Sherni is the realistic lens of portraying the forest, wildlife, and tribal people. The movie starred Vidhya Balan as Vincent Vidhya, who played upright Divisional Forest Officer in a Madhya Pradesh village. The villagers have a constant fear of attack by the prowling tigress named T-12 by the forest department. Vidhya and her team are responsible for protecting the people from the wildlife attack and translocating the tigress to the national park. The film showed the serious issues in our country- The human-Animal Conflict, the politicization of wildlife conflict, the miserable conditions of tribal people, and the reality of the Bureaucratic system & the challenges working inside the forest.
Human-Animal Conflict:
The most underrated issue in the country is the Human-Animal conflict which needs to be discussed widely in a public forum. In this particular issue, both the parties are affected where wildlife struggle to survive due to deforestation, industrial development in the forest region. This invites the wildlife to enter into farmer's fields in search of food where humans became prey at the end. It severely affects the wildlife conservation, safety, security, and livelihood of the people.
In 2018, when six-year-old tigress Avni killed 13 human beings, was later shot dead by a private hunter's son in Maharashtra. This is how the retaliation on solving Human animal conflict is happening in India. As the industrial development and mining in the forest region started growing, there is a shrinkage of water and forest cover. The actual demand for a territorial animal like a male tiger needs an area of 60-100 sq km. But the area allocated to Bor Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra is 138.12 which is barely enough for one or two tigers. This is how wildlife intrudes into the farmland and human habitation in search of prey.
Tribal livelihood:
Tribals in the forest region rely on collecting forest produce and domestic animals for livelihood. They venture into the forest for collecting minor forest produce and allow the goats to graze in the forest region.
In the movie, Vidhya Vincent made an alternate livelihood by creating a self-employment initiative and encourages the tribal women to weave bamboo baskets to reduce their dependence on farming.
TRIFED is a marketing federation under the Government of India to recognize the excellent tribal products and to promote the livelihood of the tribal artisans through marketing and provide support for tribal-made goods. This is how progressive change can happen among the tribal people.
Politicization of Conflict:
The two rival political parties in the village utilized the tiger attack as the political agenda to gain sympathy from the voters. With the Political Bureaucratic nexus, they hired the private hunter to shoot down the T-12 tigress for the political mileage. The greed for power amongst politicians led to the loss of the tireless battle to save the tiger by Vidhya Vincent. In the reality, the wrong man wins and the officer who maintains Probity and Integrity gets the reward " Transfer".
The intriguing film will make you deep dive into the forest, understand the pathetic condition of wildlife and tribals, made you rethink about Wildlife conservations and Human-Wildlife conflict.
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