More importantly, the conservationists have never really understood that the extraordinary diversity of India flora and fauna is not about 'pristine nature' but the result of millennia of human-nature interaction. It is, therefore, imperative we find ways not to isolate but to incorporate the conflicting demands of 'endangered' species and subsequently endangered humans.

But all this has been said before. Rangarajan says the real crisis lies in the narrow social base of the wildlife community. I would argue their intellectual base is even smaller. They refuse to open doors to new thinking or experimentation to find ways to make people and tigers co-exist in harmony. It is correct that the innovative community-tiger centered models of conservation are few and far between. It is also correct that there is no real alternative to the current fence-arm-exclude model India works on.

But it is also true that alternatives will have to be tried out. To take just one example: hotels have sprung up near many tiger reserves, some even promoted by conservationists; some are very expensive and almost all make profits sent out of the local economy. The neighbouring villager may get some side-benefits through ancillary tourism activity. But the people who live in the vicinity of the tiger get virtually nothing. Over time, this use of the sanctuary for tourism - unregulated and unmanaged - will contribute to its destruction as well.

Can we not, for instance, seriously try approaches that will involve local people in owning tourism - not just as guards, sweepers and guides, - but as custodians and managers of its biological and cultural heritage.

Yes, all this has been said before. But, after Sariska - after tigers that have vanished into thin air, or tigers that have been magically conjured out of it to keep the number game going here and in other reserves - this needs to be said again. And again, until conservation's mandarins begin to accept the truth that they need to turn their thinking upside down, or face extinction.