Who could have imagined that Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), one of India’s top two conglomerates and a petrochemical giant, had been quietly rescuing wild animals and housing them at the world’s largest petrochemical refinery complex in Jamnagar, Gujarat? 

Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, RIL chairman and managing director at a press briefing in February announced his Vantara initiative, funded by Reliance. It was described as “an umbrella initiative to focus on rescue, treatment, care and rehabilitation of injured, abused and threatened animals, both in India and abroad”. 

Days later, the Ambanis hosted a lavish pre-wedding celebration at Jamnagar, with Indian and global A-listers in attendance, where the animals served as a backdrop to the party. 

The scale of the venture is staggering. Vantara is home to over 200 elephants; over 300 large cats, including leopards, tigers, lions and jaguars; over 3,000 herbivores, such as deer; over 1,200 reptiles, including crocodiles, snakes and turtles; and a huge number of birds. It occupies 3,000 acres inside Reliance’s Jamnagar refinery complex, and is exceptionally well-provisioned to treat ailing animals.

Reporters who got to tour the facility marvelled at an operation theatre and specially-designed ambulances, hydro-therapy pools, an ayurvedic massage centre and kitchen, all created especially for the elephants.

These reports got some things right – but missed many details ferreted out by an investigative feature supported by the Pulitzer Center, published in Himal Southasian magazine recently.

Why have India’s stringent wildlife protection laws become weakened? There is a plethora of them, starting from the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960 to the Prevention of Cruelty to Draught and Pack Animals. There’s a Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 and rules governing the transport of animals and regulation of performing animals issued in 2001.

Were all 4,700 birds and animals now at Vantara really in need of rescue? How exactly did Vantara source so many of them — and so many endangered species — in just a matter of years? And where do Vantara’s ambitions really stop?

The conversation about Himal’s investigations into the Vantara initiative and its implications continues with a panel discussion on “The costs of Reliance’s wildlife ambitions” this Thursday, 4 April, at 7 p.m. IST/9:30 a.m. EST, moderated by Himal editor Roman Gautam.

Panellists include biologist and conservationist M.D. Madhusudan, environmental lawyer Shibani Ghosh, and the journalist who wrote the Himal report M. Rajshekhar, author of ‘Despite the State: Why India Lets Its People Down and How They Cope’ (Westland Context, India, 2019). The discussion is free and open to the public but registration is required.

Illustration for Himal Southasian by Mika Tennekoon; photographs from IMAGO/NurPhoto and Wikimedia Commons

— Sapan News