Word: delhi
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Some urban dwellers are taking matters into their own hands. In parts of Delhi, companies are now employing imposing langur monkeys to protect buildings and scare off the smaller rhesus monkeys. "Any langur will do the business," says Zahid Khan, 20, a langur handler who regularly chains one or two outside the Press Trust of India building, which houses TIME's Delhi bureau. "The monkeys are petrified of them...
...part of the cityscape as Mughal tombs and speeding auto rickshaws. Monkeys and humans have long coexisted in India, where Hindus consider the primates sacred. In the ancient Sanskrit epic The Ramayana, the monkey god Hanuman symbolizes wisdom, devotion, righteousness and strength. On most days, devout Hindus feed Delhi's monkeys a feast of bananas and peanuts...
...booming economy opens the country to foreign investment, floods India's cities with new workers and leaves fewer sanctuaries for the local primates, government officials are looking for ways to rein in the monkey business. A few years ago, officials in Delhi started rounding up monkeys and caging them in a large, dedicated prison on the outskirts of the city. Authorities would like to send them to forests in neighboring states, but many are refusing to accept the animals. India's Supreme Court stepped in last month, ordering that 300 entrapped monkeys be transferred to a forest in the central...
...even langur pushers know they're offering only a quick fix. Iqbal Malik, one of India's leading primatologists, estimates there are now 5,000 monkeys in Delhi. Seven years ago, she came up with a plan to create a reserve for the city's monkeys and begin a program of sterilization for selected males. But she says the city fumbled those plans and instead started caging monkeys to create the impression it was doing something...
Given the strains between monkey and modern man, some Indians believe the only solution is to return the animals to the wild. But even that wouldn't end the debate. Environmentalists point out that Delhi's monkeys have become urbanized and may not survive in the wild. Activists also complain that in the process of rounding up monkeys, many are injured and babies get separated from mothers. "We have to tackle this another way," says Gautam Grover, head of the protection group Animal Saviour. "We took their land, we took their trees, we took their forests, and now we just...