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‘From Catapults to Cameras’: Looking at the wild through children’s lens
Summary
A film about how children from Bengal’s hunting communities are looking at wildlife differently
It was in 2019 that filmmaker Ashwika Kapur got to know about the ritualistic hunting festivals, which take place in the seven south-western districts of West Bengal—also called jangal mahal, comprising areas such as Purulia, Jhargram and Bankura—between January and June every year. The region, which is home to a number of threatened and endangered species such as the pangolin, fishing cat and elephants, wolves, Indian porcupines, Bengal foxes, civets, painted spurfowl, and more, sees a bloody massacre of wildlife when armed hunting groups, comprising thousands of villagers, set out to kill whatever animal they can find.
Kapur, who grew up in Kolkata, had been a long-term volunteer with the notfor-profit group, Human and Environment Alliance League, or HEAL, at that time. The latter, comprising passionate young individuals from Kolkata, including farmers, filmmakers, lawyers and homemakers, has been working on interventions, community engagement, wildlife and environmental crime investigations and filing of public interest litigations in pursuit of environmental justice in Bengal since 2017. The team has been filing PILs to get a ban on hunting festivals such as the Pakhibandh in places like Jhargram.
“When I spoke to Suvrajyoti Chatterjee (secretary and founder-trustee, HEAL), he stated that I wouldn’t be able to understand the scale and magnitude of the hunts until I witnessed them myself. So, we headed to a village in Jhargram, and the mindless massacre—the bloodbath—that I saw there was really numbing," says Kapur. Though the hunters mostly used to hail from tribal communities such as the Santhals and Lodhas, they are now being joined by people from outside— from non-tribal communities—as well, who seek the thrill of this blood sport.
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Kapur and the HEAL team decided to approach the root of the problem. They realised that children were being armed with catapults from a very young age, and encouraged to target any animal in sight. What if children could be inspired to become protectors and not hunters? That was the premise with which Kapur and Chatterjee headed to a village in Jhargram, with a car loaded with cameras for still photography in tow. They decided to conduct a workshop between 2022-23 with five young boys from hunting families and see if they could be encouraged to look at the wild from a new lens.
The transformation and change of heart in these five children during the workshop then became a subject for the film, Catapults to Cameras, directed by Kapur and produced by Roundglass Sustain, a not-for-profit organisation telling stories about India’s natural world to create awareness and support conservation. The 40-minute-long film, shot on a small budget of $4,000 (around ₹3.3 lakh), was recently selected as a finalist in the “Impact Campaign" category of the 2024 Jackson Wild Media Awards—described as “the nature equivalent of the Oscars" by many. The award ceremony was held in Washington DC on 5 September.
What stands out about the film is its honest storytelling. Kapur shows the workshop exactly as it took place. There are some beautiful moments in the film. The viewers are introduced to the five boys—Raja Khisku, Ajay Mandi, Surajit Tudu and Tarash Mandi—hanging out on a bridge with their catapults. Soon after, as the skies turn grey, a gentle beam of sunlight manages to still shine through, and the five cycle across the bridge. The scene becomes metaphorical for the internal journey that they are about to embark on—from the hunting to the conservation mindset. As Kapur and Chatterjee introduce them to the cameras, the excitement is palpable. They have never seen one before. They start by taking images of livestock and move on to other species such as the migratory stork, which is hunted regularly. Slowly, one starts seeing a change take place. Raja, for instance, sees an eggshell on the ground, and worries that it has fallen off a nest. “Mama bird is wondering where did my egg go," he says. This moment takes place just three days into the workshop, and a sense of empathy comes to the fore.
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According to Chatterjee, there was a mixed reaction from parents to the workshop. Some wanted the kids to get involved with bigger hunts and had reservations, but a group of enthusiastic locals supported the team. “It was a coincidence that we found these five kids, and got the permission from parents," he says. Kapur feels that it was their approach that appealed to the people. “It was important that we set out not to preach but to inspire. We never said that we have come in to change your mindset. The idea was to bring in cameras and have fun with them. Every parent wants to see something positive happen for their child, and that’s what happened in Jhargram," she adds. A conscious effort was made to have a team that was local, with two people from the community itself. “It was important to get the right perspective," says Kapur.
The workshop and the resulting film were part of an experiment—to gauge the impact that such an endeavour would have on the community. “We realised that for Roundglass and Ashwika to be present in Jhargram for a few weeks would be an extractive process. We shoot the film, talk about the hunt and leave. That went against the ethos of Roundglass Sustain," says Samreen Farooqui, creative head, videos, Roundglass Sustain, and executive producer of the film. So, the organisation decided to make the Jhargram workshops its first impact project, and take it forward with HEAL.
“We are seeing changes day in and day out. Today, the participants will put up a fight with their own friends, if they see them using a catapult. Parents too are looking to their children as inspiration," says Chatterjee. He shares an interesting instance involving Raja, who argued with his father, “Ei baap tui jaabi na hunt pe (Father, don’t go on hunts)". And indeed his father has stopped participating in hunts now. “These kids have started to redefine cool. Earlier there was a certain masculinity attached with these hunts, ‘cool’ for them was catapults. That has gotten replaced by cameras, and ‘cool’ has become the empathetic emotion association with animals," says Farooqui.
Today, three such workshops have been conducted by HEAL in two villages in this region. The number of participants continues to be five, but the number of workshops has increased. Interestingly, the five original participants have now become mentors to the new ones. They have fit organically into leadership roles. “When we met them, it took us two days to break the ice. For these kids, it takes barely one-and-a-half minute," says Kapur. What started as a film and an experiment has now gone on to become a rolling conservation project.
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