, they'd also beennown to create a scare on occasion by running through a Metro carriage or through the airport. After theeath, mayor Aarti Mehra started worrying about monkeys. She said Delhi had only five monkey catchersor an estimated 20 000 monkeys. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) had also begun fining

Hanuman bhakts for feeding monkeys in public places. But the monkeys would not relent. A month later, aone monkey went around Shastri Park in East Delhi, biting 25 people in a single weekend. People

ventually beat him down with metal bars and sticks because they feared it was going to snatch infantsway. "Primal Invasion," the Hindustan Times had panicked on the front page.

f Delhi's monkeys make less news these days it may be because since then, the New Delhi Municipalorporation (NDMC) and the MCD have hired more monkey catchers, raising the number from five to 50dd, and have raised the reward for every monkey caught to as much as Rs 650. Private contractors act aso-betweens to find monkey catchers from across India, not an easy task because not many would want toe cruel to Lord Hanuman, the monkey god, the god of strength. The captured monkeys are sent to a

monkey sanctuary on the outskirts of Delhi. But that we hear of them less is also because the monkeysave effectively been displaced from the media glare, from the areas of south and central Delhi, and noonger infiltrate the Defence Ministry and scatter files as they did in 2004, or kill children as they did once inwhile.

My curiosity about Delhi's monkey problem led me to the leafy neighbourhood of Asiad Village, where aery warm Iqbal Malik welcomed me inside her lovely apartment. There was nothing to do with monkeys inhe shelves of the drawing room of India's best known primatologist. Over the next two hours or so, shenswered my questions, one after the other, explaining to me where it all began.

When Malik saw Delhi's urban monkey population explode in the 1990s she wasn't surprised. She'd seen it

oming.Malik had started working as a primatologist a decade earlier. In the late 1980s, she was studying a group

f monkeys at Tughlaqabad Fort, having selected two sets of monkeys for comparative study and givenhem all names (such as Bluff Ram and Daagi Ram) and hired a team of eight to observe them round thelock. Soon, her monkeys started disappearing and her research was affected. She found that the monkeysad been trapped and taken away by the MCD their way of keeping monkeys off the streets. "But what Ihen saw was that monkey families were disrupted. The mother is away, the infant is here, the father

monkey unable to take care of it, and so on," says Malik. This chaos caused monkey groups to be divided,


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ne into two and two into four and so on. Their ecological balance thus disrupted by selective trapping ledo what Malik calls "chaotic fission," and they started entering houses to look for food. That is how monkeysame into our homes.

o begin with, the monkeys were shy with Delhi residents, but the people were more forthcoming,welcoming them with food. Malik asked some such people why they fed monkeys. "Lord Hanuman, who

elped Ram defeat Ravan, good defeat evil, has come to our house!" they would say excitedly. But this

eligious enthusiasm lessened when people realised Lord Hanuman gets angry and aggressive when notiven food, helps himself to the fridge and even takes away clothes and causes destruction. "I would seeeople come to Tughlaqabad to feed the monkeys, and give so much food the monkeys won't even eat all,"he says. Later, when monkeys became a menace, she started hearing such complaints as, "God has noear!"

hanks to media interest in the monkey issue, Malik's research brought her such fame in the late 1980shat she would get calls from strangers asking her for advice. "The monkey is in the bathroom and I amfraid," she remembers one such caller say, "what do I do?" Her views on tackling monkeys have beenought by Rashtrapati Bhavan and by the courts. Once, an army officer met her to enquire if monkeys coulde trained to work with landmines. She shooed him away like others do monkeys.


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he walls of the monkey sanctuary in Asola.

While the 1990s saw a proliferation of monkeys, it is not the case that the "monkey menace" did not existarlier. A quick dip into the archives shows a report in The Miami News from 1950 titled, "New Delhi Seek

Monkey- Catcher." There reportedly hadn't been any monkey catchers since 1947, and when they foundne, a Muslim, he soon left for Pakistan. Hindus wouldn't take up the job, because, well, how could they beormenting Lord Hanuman? The report said, "Besides perpetrating such annoyances as swiping golfballsght off the greens, the monkeys are occasionally vicious. Captured monkeys will be deported rather thanilled. Municipal president Yudhvir Singh thinks they might bring some much-needed dollars in U.S. trade."

Which points to the original sin that Iqbal also discovered: around the time India became independent,ndian monkeys became slaves to American scientific research. One of the first studies on the Rhesus

macaques in India, by an American anthropologist in the 1920s, said that monkeys were present in groupsn forest areas from Delhi to Dehradun. These groups or monkey families were disturbed by the Americanemand for middle-aged male monkeys. "I found that the sex ratio of monkey groups was not normal, and
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articular age groups were being taken out [of the country] for years," says Iqbal.

hat was when she started her research in 1980, two years after the devout Hindu Prime Minister, MorarjiDesai, banned monkey export to the US. The ban happened partly because of reports from the US thatmonkeys were being used not just in vaccine experiments but also by the US army to test the impact ofweapons, in contravention of the agreement between the US and India on the monkey trade. American

ewspaper archives suggest that the number of Indian monkeys taken out ranged between 20 000 and 50

00 a year.

Add to that the realisation that a lot of today's central and south Delhi was once jungle and the naturalabitat of the monkeys, forests, were replaced by Hanuman worshippers as the monkeys' source of food,nd there are plenty of reasons why the simians should live amongst us.

he MCD and NDMC's inability to see the root of the monkey problem means that monkey catchers withages, bait and sticks only make the problem worse; dividing groups makes them more aggressive. Andatching and releasing them elsewhere also spreads the problem, as do langurwalas , introduced in 2001

whose langurs frighten off the smaller rhesus monkeys, and send them running.
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angurwalas, like Lakhan, who is about 18, are hired to scare away rhesus monkeys with their langurs.

n 2007, the Delhi High Court passed an order asking civic agencies in Delhi to ready monkey traps in tenays and to start shifting monkeys to a newly created monkey sanctuary in Asola, on the outskirts of Delhi.his was after the Supreme Court had transferred its own monkey case to the Delhi High Court,xasperated with several state governments' refusals to take Delhi's monkeys. On the Supreme Court'srders in 2004, 250 monkeys had been shifted to the Kuno-Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary near Gwalior in

Madhya Pradesh. When the Supreme Court ordered another 300 monkeys to be shifted there, the MPovernment refused; it said they disrupted the park's ecological balance.

n February-March 2007, the matter had become urgent. Three hundred monkeys had been lying in cagesn Rajokri in Delhi and had to be moved somewhere. So began the relocation of the monkeys to Asola.

he Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary is where Delhites go on weekends for bird-watching. It is such a largeanctuary you may not see monkeys, because they have been settled at another end. To get there, you


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must go to Chattarpur and keep driving straight for about 14 kilometres, past a Hanuman temple (!), untilou hit a dead-end near Bhati Mines. Drive through the village there and you'll come to a tall, sturdy wall ofreen sheets enclosing an area, with a built-in gate.

Monkeys on the outside of the sanctuary.

You could be forgiven for thinking this is a secret military installation. But the door is at times open. Childreno in to fetch water. Monkeys come out for reasons they know best. Despite the open gate, the monkeyslimb up the sheets. They try to pull them down. They do so in unison and sometimes on their own, pullingo remove them from the iron structure that holds them. This is a jail, and jailbreak is common. No wonderhe monkeys find their way into the city again.

ust as no one can simply enter and meet the inmates of a jail, entry here is prohibited. The guards call upheir superior, who tells me no one is allowed in, and gives me the number of D M Shukla, Delhi's chief

wildlife warden.
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One of the guards says a monkey once bit him. In the village just outside the reserve, monkeys try tonatch rotis from kids and from the women making them for breakfast before their children go to school.he women respond by brandishing their lathis. The monkeys careen through the neighbourhood as one

esident says, using "the [electrical] wires like the Metro, causing us outages." Every second person hereeems to have been bitten by a monkey at least once. Dr Samar Sarkar of the neighbouring Fatehpurrimary Health Centre says he gets at least ten monkey bite cases a day.

DM Shukla sits in a government office at Vikas Marg. He is incensed that the subject of monkey bites iseing brought up. He says that since 2007, 13 537 monkeys have been sent to Asola. He is not willing toiscuss much beyond. "There is no problem with monkeys. We're following the court orders. Why don't you

worry about real problems such as national security?" he asks.

learly, monkeys have been escaping, defeating the purpose of the sanctuary? "You can't put them in arison," he says. "They like to go out but eventually return because the food source is here."

He says enough food is provided in the sanctuary; but the trees planted for self-sustenance will take five toen years until fruition. According to court orders, Hanuman bhakts deposit food at the Hanuman Temple in

onnaught Place and Yamuna Bazar on Tuesdays and Saturdays, then the authorities deliver it to themonkey sanctuary in Asola. The authorities are to arrange for food if this collected food falls short. It likely

oes, if the monkeys have to snatch rotis from two year olds. What also attracts monkeys out of theanctuary is the food left by Hanuman bhakts at the nearby Hanuman temple.


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ikander Singh, 27, lives next to the sanctuary. His son was bitten when the monkeys first came in 2007.

qbal Malik had given the Delhi government a detailed plan for how the Asola sanctuary should be planned,ut she says none of it has been followed, because of which monkeys are still going out. She is not allowednto the sanctuary either.

onya Ghose of the Citizens for the Welfare and Protection of Animals, an NGO, is one of four members ofHigh Court-appointed committee to oversee the monkey relocation. She insists that Asola is India's most

uccessful monkey translocation programme, but admits that monkeys are not being caught in groups, andhat remains a problem. They're training the monkey catchers better, she says.

Ghose estimates that there are at best 5 000 monkeys remaining in the city limits. However, just a yearfter the translocation began, she was quoted as saying: "There are hardly any monkeys left in the city. Aew stragglers can be spotted but that's about it."
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he Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, could conduct a monkey census in Delhi but hasn't been asked to.n the absence of numbers, and with the authorities not allowing any external scrutiny at Asola, it is difficulto believe that Delhi's monkey problem is over. A few minutes at the gate of the monkey sanctuary,owever, make it clear that for the monkeys it is a problem by itself, an imprisonment for the misdeedsommitted by their more developed form.

And the problem is certainly not over for residents who still have monkeys as unwelcome guests. In late

010, Dr Pratul Sharma in Mayur Vihar was showing his child how they could stand next to the ResidentWelfare Association (RWA)-hired langurwala 's langur, and it would not bite. The langur leapt and bit Drharma on his arm. The RWA fired the langurwala . Soon, the monkeys returned in droves. A maid wasassing by when a monkey, crouching behind a car, ran out and bit her. She was down with fever for days.he RWA was in a fix and called the MCD for help. The MCD sent across their langurwala. "Now myhildren are afraid to venture out as they are afraid of both monkeys as well as the langur," Dr Sharma toldnewspaper.

he gate of the monkey sanctuary.
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11/46//scroll.in/article/672459/Why-the-Indian-Parliament's-monkey-problem-has-no-easy-solution

Shivam Vij Yesterday 09:50 am

HUMAN-ANIMAL CONFLICT

Why the IndianParliament's monkeyproblem has no easysolutionParliament can scare away the monkeys, but whereParliament can scare away the monkeys, but whereshould they go?should they go?

Everything you can say about India, the opposite is alsotrue. In keeping with this dictum, the Parliament of Indiaoutlawed capturing or using protected animals suchas langurs in 1972, but continued using langurs to driveaway the monkeys that surround the Parliament building

Photo Credit: Sajjad Hussain/AFP
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itself. At long last Maneka Gandhi got into the act, this January, and made the New Delhi Municipal Corporationgive up the practice. The Parliament of India is now usingtrained men to mimic langurs and scare them away,while also shooting rubber bullets that would stun them.

The metaphor is irresistible: in the way ourParliamentarians sometimes behave, the joke they havereduced the legislative process to, the monkeys representwe the people. Except that the monkeys trouble us too. Innot just Delhi but many parts of India, monkeys are socommonplace in urban areas we dont even find itbizarre. We think of them as other animals in our midst.This was not always the case.

Two years ago, I visited Iqbal Malik, Indias best knownprimatologist, to understand the roots of the problem. Thestory begins in the 1920s, when American scientists,Malik told me, first started taking out monkeys fromnorth India for research. The scientists usually wantedmonkeys who were neither old nor young, and preferred

male monkeys to conduct their experiments. Thisdisrupted monkey families from Delhi to Dehradun. Asmonkey families were divided and as India began tourbanise, the monkeys came out to the urban areas,where looking for food wasn't as easy as it was back inthe forest.

Newly independent India, a poor country badly in needof foreign exchange, was happy to export monkeys to theUnited States. At its peak, as many as 50,000 monkeys ayear. That is how much we disrupted the monkey ecology.Eventually, this stopped not because we were concernedabout ecology, but because of Lord Hanuman. Whileanimal rights activists in the United States had been



protesting the use of Indian monkeys, prime ministerMorarji Desai was being moved by religious groups inIndia. The Americans had promised they won't use themonkeys for defence research, but they were foundviolating the promise. American scientists used IndianRhesus macaques for decades to test everything from the

functioning of the brain to cosmetics. The monkeys oftendied.

The Americans arent to be blamed alone, of course. Thereason why theres such a dearth of monkey catchers inIndia is also religious. How could anybody be catchingand imprisoning Lord Hanuman? For some years after1947 central Delhi did not have a monkey catcher becausethe lone monkey catcher, a Muslim, went away toPakistan.



In the late '80s and early '90s, rapid urbanisation meantthat the monkey menace exploded. It wasn't that monkeyshad invaded Delhi, but Delhi was cutting down the greensand invading their habitat. The problem was worsenedbecause custom says that Lord Hanuman is welcomed

with bananas. People did this when the monkeys camehome, only realising later that monkeys could beaggressive, dangerous, powerful, and that they bite! Theyalso steal, from your terrace and even from your hands. Adeputy mayor of Delhi once died because he fell from histerrace while warding off a monkey. Monkeys haveinvaded the Delhi metro and the defence ministry alike.

Missing the woods for the treesWhy can't Delhi solve its monkey problem? Delhi hastried everything but, Iqbal Malik says, unscientifically.The way they catch monkeys, the way they trap them, theway they release them, making it possible for them toreturn. There's also been some great Indian corruption:the monkey catchers get paid per monkey, so it is in their

interest that the monkeys return. And of coursecontractors are hired to go find monkey catchers from thelowest castes in Rajasthan and other states.

The main problem with these methods of scaring awaymonkeys, whether it is done through langurs or menmimicking langurs, is that this makes the monkeys even

more aggressive and violent. You can drive them awayfrom Parliament and the offices of central Delhi, fromDelhi as a whole, perhaps, if you employ enoughmanpower to scare them away. Yet you can't wish themaway, they will return. A nuclear armed republic with theworld's second largest population can't have this passiveaggressive relationship with the monkeys whose forests it



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destroyed to make cities.

The monkey menace reached its peak in 2007, and as aresult the Delhi High Court got into the act. It was foundthat civic agencies were capturing monkeys and keepingthem in cages in the heat because they didn't know what

to do with them. The court asked them to be sent to theKuno-Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh, andalthough the Madhya Pradesh government was givenmoney to take away our monkeys, they came backpleading that they can't do this. The monkeys weredisrupting the ecological balance of the sanctuary. Otherstates too refused to take Delhi's monkeys. That questionremains moot. The mimic men will satisfy ManekaGandhi, but where on earth will Parliament's monkeysgo?

A wildlife sanctuary for Delhi's monkeysIsn't there a wildlife sanctuary in Delhi, the Delhi Highcourt then wondered. Thus Delhi's monkeys were settledin the Asola-Bhati wildlife sanctuary. It's in one end of

Chattarpur, that corner of south Delhi near Mehrauliwhich today is more famous for its wedding venuefarmhouses than for the Chattarpur temple complex. Keepdriving inside Chattarpur and you will find a temple of you guessed it Lord Hanuman. You will begin seeingmonkeys. Keep driving and you will see a dead end,called Bhati mines. Huge green sheets and a gate that's

often open. Hordes of monkeys. Emergency-era resettledslum dwellers and a whole settlement of Pakistani Hindurefugees, all complaining about monkey bites.

The Delhi government's wildlife department will notpermit you to go inside, even if, or perhaps especially if you are a journalist. You discover you don't have to go
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why these monkeys were doing this to me. Her answersmade me stop cursing them.

The New Delhi Municipal Corporation now pays Rs 1.2lakh per month to the Delhi wildlife department todistribute food to the monkeys in the north Delhi ridge, so

that they stay there. Thats a lesson learnt after over sixdecades of fighting with monkeys. Yet if the Parliament of India and the city of Delhi want to solve their monkeyproblem, the authorities should go to Iqbal Malik. Theywon't. Malik fell out with Maneka Gandhi at some point.

While researching the story I wrote two years ago, I calledup Maneka Gandhi. While framing my question beforeher, I made the mistake of using the phrase monkeyproblem, even though by now I had become sympathetictowards monkeys, thanks to Iqbal Malik. Gandhi said thatI had already decided that monkeys were a problem soshe wont waste her time on me, and disconnected thephone. I called her back, and explained that I wanted tounderstand what she had to say. No, she replied, I

think you have already made up your mind.

(Delhi's monkey business has made great copy for journalists since 1950. For foreign correspondents inIndia, it is a must-do exotic story. Samples of Indianmonkey journalism in the foreign press can be read onthe blog, The Monkey Inspector's Report .)

We welcome your comments at [email protected].
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he monkey inspector's report

a simian history of journalism in india

/07/2013LEAVE A COMM

UNCATEGO

MONKEYING WITH BIDENS SECURITY (2013)

merican Vice President Joe Biden meets monkey journalism.

MONKEYING WITH BIDENS SECURITY by Biman MukherjiWall Street Journal / India Real Time July 23, 2013

The security around Joe Bidens visit to India may be among the tightest in the w orld, but it faunanticipated threat during the U.S. vice presidents first engag ement a pack of monkeys.

Mr. Biden started a four-day visit to India Monday with a trip to the Gandhi Smriti, a memorialthe leader of Indias freedom movement at the site where he was assassinated in New Delhi in 194

In what could be described as bad timing, about a dozen adult monkeyssome with babies in towtook a fancy to thick clusters of raw mangoes hanging on a tree above a tall statue of Gandhi, before the American dignitary was due to rea ch the spot on his carefully choreographed walkaof the site.

But, oblivious to the high-profile visit going on beneath them, the creatures gamboled on branches swinging from one to another, bombarding the area around Gandhis statue with unripmangoes as they bit into the raw fruit and discarded the leftovers. Then three of the monkesuddenly swept down from the branches on to a 10-foot high bamboo frame, covered with a whcloth, erected as a backdrop to the statue.

What I dont want is a mango to drop on the vice president when he comes here, said an Indisecurity official as he warily eyed the furry creatures, who are regarded by many in the Indian capi
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as a menace.

Langurs, larger monkeys, and their owners were hired to keep smaller rhesus macaque monkeaway from government buildings in the city, where they have been known to break in cause havoBut, according to reports, Indias wildlife and forest ministry has recently banned the use of Langin this way, causing the macaque problem to return.

As Mr. Biden and his wife walked towards the statue, and the monkey filled mango tree, Mond

evening, photographers trained their cameras on the couple with a glint of anticipation. But no frfell from the tree as the U.S. vice president posed for a few seconds in front of the statue. Perhapssecurity team had that covered too.

agged Joe Biden , langur , mangoes/05/2012

LEAVE A COMMUNCATEGO

RED TAPE TANGLES INDIAS MONKEYS (1958)

legend of American journalism files one of the earliest dispatches from the monkey beat.

RED TAPE TANGLES INDIAS MONKEYS

Policy Shift Strands 5,000 Animals at Airport on Way Abroad for Medical Use by AM RosenthalNew York TimesMarch 2, 1958

NEW DELHI: More than 5,000 small monkeys and two chartered planes have been grounded at NDelhis airport by Government red tape. It may be a break for the monkeys but it is driving exporters frantic.

The animals represent an investment of more than $50,000. They were on their way to laboratoriethe United States and Britain to be used in the production of Salk anti-polio-myelitis and other typof vaccines. India, a country where monkeys are almost as common a sight as pigeons at New YorForty-second Street library, is a vital supplier to the worlds laboratories.

But the fact is that the business of catching and shipping monkeys abroad has never been a popuone here. To tens of millions of Indians, monkeys, despite their mischievous marauding, deservspecial place of affection.
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The monkey god, Hanuman, is one of the best-loved gods in the Hindu religion and there atemples to him all over the country. In the Hindu epic, the Ramayana, the monkey king Hanumand his hordes helped the God Rama rescue his wife from the clutches of the demon god Ravana.

Despite the widespread public dislike for the export of monkeys, the Indian Government hrecognized their importance in medical research and vaccine production. Licenses have been granto a group of exporters to handle the business.

But the latest shipments of monkeys were stranded at Palam Airport just before they were schedulto take off in special planes. The exporters were informed suddenly that monkeys weighing less thsix pounds could not be sent abroad. Most of the monkeys awaiting shipment fell into that category

The government said that monkeys less than six pounds were not useful for vaccine production aresearch purposes. The exporters denied this hotly.

According to the exporters, the foreign laboratories had specifically asked for small monkeys. As put it: Would I be spending hundreds of thousands of rupees in monkeys nobody wanted?

The exporters are pressing the Government to changes its rule or at least permit the strandmonkeys to be sent. In the meantime, every monkey at Palam represents, to the exporters, a loss$10 in catching and shipping charges and of $2 profit.

A staff member of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis said in New York his organizathad been accepting monkeys weighing between four and eight pounds. The foundation imporabout 100,000 monkeys a year for research and vaccine purposes, he said. Large monkeys considered preferable for vaccine use because they yield more kidney tissue, he declared, but smamonkeys are also used in research.

The Lederle Laboratories division of the American Cyanamid Company reporterd that its reseaunit had formerly used some Indian rhesus monkeys in the six-to-eight-pound range but now use Java monkeys averaging about four and one-half pounds.

Henry Trefflich, president of the Trefflich Bird and Animal Company, a large importer of animalsresearch, said he had been informed that shipments from India would now be limited to monkeweighing six pounds or more and that they must be sent five or fewer to a crate. Previously, he sathree-to-eight-pound monkeys were shipped ten to a crate.

agged Abe Rosenthal, Hanuman

/05/2012 LEAVE A COMMUNCATEGO

NDIA CUTS EXPORT OF SOME MONKEYS (1955)
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INDIA CUTS EXPORT OF SOME MONKEYS

New York TimesMarch 11, 1955

NEW DELHI: India has banned the export of monkeys without special permission. The move taeffect immediately.

India has been carrying on a thriving trade in monkeys. The bulk of the exports went to the UniStates for medical research. A monkey that costs $2 here is sold for $4 in the United States.

Monkeys cause extensive damage to crops in India and the Government had allowed their fexport. The aim was to minimize damage to crops and earn foreign currency.

Reports of inhuman treatment of animals while in transit and stories that they were tortured United States laboratories have evoked widespread resentment and protest among Hindus whworship the monkey.

However, the Government will allow export if it is satisfied that monkeys are needed for medresearch and will receive humane treatment in transit.

Official sources said 16,249 monkeys were exported in the year ending March, 1954. More than 80cent were sent to the United States. The number exported in the eight months ending Novemb1954, was estimated at 41,457.

Business circles reacted sharply to the curb. Some exporters experssed the view that it woseriously affect research for prevention of polio in the United States.

Commercial sources said about 50,000 to 80,000 monkeys awaiting shipment from Calcutta, Bomand New Delhi would have to be held back until the Government had considered the case of eaconsignment.

agged "who worship the monkey"/05/2012


MONKEY BUSINESS IN INDIA SENDS THE CULPRITS TOU.S. (1952)

MONKEY BUSINESS IN INDIA SENDS THE CULPRITS TO U.S.

Reuters
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November 4, 1952

CALCUTTA: City police have decided to end the monkey business going on in suburban Hastings

The exclusive residential area has been terrorized by a band of 500 monkeys, which have bmaking organized raids on kitchens, searching for food, smashing crockery and making off wornaments, fountain pens, underwear and even spectacles.

The police have just put the finishing touches on a plan to deport the monkeys as undesirablesthe United States, where they will be used for medical research.

The fashionable Ordnance Club in Hastings whose membership is ordinarily open only to ththose simian ancestry is suitably remote has been forced to enter into an unwritten agreemwith the monkeys, allowing them free use of the swimming pool on Tuesdays. The pool is cleaWednesday mornings and thereafter watchmen armed with sticks see to it that monkeys keep thepart of the bargain.


UNCATEGO

ACRED AND SINISTER SIMIANS ROAM NEW DELHISTREETS (2001)

SACRED AND SINISTER SIMIANS ROAM NEW DELHIS STREETS by Paul WatsonLos Angeles TimesMay 21, 2001

Demigods shouldnt have to suffer the indignities that Indias monkeys do these days.

More than 5,000 monkeys roam the streets, and trees, of this capital city, and to the countrys Hinmajority, each one is sacredalthough its getting harder to tell with so many Indians bad-mouthi

them.Monkeys may be the earthly legions of the Lord Hanuman, the monkey god, but they are amarauding gangs accused of stealing everything from food to sensitive government files, pulling womens clothing, and even killing people.

Its all quite upsetting for one of Indias leading primatologists, Iqbal Malik, who blames humaespecially the species sitting behind government desksfor letting New Delhis monkeys get hookon the good life.
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That is when gods become pests, Malik, 49, said. And that is when people begin thinking: Wto do with them? Kill them. Shoot them. Stone them. That starts an aggressive reaction [frommonkeys], a vicious circle.

Relations between man and monkey got really bad in 1999, when the government hired men wtrained langur monkeys to chase hundreds of slightly smaller rhesus monkeys away frogovernment buildings, where they were sneaking into offices and pilfering Foreign Ministry files.

A year ago, a monkey was accused of killing a New Delhi resident by dropping a flowerpot on head.

Things got worse last week, when rumors about a half-man, half- monkey attacking people in thsleep caused a panic among the poor of east Delhis crowded slums.

Newspapers and TV jumped at the chance to report on something more gripping than the usual faof corrupt politicians, constant blackouts, various insurgencies and the 115-degree heat.

Drawings compared the police version of the monkey-mana4-foot- 6 creature covered in dark h

to witness descriptions that put him closer to 5-foot-6, with long steel claws, black clothes anmotorcycle helmet.

Because the monkey-man reportedly attacked only sleeping people in the dead of night, actsightings were hard to come by. One man who claimed that he had looked the monkey-man straigin the eye said the beast immediately turned into a cat and ran away.

Leading Hindu nationalists insisted that the military intelligence agency in Pakistan had sent monkey-man in a sinister plot to destabilize India. Several members of Parliament demanded that government send in crack paramilitary units to catch the ape-man.

The normally staid Times of India joined in Wednesday with a front-page headline that screameMonkeymans Reign of Terror in Capital Growing Daily.

New Delhis police force has deployed 1,000 officers, many of them posted on rooftops, in a speoperation to trap the monkey- man. Unofficially, police insist that he is just a figment of imagination.

But officially, police spokesman Ravi Pawar said there is something more to it, because peopleturning up with scratch marks.

Its a mischief-monger, Pawar said. We are sure to get him. Police arrested more than a dopranksters calling in sightings of the monkey-man over the weekend and are offering a rewaexceeding $1,000 for the capture of the monsteror the guy in the monkey suit.

So many residents are convinced that the monkey-man is real, at least two people have died tryingescape him: In the latest incident, a 21-year-old pregnant woman fell down a staircase to her deTuesday night when a reported sighting of the monkey-man set off a stampede.

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AND GOD SAID, LET THERE BE MONKEYS

by Pamela ConstableWashington PostSeptember 21, 1998

If you arrive at the Tughluqabad ruins even one minute after sunrise, youre too late. Group leadeHukka Singh and Ram Singh have already moved their troops out of the 13th-century fort aheaded to a nearby military shooting range for breakfast.

The drill continues all day, with scheduled stops at various roadside banana stands and marketThen, precisely at dusk, the group of wild rhesus monkeys lopes back to the ruins, scrambles up tparapets and starts settling down for the night amid the crumbling 700-year-old tombstones of KiGhiyas-ud-Din Tughluq and his family.

The monkeys of Tughluqabad are among the last of a breed that once roamed Indias forests by tmillions. For much of this century, they were voraciously hunted and trapped for export, while thehabitats were squeezed by urbanization. By 1983, according to animal activists, there were fewer t200,000 left.

Today, despite a 1978 ban on exporting monkeys, thousands are still trapped each year for domesmedical and commercial research. They are widely used to test eye shadow and lipstick, rabvaccines and birth control pills, as well as chemicals.

Yet many Indians revere the monkeys, and dozens of devotees come each day to Tughluqabad, jueast of the old section of the capital, New Delhi, to feed the monkeys bread, nuts and bananas.

The visitors are worshipers of Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god who is believed to bring strengand good luck. In the Ramayana, one of Hinduisms great epics, Hanuman lifted a mountain to findspecial herb that could save the life of his master, the god Rama.

I come here for peace of mind, said Ashook Jain, 38, a school principal who has been feedingmonkeys every day for 15 years. As he approached the ruins at dawn one recent day, he called oloudly, Ough, ough, and a dozen monkeys bounded down the walls. These are bad times India, and we need to have a powerful god on our side, Jain said.

Just down the road, three men hopped off a motor scooter and began throwing bananas to anothgroup of monkeys. They said they work in a shoe shop and make offerings on days when they afacing unusual business problems.

Everyone has their favorite god, and the monkeys were our ancestors, too, said the shop managUmesh Kumar, 23, as a chittering pack eagerly surrounded the scooter.

The Tughluqabad monkeys have full-time protectors, watchmen who sleep in the ruins and masure no one harms them. They also have an influential champion in Iqbal Malik, a primatologist wspent years studying them. Often she took her son Vijay along, raising him, she said, like a monkmother with lots of bod contact but an instinctive sense of how much freedom to allow.



Today Malik, 40, devotes most of her time to promoting animal rights, and she has arranged thousands of urban monkeys to return and readapt to forest life. She also acknowledges that tmonkeys can become a nuisance in densely populated areas.

They get so used to being fed that they become aggressive. If you dont feed them they will invyour house, raid your fridge, turn on your water tap, she said. If you try to kick them out, thmay tear your clothes. They are extremely strong.

They are also territorial. The five bands of Tughluqabad, totaling about 300 monkeys, have sepafeeding areas and sleeping places. Within each band, members are highly sociable and respectfurank, yet males often fight over food, choice sleeping places and females who defect to rival bands

The monkeys also are spoiled rotten. On Tuesdays and Saturdays, which Hindu devotees say aauspicious times for making offerings to Hanuman, the Tughluqabad monkeys have been fed many bananas and nuts by morning that they usually vanish to spend the rest of the day snoozing the trees around the ruins.

There is no point coming here those days, cautioned Nanak Chand, a former watchman

Tughluqabad who used to sleep with monkeys curled around him and often returns to visit. Thewont even bother to come down.

agged "revered by Hindus", Hanuman, Iqbal Malik /05/2012


HE MONKEY ON A NATIONS BACK (1998)

r Bedi goes for five. See also: Indias Marauding Monkeys (1993); Romeos Monkey Business Drivesananas (1994); Monkeys Mock Democracy (1996); and Monkeys Go To Jail (1997).

THE MONKEY ON A NATIONS BACK

by Rahul BediThe AustralianMarch 26, 1998

NEW DELHI: A pack of alcoholic monkeys create havoc on a daily basis in the Excise Departmlaboratory in New Delhi, guzzling liquor samples brought in for testing and going berserk whdenied their daily drink quota.

Excise officials said that despite security, the pack of seven monkeys who have lived near laboratory for years manage to get inside and get drunk on hundreds of liquor samples.
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27/46 Pa//indiansfeedthemonkeys.wordpress.com/

More than 100 police stations send moonshine seized from bootleggers to be tested at the laboratowhich also services scores of drug companies that send samples of alcohol-based substances usedmedicines.

Each monkey must have drunk hundreds of bottles by now, a laboratory official said.

He said the monkeys became violent when unable to get a drink and moved into the office complransacking and destroying everything in sight.

All attempts to deal effectively with menacing monkeys here and in several other places across Inis hampered by the reverence with which they are held by Hindus, Indias majority community.

Hindu religious sentiment associates monkeys with Hanuman, the monkey god who was LoRamas fearless and loyal assistant in his battle against Ravana, the evil god king of Sri Lanka .

There are thousands of Hanuman temples across India and every Tuesday is reserved for tworship of him.

Meanwhile, wildlife authorities in Patiala, a northern town in Punjab State, some 322km northDelhi, where monkey business is rampant, have come up with a special jail for criminal simiawho are incarcerated for varying periods before being declared fit enough to be released bainto society.

There are an estimated 50,000 monkeys in Punjab, almost all wild, the largest number being in Patdistrict. Their numbers have increased after monkey exports were banned in the late 1980s.

Led by ringleaders, usually the biggest and most vicious of the pack, monkey gangs chalk out thpatch in crowded neighbourhoods across the State and terrorise everyone around.

Monkeys also menace Delhis corridors of power and spread mayhem on the campus of the nearAll India Institute of Medical Sciences, Indias flagship research institution.

Officials walk warily down passageways in the north and south blocks of the Indian governm buildings housing, among others, the prime ministers office looking apprehensively over thshoulders for fear of being set upon by marauding monkeys hiding in niches.

The animals chase doctors and nurses at the Institute of Medical Sciences and patients in poperative wards sometimes surface from anaesthesia only to be greeted by grinning monkeys in th

beds.agged "revered by Hindus" , Hanuman, Rahul Bedi/05/2012

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MONKEYS GO TO JAIL (1997)

MONKEYS GO TO JAIL

by Rahul BediSouth China Morning PostAugust 20, 1997

Monkeys arrested for anti-human activity across the northern Indian state of Punjab summarily locked up in a special jail in Patiala, and held until they are fit to be released back society.

One hard case inmate taken from Punjab Agricultural University campus at Ludhiana for attackistudents has been at the jail, about 320 kilometres north of Delhi, for nearly a year.

A ferocious pair, captured from a Patiala neighbourhood for stealing handbags and lunch boxes, areportedly being considered for parole.

Officials said they had been inundated with complaints about rogue monkeys from across Punjab bdid not have enough manpower to deal with them all.


UNCATEGO

DRUNKEN MONKEYS WREAK HAVOC IN EXCISEOFFICE (1998)

DRUNKEN MONKEYS WREAK HAVOC IN EXCISE OFFICE

Deutsche Presse-AgenturMarch 21, 1998

NEW DELHI: Monkeys who got high on samples of liquor brought for testing in Delhis exciseare making life miserable for the citys excise department officials, reports said Saturday.

The monkeys addicted to booze become violent when they do not find liquor. One official got a taof it when a huge monkey jumped into his room and started tearing files in a rage at not being ableget a drink, the Hindustan Times reported.
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The simian was joined by seven others who wrecked the office at leisure for over an hour. Exoffice staff say the monkeys get violent the day they do not get liquor.

The monkeys are permanent residents of this place. They roam around freely and no one stothem. Slowly they became addicted to alcohol samples which were brought for laboratory testing official said.

They are just like humans. There are times when they cant manage to enter the laboratory. Ththey move into the office complex and start destroying office property an official said.

After ransacking the office they usually move out and even cut the telephone wires by biting themthe official said.

The laboratory is literally overflowing with alcohol. Hundreds of alcohol samples sent by police aseveral pharmaceutical companies who use it to manufacture medicines. The apes have a field dwith booze as intimidated excise officials watch helplessly.

Besides getting drunk, the monkeys also destroy samples sent for testing their quality, authorit

said.All attempts to catch the tipsy monkeys have failed. Several plans were chalked out to nab them bthe simians proved smarter, officials said.

As officials are working overtime to capture the monkeys the animals are making merry. Going the rate at which they have been drinking the alcohol samples, each monkey must have druhundreds of bottle by now an excise office employee said.

/05/2012


MONKEY BUSINESS ON INDIAN BUS (1996)

a newspaper reported yesterday.

MONKEY BUSINESS ON INDIAN BUS

The Australian January 15, 1996

NEW DELHI: A monkey climbed onto a crowded bus in the Indian capital, urinated on the head opassenger and attacked two other people who tried to take its seat, a newspaper reported yesterday.

/05/2012
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DONT MESS WITH THE MONKEY (1996)

he third instalment of Mr McGirks simian trilogy, after Coming to Grips With All This Monkey Busine990) and Police End Romeos Monkey Business (1994).

DONT MESS WITH THE MONKEY

by Tim McGirk The Independent June 7, 1996

If Rudyard Kipling were writing about India in the late 20th century, he might be tempted to chanthe Jungle Book around. Instead of having Mowgli, the man-cub, raised by wolves in the junKipling might be inclined to tell tales of the monkeys living in New Delhi who have become eehuman.

Monkeys and men have co-existed for so long in India that, inevitably, the primates have acquirsome human traits. As Iqbal Malik, a primate specialist, explains, In the forests, monkeys are creatures, but in the city they become very confident and quite aggressive. They will try to pull owomans sari.

You find monkeys riding public buses, like morning commuters. Wisely, they seem to mimpoliticians in their choice of habitat and behaviour. While in Bombay they might take a businessmen, even a monkey is smart enough to figure out that in the capital, it is the politicians ware highest on the food-chain. You find thousands of monkeys living around the North and SouBlock bungalows used by the MPs.

Monkeys have even invaded the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the regal old viceroys palace which is nused by Indias president. They importune the president when he strolls through his rose gardenand even his crack commando bodyguards, with their karate kicks, cant shoo them away. And julike MPs in any country the monkeys periodically swagger into the government ministries, ripp

out long-forgotten files and causing much fuss in whatever office they visit.Urban living affects the monkeys the same way it affects humans: they become more aggressive ashort-fused. In other words, monkeys in New Delhi experience road rage.

You dont find monkeys driving yet. But the commuting monkeys get just as exasperated wpublic transport as do Delhi-wallahs. Thus, one monkey hopped on the same bus every morninchose the same seat and got off at the same stop. The other passengers were accustomed to this. Oday, the monkey swung onto the bus as usual and found another commuter in his seat.
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Using tact and gentle manners, the monkey politely tugged at the interloper and tried to get him move. The man refused and committed the cardinal sin of primate etiquette: he looked the monkstraight in the eye. Never look a monkey straight in the eye. Its even worse than laughing out loudtheir shiny, red bums. You are challenging his dominance, begging him to sink his teeth into yoface.

Need I say more? The monkey got his seat back.

This was not an isolated case of monkey road rage, either. A fortnight ago, bus number 260 pulled outside the Railway Ministry near India Gate and, along with the other passengers, a monkclambered aboard. The bus conductor happened to forget another rule of Monkey Dos and Donnever resort to violence unless, mafia-style, you plan to exterminate the monkey and all its relativor you plan on leaving town immediately after. He messed with the monkey.

The next morning, the monkey was back at the Railway Ministry bus stop. Teeth bared, the monk jumped onto every bus that halted until he found the one with his conductor. (There is a secoversion to this story, which appeared in the Indian Express, in which the monkey returns wreinforcements, a platoon of other male monkeys. This exaggeration could have been spread by conductor himself. It is, after all, rather embarrassing to go one-on-one with a member of a sqlower species and lose.)

This monkey did a very bright thing. He went for the driver first, knocking his hands off the wheand forcing him to stop the bus. (I suspect that the the monkey picked up this trick from watchiKeanu Reeves in Speed.) Once the bus was stationary, the monkey lunged at the conductor, who flin panic. He took refuge in a jeep, but the monkey forced him out.

For the most vivid description, I quote the Indian Express: The humiliated monkey went up tocop, tapped him gently on the elbow and pointed at the locked car. Obligingly, the cop went to tlocked car. . . and ordered the man to open up.

Experts Ive spoken to say this is nonsense. Ms Malik, the primate specialist, explained, Monkare apprehensive about men wearing uniforms and boots. Quite right. Monkeys, like people, halearned through bitter experience that asking a cop for help always leads to more trouble.

Anyway, this monkey slapped around the conductor, took bites out of a few painful places, achased him into the railway ministry. From there, the injured conductor limped to hospitYesterday, the monkey was back outside the Railway ministry, pacing angrily. A betel-nut seller

the corner was sure he was waiting for the conductorIts a different kind of jungle out there from Mowglis.

agged Iqbal Malik , Kipling, Tim McGirk /05/2012

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MONKEYS MOCK DEMOCRACY (1996)

MONKEYS MOCK DEMOCRACY

by Rahul BediSouth China Morning PostMarch 22, 1996

An Indian security agency has been assigned an unusual, though formidable, task ridding tNew Delhi Election Commission of monkeys whose maraudings have delayed preparations for nmonths elections.

Officials said the building at Kashmere Gate has been vandalised by monkeys who tore out electrifittings and damaged furniture.

We are apprehensive they might damage valuable election material like electoral rolls, bapapers, ink and stamps, said an official.

The security agency, meanwhile, is considering using special stun-guns to immobilise, trap arelocate the monkeys.

Monkeys are holy for Indias majority Hindu community, which associates them with Hanuman, tmythical monkey-god. One of the biggest Hanuman temples is next to the Election Commissoffices.

agged "monkeys are holy" , Hanuman, Rahul Bedi


UNCATEGO

OO MUCH MONKEY BUSINESS AT INDIAN ELECTIONOFFICE (1996)

TOO MUCH MONKEY BUSINESS AT INDIAN ELECTION OFFICE

Deutsche Presse-AgenturMarch 21, 1996

NEW DELHI: Officials preparing for parliamentary elections in April and May in New Delhi hrun into opposition to the smooth sailing of the pre-poll process from unexpected quartersmonkeys.
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The simians have hampered the pre-election process with their mischief and have put things behischedule, according to reports Thursday.

Preparation of thousands of polling kits, including voters lists, ink, stamps and other arrangemenhad to be put on hold because of the monkeys, Delhis Chief Electoral Officer T. T. Joseph said.

Hordes of simians roaming the area have wreaked havoc in the election office, breaking elecfittings and ripping curtains to bits.

We are apprehensive that they will damage valuable election material like electoral rolls, paper astamps the Indian Express newspaper reported quoting Joseph.

The officials pushed to a corner by the monkeys have hired a private security agency to take carethings. But the private eyes used to tackling all sorts of wrongdoers are at a loss over handling tanimals.

The agency is toying with the idea of using sprays to immobilize the monkeys and airguns to scthem away but is not sure about their effectiveness.

I am not a specialist in animal behaviour. I think we will consult some specialist before offering final plan, the agency chief Arjun Walia said.


UNCATEGO

ROMEOS MONKEY BUSINESS DRIVES NURSESANANAS (1994)

ROMEOS MONKEY BUSINESS DRIVES NURSES BANANAS

by Rahul BediSouth China Morning PostApril 2, 1994

NEW DELHI: A male monkey, christened Romeo because of his fondness for female nurses patients, has struck terror into a north Indian hospital.

Victims of Romeos passionate attacks at SMGS hospital in Jammu say he makes his advances when he sees a lone female.

When rebuffed, Romeo becomes enraged and bites his victims, who then need rabies vaccinations.
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mong omeo s recen v c ms was a -year-o g r v s ng e osp a , u e seems o pre enurses. He has bitten at least six over the past three months, waiting patiently for them in dcorridors before attacking.

Hospital security staff have tried to trap the monkey, who lives somewhere on the sprawling hospitcampus, by offering him bananas laced with sedatives.

Romeo, however, has outwitted them so far, eating the loaded bananas and making off to his seclair to sleep them off.

Hospital staff say they cannot shoot or kill Romeo because of the strong religious sentiments arouwhenever any serious plans are afoot to eliminate him.

Hindus associate monkeys with Hanuman, the mythical monkey god, among the most revered Hindu gods. Hanuman is worshipped in thousands of temples dedicated to him across India, and hspirit is believed to live inside all monkeys.

Patients consider it propitious to feed a monkey, hoping Hanuman will hasten recovery. Even tsuggestion of killing one fills them with dread.

agged "revered by Hindus" , Hanuman, Rahul Bedi/05/2012


OLICE END ROMEOS MONKEY BUSINESS (1994)

POLICE END ROMEOS MONKEY BUSINESS

by Tim McGirk The IndependentMay 28, 1994

NEW DELHI: It was inevitable the Indian press would call the monkey Romeo, even thoughintentions towards women were more menacing than amorous, writes Tim McGirk.

The animal would swing into the wards at the SMGS hospital in Jammu, a town in north-westIndia, biting and pinching helpless female patients.

He also developed a taste for nurses. But the cowardly Romeo would never attack men.

The monkey is considered a sacred creature by many Hindus, and this Romeo was allowedswagger around the hospital as he pleased. Even in the capital, New Delhi, at the prestigious AIndia Institute for Medical Sciences, staff have suffered invasions of monkeys, scampering throwards and ri in the intravenous dri s out of atients arms.
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But finally, after Romeo had injured more than 60 women and children over the past few months, hospital staffs tolerance snapped. They went on strike.

Faced with the hospitals closure, the authorites on 11 May issued shoot-to-kill orders against furry female chaser. But killing Romeo was not easy. Animal lovers and followers of the monkfaced Hindu god, Hanuman, sabotaged attempts by the police to get a clear shot at Romeo. Ansensing that the mood in the hospital had swung against him from reverential to hostile, Rom

clambered off to blend in with a troop of other monkeys.Romeo was safe until his lecherous urges got the better of him. He abandoned his fellow monkand slipped back into town to assault a woman on Wednesday. Witnesses immediately rang thpolice, who gave chase. Forty-five minutes later he was cornered on a window ledge and killed wa shotgun blast.

agged "considered sacred", Hanuman, Romeo, Tim McGirk /05/2012

LEAVE A COMM

UNCATEGO

HAKING THE MONKEY OFF THEIR BACKS (1993)

SHAKING THE MONKEY OFF THEIR BACKS

by Chris Lefkow

Herald Sun (Australia)December 30, 1993

NEW DELHI: Iqbal Malik is determined to put an end to the monkey business going on within Indian Government. The soft-spoken 35-year-old woman is not a corruption-buster, however, buzoologist with a plan to rid government offices of file-shredding and food-snatching monkeys.

Monkeys, which are sacred to Indias Hindus, have taken over the grounds of a number downtown buildings, and Ms Malik, who earned a doctorate in animal behavior from DeUniversity, has been called in to help repel the invasion.

The simians can be seen frolicking on the lawns of South Block, where the Foreign MinistryPrime Ministers office are located, grooming one another on window ledges or badgering passersfor handouts.

They have also been spotted climbing the walls of the presidential palace and raiding fruit treesthe palace nursery.

Ms Malik says about 5000 monkeys have taken up residence in the Indian capital, living in groups
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s x o more an .She blames widespread trapping of monkeys for export and experimentation during the 1960s a1970s for pushing them out of their natural habitat and into the cities.

The monkeys living in downtown New Delhi are indeed a pampered bunch, fed regularly by offworkers with bananas, apples, nuts and the remains of picnic lunches.

The monkeys are revered by Hindus as the avatar of the monkey-faced god Hanuman, a hero of tRamayana epic.

Theyre considered as gods, said Ms Malik. But gods become pests in a very short span of time

They pull your clothes and demand food. Many offices have broken windows, so they enter. Thtear files, they look into files, like spies. Theyre very curious. Low-voltage electric fenshrubbery with thorns, chemical repellants, sterilisation and guard dogs are among trecommendations Ms Malik has made to caretakers trying to make official buildings monkproof.

agged "monkey business" , "revered by Hindus", Hanuman, Iqbal Malik /05/2012


NDIAS MARAUDING MONKEYS (1993)

INDIAS MARAUDING MONKEYS by Rahul BediOttawa CitizenNovember 9, 1993

NEW DELHI: In New Delhis corridors of powers, even the politicians walk warily.

Indias most powerful people are merely so much prey to the bands of marauding monkeys throam the cavernous passageways of North Block (site of the Home and Finance ministries) and So

Block (housing the Prime Ministers Secretariat, Foreign Office and the Defence Ministry.)The reverence, bordering on awe, in which Indias 700-million-member Hindu community holds animals, gives the monkey squads virtually free rein.

The King so dubbed by North Block security staff heads a squad of around 25 monkwhich, municipal officials believe, come from the nearby Ridge Forest.

And they are undisputed masters of most central government offices, says a Home Minis
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Workers on weekend duty are terrified to enter either block alone fearing they will be set uponand often take circuitous routes to their offices. Most women walk in pairs knowing, to their cost, simians penchant for single women.

But the problem isnt limited to government.

Led by ringleaders normally the biggest and most vicious monkey squads range almoskilometre to Vayn Bhawan, headquarters of the Indian Air Force, and to the All India InstituteMedical Sciences, the countrys flagship medical research hospital some eight kilometres away.

Windows of all wards, especially in the post-operative wing, are kept closed against the rovgangs, descendants of escapees from the institutes laboratories over three decades ago. Offiestimates put the monkey population in and around the institute at around 200 but hospital stareckon it to be higher.

It is not uncommon for nurses and patients to be chased by playful often flirtatious monkdown institute corridors. Patients in post-operative wards have often come round to find grinnin

red-bottomed monkeys either sharing their bed or playing with their life-support systems.And over the years, several people have been bitten and then faced a course of painful anti-rabinjections.

Attempts by medical institute security to shoot the marauding monkeys have been abandoned aftangry protests from hospital staff and patients.

Hanuman the mythic monkey god who was the fearless assistant to the Lord Rama in his batagainst Ravana, the evil god king of Lanka is among the most revered gods in the Hipantheon. India has thousands of thriving temples dedicated to him.

When security staff replaced guns with tranquilizer darts, the intelligent animals hid onlyretaliate later by sneaking into wards and destroying equipment and terrifying medical staff.

Attempts to find the monkeys new homes have also failed.

A move to trap and dump them on the outskirts of Delhi was abandoned after protests froenvironmentalists and animal rights groups, who claimed the monkeys would perish if divorcfrom familiar surroundings.


UNCATEGO

MONKEYS TRASH NEW DELHI OFFICE (1991)
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MONKEYS TRASH NEW DELHI OFFICE

ReutersDecember 10, 1991

NEW DELHI: Monkeys attacked an Indian government office yesterday and shredded files wpolice looked on helplessly, the Press Trust of India news agency said.

Monkeys are regarded as sacred animals by many among Indias Hindu majority and roam freelymany towns.

The agency said the monkeys drove officials out of the Public Works Department office in Tezpurnortheastern Assam state, and spent 25 minutes destroying official documents.


UNCATEGO

OMING TO GRIPS WITH ALL THIS MONKEYUSINESS (1990)

COMING TO GRIPS WITH ALL THIS MONKEY BUSINESS

by Tim McGirk The IndependentNovember 24, 1990

NEW DELHI: One of the first visitors to The Independents India bureau swung in from a tree. was a large red-faced monkey. He strolled around the room, saw there was nothing to eat and camout on to the veranda where I was sitting with the previous tenant, a Czechoslovak nurse. Ah, yealmost forgot about the monkey, she said nonchalantly, as it ambled over to our table. He wlarger than my six-year-old boy and had fleas. He likes to pee from the top of the stairs and watcgo cascading down, the Czechoslovak, told my wife and me.

Whatever you do, advised my wife, dont smile at the monkey. Hell think youre baring yoteeth at him. Act of aggression.

I wasnt smiling, I retorted. In fact, I was scheming how to rid myself of the monkey. It woulddo to have visiting ambassadors and politicians hosed down with monkey urine. After that, I begnoticing monkey stories in the newspapers. Monkeys pelting schoolchildren with stones; monksplashing in the swimming pool of a five-star hotel; and a troop of monkeys invading a hospward.
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My first plan was to scare away the monkey. During the Hindu Diwali festival I bought a rocketpowerful that Saddam Hussein could have altered the balance of power in the Gulf with it. I fired trocket straight into the garden tree from where the monkey had first arrived.

What if he came back? The monkey would no doubt consider that shooting a firework at him was even more blatant act of aggression than smiling. I rang the Delhi Municipal Corporation and askif they had a monkey catcher. Friends had told me that snared monkeys were released at the templ

in the countryside, where they had a fine time stuffing themselves with offerings of bananas. Binexplicably, the city authorities referred me to the Animal Research Centre at a medical teachcollege. So I rang. Is your home now being monkey molested? a voice asked eagerly. Not reaIm a journalist. When I said journalist, the telephone went dead. The Animal Research Cewas beginning to sound ominous.

My assistant, Benny, and I went to the Animal Research Centre to scout around. In the hallway thwas a board listing the days experimental victims: rabbits, mice, guinea-pigs and . . . donkDonkeys? Benny went out to the animal pens and could not find any donkeys. But he did fihundreds of caged monkeys. Some had had limbs amputated; others had been surgically tamperewith: their heads and torsos were crudely stitched back together. These hacked-up monkeys weshunned by the others in the cages. I asked the research centres deputy director about his monkeyWhat monkeys? We havent got any monkeys, he said. Well, show me your donkeys, then. showed me to the door.

Later a zoologist, Iqbal Malik, who has been studying Delhis urban population of 5,000 monktold me that the Hindus consider monkeys to be special beings, ranking with snakes and elephanThats because Hanuman, the monkey king, helped Lord Rama to get his kidnapped bride, Sita, bafrom the Demon King of Lanka. If people found out that monkeys were being cut up for scientexperiments, she said, there would be a terrific uproar. Thats why the medical schools neadmit to it. She showed me a photo of a Muslim monkey catcher. He was dressed as a woman, i bright sari. Women appear less threatening to monkeys than men, said Dr Malik.

I asked her why a large male monkey wanted to come and pee all over my stairway. It had occurrto me that perhaps this was the monkeys way of marking off territory; any day I expected itreturn with a troop of 50 fellow beasts. She assured me that this monkey was a loner.

Hes probably quarrelled with the chief monkey, the alpha male, and lost his place in hierarchy, she said. Hes been deprived of the best females, food and space, so he left. I wstarting to feel sorry about using the rocket.

At nightfall I drove to Tughlakabad, the ruins of a fortified 14th-century city the high stone wallswhich had withstood everything but the curse of a Sufi saint. Only monkeys and owls would evlive in Tughlakabad, the Muslim mystic had predicted, and he was correct. It was too early for owwhen I arrived but a Sikh on a Vespa stopped and walked up to the base of the fortress wall, tossi bananas on the ground. The monkeys came, cart-wheeling and swinging down the ancient wall.

Im sure the monkeys would have recognised the smile on the Sikhs face as a smile.



agged Hanuman, Iqbal Malik , simian encounters, Tim McGirk /05/2012


MONKEY MENACE AT SUMMIT (1986)

MONKEY MENACE AT SUMMIT

Chicago TribuneNovember 11, 1986

NEW DELHI: Officials planning security for a South Asian summit meeting are having trouble wmonkeys, the Press Trust of India said Monday.

The news agency said hordes of wild monkeys have refused to be relocated from the Nandi Hiwhere leaders of the seven member-nations of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperawill hold private talks in nearby Bangalore.

The Press Trust said simians captured and moved from Nandi to another area have been returnindespite a security cordon.

The agency said the monkeys also have created havoc in the area where they have been relocattearing up crops and assaulting at least four villagers.


UNCATEGO

MARAUDER MAKES MONKEY OF POLICE (1987)

MARAUDER MAKES MONKEY OF POLICE

by B GellatlyThe Daily Telegraph (Australia)March 16, 1987

NEW DELHI: Policemen are the prime targets of a marauding monkey which has attacked 35 peo most of them in uniform in an eastern Indian town.
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Increasingly, however, the 5 million residents of the Indian capital are not amused. Simian TerPlagues Capital, blared a headline in the Times of India newspaper.

Gangs of monkeys . . . reinforced by fresh groups from neighboring areas . . . have been caushavoc, the report stated.

Letters-to-the-editor columns of the newspapers regularly feature anti-monkey letters from readers

Monkeys have become a major nuisance in the capital, wrote Indraneel Banerjee, 51, in Statesman newspaper. They raid houses and carry away fruit, vegetables, eggs and anything elthey like. Even medicines and sleeping pills are known to be lifted.

Even pro-monkey lobbyists such a Dr. Iqbal Malik, a primatologist at Delhi University who conducted a seven-year study of a monkey colony in the suburban Tughlakabad Fort area, admit ththings have gotten out of hand in the densely populated inner city.

There is a constant competition between human beings and monkeys for shelter and food, she sa

In a strange case of reverse-Darwinism, monkeys have reengaged the humans for primacy, only ttime on the humans home turf. There are those who think the monkeys are winning. WrIndraneel Banerjee, It is difficult to take on these devils, as they come in groups.

The city both the ancient walled section and the new capital area has always had colonies ofagile, big-eared, brown rhesus monkeys.

Monkeys are adored by Indias majority Hindu population, who see them as the descendants of tgreat monkey god Hanuman who helped Rama defeat demon armies in the Hindu epic Ramayana.

Every day, even along walks surrounding the office of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Hind their faces glowing with beatific smiles can be seen feeding bags of bananas and nuts to NDelhis monkeys.

Until 10 years ago, however, the religious love of the monkeys was kept in a kind of ecolog balance by the value of monkeys on the world market, where they were used extensively in scientlaboratories.

In fact, India was once the main exporter of the animal to Western researchers.

However, a 1978 law passed by Parliament under pressure from religious organizations anaturalists banned the export of monkeys. Since then, according to Dr. Malik, their population htripled in the city. She estimates that as many as 5,000 monkeys now live in the capital.

Maliks own study colony in the Tughlakabad Fort area has increased in eight years from 150 to animals. Not only are the capitals monkeys naturally prolific, but they are social animals and rothe streets in troupes of up to 100 monkeys each.

During evening rush hour when people are most likely to feed them scraps of food, they swarm ov



the majestic red sandstone government buildings designed in the Indo-Saracenic style by Briarchitect Edward Lutyens. At twilight, it is as though the jungle had retreated and the Cambodiruins of Angkor Wat have come alive again, complete with monkeys silhouetted on the skyline athousands of people pouring from the doors.

Possibly because of religious sensitivities, the New Delhi municipal corporation has made onltoken effort to combat the monkey menace. The city has one monkey catcher, a well-known locharacter named Attar Singh, 35, who claims to have captured 100,000 monkeys in his long career

For every monkey he captures, usually luring the creature with food, Singh gets 95 rupees ($8) frthe city. By Indian standards, he makes a good living on 20 monkeys a month, he said.

A monkey is an equal adversary, he told the Associated Press. I have to confront them likeenemy. It is an art to trap them. He said that after he captures the monkeys, he releases them in twild miles outside of Delhi.

Dr. Malik, in letters to Prime Minister Gandhi and Parliament, where her husband is a sittmember, contends that Singh breaks up monkey social groups and often separates infants from the

mothers.I have observed cases of death from clinical depression, she said, who advocates capturing whpacks of monkeys and moving them en masse to a suitable rural location.

Some monkeys, however, should be allowed to remain in the city, she argues. There should bpeaceful coexistence between the monkeys and the people, she said.

In some instances, however, peaceful coexistence is not easy.

John Hampton is a diplomat with the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi. He and his wife, Janet, both fOhio, longed for the sweet corn from home that is not available in India.

They decided to grow corn in rooftop boxes at their home, located near a park where there is a larmonkey population.

We bought a Silver Queen variety imported hybrid, Janet Hampton recalled wistfully. We carrithe boxes to the roof. We planted. We nurtured. We fertilized and we began our countdown.

On the day we decided it was ripe we went to the roof, and monkeys had swung in from the woodand were having a feast. She said at first she and her husband attempted to frighten the monkeaway with sticks but they just bared their teeth and made it clear it was their corn.

In the case of Donna Hughes, who was attacked by a monkey in a car not too far from the scenethe Hampton corn massacre, there was little permanent damage.

She jumped from the car. The monkey followed her and ran up a tree.

Fortunately, her son was more amused than frightened.



And after receiving five rabies shots for the open cuts on her neck where the monkey scratched orher (the doctor could not determine which), Donna Hughes is able to smile about the incident.

It just brought things back into perspective for me, she said over coffee in her New Delhi homewas a reminder that we are living in India. We are not living in Canada or the United States whewe can drive along with the window open and be sure nothing will come jumping in.

I dont drive around with my window down here anymore.

agged "ador

monkey inspector's report | a simian history of journalism in india

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