Bringing The Cheetah Back: A diplomatic tale behind India's ambitious plan

Eight cheetahs from Namibia were released into Kuno National Park in 2022. This book tells the story behind the historic translocation

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

By Prashant Agrawal

Published by Hachette India

224 pages  ₹599

 

The cheetah was officially declared extinct in India in 1952. However, in May 2026, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change issued a press release stating that we now have a total of 53 cheetahs in the country. Of these, 33 were born in India. How did this happen? 

Prashant Agrawal, who joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1998, and currently serves as Additional Secretary (Southern Division) at the Ministry of External Affairs, tells the story behind these numbers in the book Bringing the Cheetah Back to India: How Diplomacy Made Conservation’s Big Mission Possible.  As India’s High Commissioner to Namibia from November 2018 to February 2023, he played a major role in bringing cheetahs from Namibia to India. 

He writes, “Indiscriminate hunting during the colonial period, as well as the loss of the cheetah’s natural habitat, which also saw a decline of its prey base, had a devastating effect on the survival of this delicate species.” Namibia was identified as a source country because it is considered the cheetah capital of the world. India also received cheetahs from South Africa and Botswana but this book keeps its razor-sharp focus on the “translocation” of these animals from Namibia. 

Aspiring diplomats, people working in foreign policy think tanks, and students of international relations would certainly find this book worth reading because the author opens up about various challenges involved in such a high-profile project, and the problem-solving skills that came in handy. He had to be culturally sensitive, build trust, race against time, sweet-talk people with decision-making powers, and be assertive when delays threatened to jeopardise plans. 

Eight cheetahs from Namibia were released into the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh on September 17, 2022. This book narrates, in vivid detail, what transpired behind the scenes leading up to that moment. It is a thrilling story that deserves to be made into a film someday. 

Numerous difficulties came in the way of Project Cheetah. The most significant was the approach to wildlife conservation in both the countries. Namibia’s conservation model is “partly based on what they call sustainable consumption of wildlife”. Hunting animals, including the cheetah, is legally permitted but in a regulated manner. 

In India, “civilisational ethos calls for the side-by-side existence of animals with human beings, with most wildlife revered and protected in some way”. This fundamental difference caused a “logjam” because it was about “a principled position” and not just technical language. Mr Agrawal’s prose makes one appreciate the art of negotiation with tact and mutual respect. 

While he discusses the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) guidelines, the philosophical underpinnings of The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 go unexplored. The book would have also benefited from placing Project Cheetah in a broader historical context. 

Using animals as part of diplomacy is not new to India. Archaeologist Devika Cariapa and illustrator Satwik Gade’s book, Uncle Nehru, Please Send An Elephant! (2021), provides a lively account of how a newly independent India sent elephants as diplomatic gifts to children in Japan, Canada, Türkiye, China, Soviet Russia, the United States of America, and the Netherlands. 

On a positive note, this book does an excellent job of showing how goodwill is earned and milked. Mr Agrawal writes, “India was the first country to accord diplomatic recognition to the SWAPO Party of Namibia in 1985…India’s support was a key milestone that had started the chain reaction of widespread international support, culminating in Namibian independence in 1990.” Moreover, India sent Covid-19 vaccines to Namibia when “the West was hoarding the vaccines” and Namibian President Hage Geingob referred to it as “vaccine apartheid”. 

That said, there is a dire need for a critical study of Project Cheetah that engages honestly with concerns raised by wildlife biologists, conservation experts and animal rights activists about psychological distress, illness and high mortality rates of cheetahs brought from Namibia. As the leader of the International Big Cat Alliance, established to promote conservation of tigers, lions, leopards, cheetahs, jaguars, pumas and snow leopards, India needs to invest in best practices. 

The most poignant moment in this book has the author kneeling down and stroking the forehead of a cub. He recalls, “She looked at me, her enormous, innocent eyes… felt like an ocean of sadness.” He calls this cub “the second daughter I had always longed for but never had”, and names her Kaveri. As someone who is able to see an animal as a “sentient being”, it is surprising that he does not engage deeply with questions of bodily autonomy and consent in relation to animals and their translocation, especially their wish to live free from human exploitation. 

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The reviewer is a writer and literary critic