The inside story: How diplomacy and grit brought cheetahs back to India

The cheetah is a stunningly beautiful animal. A feline supermodel, it can reach a speed of 105 kmph, accelerating from 0 to 95 in three seconds—performance that would make a Tesla take notice. India lost its last cheetahs at the dawn of independence, but the animal's image and prowess have remained etched in the minds of generations of Indians, particularly Indian diplomats. In the main meeting room of Hyderabad House, where India receives world leaders, the dominant painting is of a cheetah by the English painter George Stubbs, commissioned by Lord Pigot of Patshull, the 18th-century Madras governor in British India. The cheetahs that were translocated to India came from near Otjiwarongo in Namibia, home of Dr Laurie Marker's Cheetah Conservation Fund.

The disappearance of the cheetahs had left a void in India’s wildlife ecosystem. The translocation project sought to fill it. Before I left for Indonesia in August 2023 to take up my assignment as ambassador, I had the privilege of calling on Prime Minister Modi. Among the many leads he asked me to pursue with my Indonesian interlocutors was the possibility of relocating some orangutans to an uninhabited island in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. As a diplomat with a forestry background, I immediately understood the logic. Dispersing the orangutans could increase the chances of the species’s survival. It was only later, after reading a fast-paced page-turner by my IFS colleague Prashant Agrawal, that I began to wonder whether the cheetah project had been on the prime minister’s mind when he mentioned the orangutans to me.

My etymological mind was also delighted by what I learnt from the book: the word ‘cheetah’ derives from chitraka, the Sanskrit word for “the spotted one”. Orangutan joins two Bahasa (a Malay and Indonesian language) words, orang (people) and hutan (forest)—literally, "people of the forest".

A diplomatic thriller

Agrawal’s Bringing the Cheetah Back to India: How Diplomacy Made Conservation’s Big Mission Possible is, in many ways, a thriller. The author tells a true story but manages to build suspense, include twists and even a climax in the end. The title gives away the outcome; we know the cheetahs eventually made it to India. Yet the journey is sufficiently suspenseful to make the story engrossing. It is an odyssey that unfolds over many years. I am one of those people with a collection of half-read books. This was not one of them. I finished this roller-coaster ride in one continuous reading.

But the book is much more than the story of how cheetahs came to India. It is a masterclass in persistent diplomacy. Agrawal documents how the Indian ambassador in Namibia, supported by a small but dedicated team, was able to turn a national mission into a multinational effort. He shows, almost minute by minute, how the Indian team built the relationships needed to persuade its hosts to participate in a transcontinental conservation project that had never been attempted before. He seems to have recorded almost everything: meetings, phone calls and even the menu served at India House. The only detail I found myself looking for was the cost of the project, and whether India had to pay Namibia for the cats.

Building a coalition

One of the most important ingredients of the project’s success was the extensive outreach undertaken by the Indian team in the Namibian capital Windhoek. A sense of purpose brought together people from remarkably diverse backgrounds and nationalities. They met everyone who could help. And, eventually, help came from almost everywhere. The Namibian government, of course, deserves enormous credit for finally allowing the translocation to happen. But the presence of an institution such as Marker’s CCF made a huge difference. When Agrawal became involved, there was hardly anyone in India with experience in handling cheetahs. Perhaps, therefore, Agrawal himself became India’s foremost cheetah expert. His passion, knowledge and commitment come through in almost every episode of the book. As a fellow diplomat, I found another aspect particularly heart-warming. Indian diplomats have been involved in many challenging assignments over the years, but very few write about them. By documenting this story, Agrawal has done a great service to his fraternity.

Right from the beginning, the project was hampered by one fundamental problem. Bringing cheetahs to India was India’s priority; it was not Namibia’s. In fact, India’s initial request had been denied. Yet Agrawal skilfully transformed the issue into an important bilateral agenda item and stayed with it through Covid, bureaucratic delays and complacency. He knocked on every door, including that of the Namibian president. He appears to have been possessed by the idea. Failure simply was not acceptable. In the process, he built a coalition of the willing—and the unwilling— to bring a coalition of cheetahs to India.

The power of a word

Then came an even more fundamental obstacle. India and Namibia approached wildlife protection from very different philosophical positions. Namibia follows a conservation model that allows what is described as the sustainable consumption of wildlife. India, by contrast, is fundamentally opposed to legal wildlife consumption. This difference delayed the conclusion of the MoU on cheetah translocation. What initially appeared to be a philosophical divide seemed almost impossible to bridge. This is where diplomacy, at its best, becomes less about winning an argument and more about finding a language both sides can live with. Agrawal proposed a simple but ingenious solution. Instead of “sustainable consumption” he suggested “sustainable utilisation”. The Namibians could accept it. The Indians could live with it. And the cheetahs could move closer to Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park. Sometimes diplomacy turns on grand principles. Sometimes it turns on a single word.

The protagonist, the villains and the heroes

Agrawal is the protagonist of the story. Circumstances are the villain. And the heroines are, of course, the cheetahs. The beauty of the story is that there are very few conventional villains. Everyone is constrained by their own logic. One cannot blame the oil company for refusing to allow the “Queen of the Skies” to take off when payment had not been received. Nor can one blame Namibia’s national veterinarian for refusing to sign the NOC when the quarantine period was incomplete. Each person was doing what made sense from where they sat. Agrawal is different. He sees the whole picture. And he puts together the giant jigsaw puzzle, with its many moving parts. His passion and love for nature keep him going. It comes through at every stage of the story. Anyone else in his place might well have given up. His IIT background clearly helped with meticulous planning. But the book also demonstrates the limits of planning when confronted with bureaucratic obduracy, last-minute changes and the inevitable vacillations of large institutions.

And these came from both sides. If Agrawal had to jump through hoops in Namibia, India threw its own curve balls at him. The last-minute decision to change the airport of arrival from Jaipur to Gwalior could easily have stalled the entire project. Anyone who has handled VIP flights, and in this case a VIC (Very Important Cat) flight, knows how much depends on details such as runway length and ground-handling equipment. Fortunately, Gwalior had a runway long enough to accommodate a Boeing 747. The Indian Air Force was also able to provide ground handling at short notice. That in itself was no small feat. Anyone familiar with aircraft operations knows that stairways and lifts do not always reach the required heights.

Then came another problem. The IAF Chinooks that were supposed to transport the cheetahs from Gwalior to Kuno might be too noisy for them. Who would have imagined that modern American Chinooks could be noisier than the veteran  Russian Mi-17?

A race against time

The moment the cheetahs left the CCF at Otjiwarongo, the project became a race against time. Agrawal and his team knew that the animals could survive the relocation journey for only a limited number of hours. At every stage, something could go wrong. First came the road journey from the CCF in open trucks to the Hosea Kutako International Airport in Windhoek. Then the cheetahs had to wait in the blazing sun because airport authorities would not allow personnel onto the tarmac with the animals until the usual formalities had been completed. Every bottleneck threatened to strangle the project. The time taken to board the aircraft at Windhoek. The flight to Gwalior aboard the Boeing 747. The helicopter journey from Gwalior to Kuno. And finally, the moment when the cheetahs would be released. Everything had to work with clockwork precision.

As the book reveals, the team almost went to hell and back. Many things went wrong—not because of a lack of planning, but because of circumstances. Of course, planning helped, but so did thinking on one’s feet. And resourcefulness. Whenever necessary, Agrawal used his extensive contacts and knowledge to salvage the situation. At one point, a standoff with the fuel supplier at the airport threatened the project. Agrawal resorted to a little Indian jugaad. He remembered that the manager of the fuel supply company knew him from Mauritius. Somehow, the right telephone number was obtained at exactly the right moment. Another problem solved. Another narrow escape. There were many more instances of Agrawal having to seize the bull by the horns—including some mock anger, sleight of hand and dissimulation. All, as it turned out, were part of the diplomat’s toolbox.

When science meets art

What fascinates me most about this story, however, is that every decision ultimately had to come back to one question: What was best for the cheetahs? Should they be sedated or tranquilised during the flight? Should they be given food? How should their crates be designed? Even the size of the crate mattered. It had to be large enough for the animals to be comfortable, but not so large that they could move around excessively. The reader gradually becomes aware of the extraordinary intricacies involved in transporting and caring for wildlife. It is both science and art. And Agrawal, through this extraordinary sojourn, mastered both. Bringing the Cheetah Back to India is therefore much more than a book about bringing a large carnivore from one country to another. It is a story about persistence. About relationships. About finding common ground where none appears to exist. And, above all, about diplomacy. The beautiful animals from a beautiful place came to a beautiful country that had been waiting for them for 75 years. And somewhere between Namibia and India, through the persistence of one diplomat and the cooperation of many others, a remarkable piece of history was made. For nature lovers, it is a must read. For diplomats, even more so.

The author is India’s ambassador to Indonesia.

Bringing the Cheetah Back to India: How Diplomacy Made Conservation’s Big Mission Possible

By Prashant Agrawal

Published by Hachette India

Price Rs599; pages 224