The hunt is almost over. A controlled chaos unfolds and, at the centre of it all, lies a tiger. Blood pooling under its belly, it lets out a roar in its last death throes. The elephants, urged by their mahouts, draw closer. The Englishmen, seated on their backs, strain forward excitedly as the locals, who helped bring in the kill, watch from the sidelines. This is the scene that unfolds in Tiger Hunting in the East Indies (1802), a mezzotint print by the British artist Richard Earlom made from a work by the German painter Johan Zoffany.

Zoffany had toured India in the 1780s, creating several portraits of British officials and Indian rulers. Among his most dramatic artwork was The Death of the Royal Tiger (unknown year), which would later inspire Earlom’s print. Warren Hastings, the first Governor General of India, who commissioned the painting, had wanted a realistic depiction of the “British hunt” in India. So, Zoffany drew from life, witnessing his first tiger hunt in 1784, and participating in another in 1786. His final composition was ripe with the symbolism of imperial control, where “tiger hunting” served as a metaphor for Britain’s growing dominance over native rulers, and indeed, India itself. 

A ‘Royal Sport’

The idea of hunting — as recreation, for subsistence, and as political spectacle — was hardly novel to the Indian subcontinent by the time the British East India Company consolidated power in the region from the mid-18th century onwards. Hunting, particularly big-game hunting, had been a royal prerogative since ancient times. Epics such as Ramayana and Mahabharata remark on hunting as a means of martial training for members of the royal and warrior classes. The association of the hunt with a ruler’s courage and authority is also seen in the coinage of the Gupta dynasty, through motifs of the tiger or lion slayer. By the Mughal era, hunting apex animal predators was seen as a “kingly” act, demonstrating a warrior’s bravery, the ability to strategise, and most importantly, the clout to organise a successful hunt. It was also seen as a military exercise, keeping soldiers on their toes during times of peace, and a means of gathering intelligence on a particular territory, its people, and potential enemies. Last but not the least, the appearance of a ruler in a public space to kill an animal before his subjects, reaffirmed the symbolism of the ruler as the supreme protector of his people.

The thrill of the hunt and its underlying subtext of asserting power quickly made the “royal sport” something of an obsession for British colonialists. Not only did they adopt big game hunting in the subcontinent but also “perfected” it by bringing in superior weaponry. Besides Zoffany’s paintings, two other images illustrate some of the dominant visual tropes that cropped around “shikar” — a word used to refer to both the act of hunting and the object of the hunt, aka the hunted — in colonial India. 

In an illustration from Lt Col Frank Sheffield’s book How I Killed a Tiger, a British army officer lies pinned under an attacking tiger, his gun and hat tossed to the side. Another Englishman and a few locals are shown running away in panic. The image of the officer — Sheffield — pinned under the tiger, evokes the iconography of Tipu’s Tiger, a musical automaton depicting a tiger mauling an English soldier. Made in the late 18th century, likely with specific instructions from the Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan, the automaton was Tipu’s way of incorporating the lore of the tiger, and its association with Islamic and Hindu divinity, with his kingship. 

In Sheffield’s memoir, however, the tiger was simply an opponent he chanced across, and agreed to kill on the request of villagers in the Midnapore district of Bengal. In fact, the book’s frontispiece sets the stage for the story, showing Sheffield, the protagonist, being nearly killed by the antagonist tiger. A later plate in the book shows Sheffield standing up, this time to face the tiger’s charge — the final act before the beast is killed. Subsequent plates show the villagers carrying the dead animal to Sheffield’s quarters and the measuring of the carcass, all signalling a successful hunt. Works like Sheffield’s How I Killed A Tiger belong to the genre of hunting memoirs, which became popular from the 1860s onwards. In such works, textual narratives, illustrations and photographs narrated exploits of British military and administrative officials and their “kills,” particularly predators like the tiger, the lion, and the leopard. 

In contrast to Sheffield’s practically solitary contest against the tiger, the image of a hunt from Prince Albert Victor’s 1890 tour of the subcontinent depicts a row of elephants in the Terai region of Nepal, with its royal guest participating in a hunt. Albert Victor was neither the first nor the last visiting dignitary who enjoyed a lavishly organised hunt put together by a princely ruler using local “resources,” such as elephants, beaters, mahouts, and native helpers. These carefully arranged events — as politically motivated as they were forms of leisure — usually ended with the eminent guests posing for images with their hunting “trophy,” which varied depending on the status of the dignitary. A slain tiger, lion, or rhinoceros were coveted but even deers or several hundred birds could serve as trophies of a successful hunt. These images were subsequently published as illustrations in British newspapers or as photographic prints and albums. 

The Evolution of the ‘British Hunt’

The three images, distinct in mediums and time periods, represent the significance of hunting in establishing the Empire’s dominance over the subcontinent. They also demonstrate how the practice evolved, reframing access to nature in colonial India around who was allowed to hunt what, and when. 

In his study of the relationship between nature and the Empire in Asia and Africa, the historian John Mackenzie suggests a changing degree of participation by the British in hunts in India. By the late 1700s, when the British East India Company (EIC) was jockeying for power, fighting wars across the Indian subcontinent, and playing an influential role in the politics of several regional courts, it was not uncommon for a Company man to be “invited” by a native ruler on a royal hunt to their favourite hunting grounds. It was an exercise designed to curry favour with the Company but also a subtle form of intimidation, where the “guest” could show no fear. 

Simultaneously, a British official who took up administrative charge of a territory, could also be approached by locals to take care of a “man-eating” tiger in the area, a term that became an immediate death sentence for the beast. As British policies brought more and more land under cultivation for agriculture at the expense of forests, it brought the tiger into direct conflict with humans. The classification, “man-eating,” was frequently used — so often, in fact, that the British government appointed officials with the title of “Tiger Slayer” in some regions. Other predatory animals, like wolves, were also classified as “dangerous” or as “vermin” and eliminated in officially-sanctioned hunts. This practice drew on how professional Indian hunters known as shikaris, a hereditary occupation, would travel across regions — under the patronage of local people or rulers —  to kill animals identified as dangerous to life or property. These hereditary hunters were usually from tribes or communities who lived off forest resources and also hunted for food or trade. Since they knew how to track animals and navigate treacherous forest trails, they would be recruited by British officers as part of hunting parties organised to kill animals identified as a threat, or even during hunts for leisure. 

From the 1870s onwards — as the control of power over the subcontinent shifted from the British East India Company to the British Crown — hunting became a space for pageantry, enacted by British high officials. Vast game preserves were set up in many parts of the sub-continent, often in states under the control of native rulers. Luxurious bungalows, hunting lodges and camping grounds were built for the use of British officials and military personnel, visiting dignitaries and the native rulers themselves. By this time, the Indian rulers functioned more as custodians of hunting grounds for the British. For instance, the Junagadh rulers may have taken measures to conserve the population of lions in the state’s forest (the last remaining habitat of the Asiatic lion today), but this was done as much out of a concern for saving the species for its sake as for helping game stocks for hosting British officials for lion hunts, well into the 1940s.

This is why conservation in India, surprisingly, has its roots in hunting during the colonial period. As the numbers of the animals dwindled, sharp criticism began targeting those who hunted for sport.  Some British hunters even turned to conservation work towards the end of their careers. In time, hunting laws became an aspect of overall British policies for the subcontinent, shaped around resource management, land use and land protection. For instance, an animal like the elephant, which the British utilised for commercial as well as military purposes, had a ban on its hunting to protect its numbers.

For rulers of princely states, the incentive for maintaining these hunting grounds and organising hunts was the chance to assert their power and control over their territory in a world shaped by British political directives. The hunt was an important ritual of diplomacy, providing native rulers — whether they were the Ranas of Nepal or the Nawabs of Junagadh — with the means of earning social capital. As the scholar Julie Hughes remarks, for princely rulers in the colonial period, it was a way of connecting their image with the history and lineage of their kingdom’s past, embellishing their own status as “rulers.” Also seen as a social activity, the sport of hunting  lead to the formation of dedicated clubs in cities and military cantonments like Delhi, Meerut, Agra and Ootacamund — the last one, in southern Tamil Nadu, is still active and conducts ceremonial rides instead of real hunts.

The ‘Bloodthirsty’ Tiger and the ‘Manly’ Hunter 

Throughout the 19th century and early 20th century, certain tropes around hunting began circulating through Western literature and art. India’s animals and descriptions of hunts evoked both fear and fascination in Europe. Few animals perhaps encapsulated these sentiments better than the tiger, which became a symbol for India’s “untamed” regions — symbolising treacherous wilderness terrains as well unconquered territories still under native rule. This twin symbolism saw tigers as a threat to civilisation, as defined by the colonial apparatus. 

Unlike the lion, regarded as the “King of Beasts” and linked to European heraldic designs for royal houses and the British monarchy, the tiger was regarded in much less favourable terms. Seen as recalcitrant, cunning and bloodthirsty, it was derided for its stealth and cruelty. As the Empire pushed deeper into the subcontinent’s forest grounds, tigers were often depicted as “man-eaters.” In popular culture, British periodicals and magazines began using the tiger as a stand-in for the dangers of India. After the 1857 Indian Mutiny, Punch ran a political cartoon showing the Indian rebels as a tiger, attacking a White woman and her child — in an identical pose to Tipu’s Tiger — but being defeated by the British forces, shown by the larger figure of a lion. This imagery also drew on the engraving on the Seringapatam medal awarded to participants of the final battle of Mysore (1799) by the Company. In a later painting, Retribution (1859) by Edward Armitage, the bodies of a White woman and child are foregrounded with the figure of Britannia avenging their deaths by killing the predatory tiger. Similarly, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book (1894) depicts “Sher Khan,” a lame tiger, as the malevolent villain who stalks Mowgli, the human child, determined to make a meal of him. 

Tiger hunting, therefore, became an important symbol in the construction of British imperial and masculine identities during the nineteenth century. In memoirs, such as Sheffield’s How I Killed A Tiger and Edward James “Jim” Corbett’s Man-Eaters of Kumaon, the British hunt became representative of the primal struggle of man vs beast. They also helped British hunters to cast themselves in a paternalistic image, as protectors of the vulnerable native populations from deadly animals. Sporting journals and game logs teemed with narratives about the Englishman’s bravery, modelling idealised masculinity, as well as the Empire’s dominance over an unruly land.

In addition, works like Oriental Field Sports by Thomas Williamson and Wild Sports of India by Henry Shakespear presented the reader with an overview of methods for successfully hunting wild boar (“pig-sticking”) using hounds and spears, organising elephant captures, and the techniques (and advanced weaponry) to be used for hunting bigger prey, from rhinoceroses, bears, lions and tigers to bison and nilgais. Books describing field sports were accompanied by illustrations that created a sense of the British hunt. Such visuals depicted landscapes of varied Indian regions as well as its natural diversity. But the emphasis was on the figure of the British hunter, who embodied the Empire’s self-perceived civilising presence in the region, its dominance over the exotic land and its animals, and the superiority of the British body, mind, and technology.

Another stark visual record of the hunt was “the trophy” — the skin, horn, teeth, or taxidermy sculptures of the slain animals. These souvenirs were striking symbols of manliness, which, when displayed, established a hunter’s skill and credentials. These adorned the homes of not only British hunters, but were also displayed in male-only spaces of hunting lodges and gentlemen’s clubs. Coupled with the imagery and literature around hunting, these spaces embodied the implied value codes around what was termed “field sports.” Mastery of hunting skills were seen as the rites of initiation into manhood. They were meant to develop the “masculine sporting spirit” necessary for the consolidation and extension of the Empire.

Photographs, prints, and paintings of British royalty and viceroys often showed them posing with their quarries in dominating poses. Meanwhile, Indians (barring princely rulers who often had similar portraits with animal trophies) were seen as helpers and aides or as helpless onlookers. Such imagery not only served the purposes of personal aggrandisement, but also became a way to distinguish the British hunt from the local Indian hunt. Some early British descriptions of field sports had critiqued the large-scale hunt of local rulers as excessive, but by the late 19th century, the British — particularly the most powerful officials in the region — turned out on hunts that were just as lavish and pomp-filled. However, the British sought to position themselves away from Indian techniques of hunting through the concept of “fair play,” which included hunting licenses that regulated which animals could be killed during hunts, a specific avoidance of killing females and young animals or nesting birds, and by stalking animals on foot to create a sense of a contest between equals. 

At the same time, the British had access to superior weaponry and bullets, and emphasised killing animals with a few, clean shots, rather than indiscriminate shooting, so as to reduce the suffering of the animal. They positioned these ideas in contrast to Indian hunting techniques, critiquing snares and traps as “inhumane” for prolonging the pain of animals. British officials also criticised Indian hunters for not sparing female animals and their young ones. This critique ignored how limited forms of local hunting, using rudimentary weapons, was not for sport — it was a source of food for forest-dwelling communities. 

The British government began regulating access to forest resources, primarily through The Forest Act 1878 and the Game Act 1879. Indian hunting techniques were classified as “poaching,” a criminal offence. However, even though British officials called themselves shikaris, the bulk of the manpower, resources, and crucial knowledge of the terrain, which powered the “British hunt” — in its many variations — came from Indians. The vast history of hunting literature and popular imagery from this period shows how the perception and values attached to a tradition can be appropriated, adopted, adapted — even redefined — but the politics of power that shape them often remain, distressingly, the same.

Rachna Shetty is interested in folk and performing arts, as well as sports and popular culture. She works with the MAP Academy’s Special Projects, with a focus on research and writing.