Salim Ali

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the President of South Yemen, see Salim Rubai Ali.
For other people named Saleem Ali, see Saleem Ali (disambiguation).

Salim Ali
Bombay, Maharashtra, India
SpouseTehmina Ali
RelativesTyabji family
Abbas Tyabji (uncle)
AwardsPadma Bhushan (1958)

Padma Vibhushan (1976)

J. Paul Getty Award for Conservation Leadership (1975)
Scientific career
FieldsOrnithology
Natural history

Sálim Moizuddin Abdul Ali (12 November 1896 – 20 June 1987)

bird books that popularized ornithology in India. He became a key figure behind the Bombay Natural History Society after 1947 and used his personal influence to garner government support for the organisation, create the Bharatpur bird sanctuary (Keoladeo National Park) and prevent the destruction of what is now the Silent Valley National Park
.

Along with

Salim Ali's dwarf gecko
, a couple of bird sanctuaries and institutions have been named after him.

Early life

Salim Ali was born into a

Iskandar Mirza, a distant cousin who was a particularly good marksman and went on in later life to become the first President of Pakistan.[4]

Salim was introduced to the serious study of birds by

yellow-throated sparrow, and showed Salim around the Society's collection of stuffed birds.[5] Millard lent Salim a few books including Eha's Common birds of Bombay, encouraged Salim to make a collection of birds and offered to train him in skinning and preservation. Millard later introduced young Salim to (later Sir) Norman Boyd Kinnear, the first paid curator at the BNHS, who later supported Ali from his position in the British Museum.[6] In his autobiography, The Fall of a Sparrow, Ali notes the yellow-throated sparrow event as a turning point in his life, one that led him into ornithology, an unusual career choice, especially for an Indian in those days.[7] Even at around 10 years of age, he maintained a diary and among his earliest bird notes were observations on the replacement of males in paired sparrows after he had shot down the male.[8]

Salim went to primary school at

Bombay University in 1913.[9]

Burma and Germany

Yellow-throated sparrow

Salim Ali's early education was at

Burma (Tenasserim) to look after the family's wolfram (tungsten) mining (tungsten was used in armour plating and was valuable during the war) and timber interests there. The forests surrounding this area provided an opportunity for Ali to hone his naturalist and hunting skills. He also made acquaintance with J C Hopwood and Berthold Ribbentrop who were with the Forest Service in Burma. On his return to India in 1917, he decided to continue formal studies. He went to study commercial law and accountancy at Davar's College of Commerce but his true interest was noticed by Father Ethelbert Blatter at St. Xavier's College who persuaded Ali to study zoology. After attending morning classes at Davar's College, he then began to attend zoology classes at St. Xavier's College and was able to complete the course in zoology.[10][11] Around the same time, he married Tehmina, a distant relative, in December 1918.[12]

Ali was fascinated by motorcycles from an early age and starting with a 3.5 HP

International Ornithological Congress at Uppsala in Sweden he shipped his Sunbeam aboard the SS Stratheden from Bombay and biked around Europe, injuring himself in a minor mishap in France apart from having several falls on cobbled roads in Germany. When he arrived on a fully loaded bike, just in time for the first session at Uppsala, word went around that he had ridden all the way from India! He regretted not having owned a BMW.[13]

Prince of Wales Museum in 1927[14]

Ali failed to get an ornithologist's position which was open at the

Claud Ticehurst and had suggested that he could work on his own with assistance from the BNHS. Ticehurst did not appreciate the idea of an Indian being involved in the work and resented even more, the involvement of Stresemann, a German. Ticehurst wrote letters to the BNHS suggesting that the idea of collaborating with Stresemann was an insult to Stanford.[17] This was however not heeded by Reginald Spence and Prater who encouraged Ali to conduct the studies at Berlin with the assistance of Stresemann. Ali found Stresemann warm and helpful right from his first letters sent before even meeting him. In his autobiography, Ali calls Stresemann his guru, to whom all his later queries went. In Berlin, Ali made acquaintance with many of the major German ornithologists of the time including Bernhard Rensch, Oskar Heinroth, Rudolf Drost and Ernst Mayr apart from meeting other Indians in Berlin including the revolutionary Chempakaraman Pillai. Ali also gained experience in bird ringing at the Heligoland Bird Observatory[18][19] and in 1959 he received the assistance of Swiss ornithologist Alfred Schifferli in India.[20]

Ornithology

Dillon Ripley
on a collection trip (1976)

On his return to India in 1930, he discovered that the guide lecturer position had been eliminated due to lack of funds. Unable to find a suitable job, Salim Ali and Tehmina moved to

Cochin, Travancore, Gwalior, Indore and Bhopal with the sponsorship of their rulers. He was aided and supported in these surveys by Hugh Whistler who had surveyed many parts of India and had kept very careful notes. Whistler published a note on The study of Indian birds in 1929 where he mentioned that the racquets at the end of the long tail feathers of the greater racket-tailed drongo lacked webbing on the inner vane.[27] Salim Ali wrote a response pointing out that this was in error and that such inaccuracies had been carried on from early literature and pointed out that it was incorrect observation that did not take into account a twist in the rachis.[28] Whistler was initially resentful of an unknown Indian finding fault and wrote "snooty" letters to the editors of the journal S H Prater and Sir Reginald Spence. Subsequently, Whistler re-examined his specimens and not only admitted his error[29] but became a close friend.[30]
Whistler wrote to Ali on 24 October 1938:

It has been a very great benefit to me that we drifted into collaboration largely in its beginning as an accident-when you pointed out my mistake over the webs of Drongo's tail feather-and the mistake has proved to me well worth while. And here and now I must thank you very warmly for making my collaboration a condition of your undertaking the Mysore and Sunderbans surveys.[31]

Whistler also introduced Salim to Richard Meinertzhagen and the two made an expedition into Afghanistan. Although Meinertzhagen had very critical views of him they became good friends. Salim Ali found nothing amiss in Meinertzhagen's bird works but later studies have shown many of his studies to be fraudulent. Meinertzhagen made his diary entries from their days in the field available and Salim Ali reproduces them in his autobiography:[32]

30.4.1937 I am disappointed in Salim. He is quite useless at anything but collecting. He cannot skin a bird, nor cook, nor do anything connected with camp life, packing up or chopping wood. He writes interminable notes about something-perhaps me... Even collecting he never does on his own initiative...

20.5.1937 Salim is the personification of the educated Indian and interests me a great deal. He is excellent at his own theoretical subjects, but has no practical ability, and at everyday little problems is hopelessly inefficient... His views are astounding. He is prepared to turn the British out of India tomorrow and govern the country himself. I have repeatedly told him that the British Government have no intention of handing over millions of uneducated Indians to the mercy of such men as Salim:...

He was accompanied and supported on his early surveys by his wife, Tehmina, and was shattered when she died in 1939 following a minor surgery. After Tehmina's death in 1939, Salim Ali stayed with his sister Kamoo and brother-in-law. In the course of his later travels, Ali rediscovered the Kumaon Terai population of the Finn's baya but was unsuccessful in his expedition to find the mountain quail (Ophrysia superciliosa), the status of which continues to remain unknown.

Label for a specimen collected by Salim Ali during his Mysore State survey

Ali was not very interested in the details of bird systematics and taxonomy and was more interested in studying birds in the field.[33][34] Ernst Mayr wrote to Ripley complaining that Ali failed to collect sufficient specimens : "as far as collecting is concerned I don't think he ever understood the necessity for collecting series. Maybe you can convince him of that."[33] Ali himself wrote to Ripley complaining about bird taxonomy:

My head reels at all these nomenclatural metaphysics! I feel strongly like retiring from ornithology, if this is the stuff, and spending the rest of my days in the peace of the wilderness with birds, and away from the dust and frenzy of taxonomical warfare. I somehow feel complete detachment from all this, and am thoroughly unmoved by what name one ornithologist chooses to dub a bird that is familiar to me, and care even less in regard to one that is unfamiliar ----- The more I see of these subspecific tangles and inanities, the more I can understand the people who silently raise their eyebrows and put a finger to their temples when they contemplate the modern ornithologist in action.

— Ali to Ripley, 5 January 1956[35]

Ali later wrote that his interest was in the "living bird in its natural environment."[36]

Salim Ali's associations with

CIA had a hand in the bird-ringing operations in India.[37]

Salim Ali took some interest in bird photography along with his friend

Mughal emperors. In the 1971 Sunder Lal Hora memorial lecture and the 1978 Azad Memorial Lecture he spoke of the history and importance of bird study in India.[39][40][41] Towards the end of his life, he began to document the lives of people in the history of the Bombay Natural History Society but did not complete the series with only four parts published.[42][43][44][45]

Other contributions

Ali with K. S. R. Krishna Raju, 1975

Salim Ali was very influential in ensuring the survival of the

Pandit Nehru for financial help. Salim also influenced other members of his family. A cousin,[46] Humayun Abdulali became an ornithologist while his niece Laeeq took an interest in birds and was married to Zafar Futehally, a distant cousin of Ali, who went on to become the honorary Secretary of the BNHS and played a major role in the development of bird study through the networking of birdwatchers in India. A grand-nephew Shahid Ali also took an interest in ornithology.[47] Ali also guided several MSc and PhD students, the first of whom was Vijaykumar Ambedkar, who further studied the breeding and ecology of the baya weaver, producing a thesis that was favourably reviewed by David Lack.[48][49][50]

Ali was able to provide support for the development of ornithology in India by identifying important areas where funding could be obtained. He helped in the establishment of an economic ornithology unit within the

bird hits at Indian airfields. He also attempted a citizen science project to study house sparrows in 1963 through Indian birdwatchers subscribed to the Newsletter for Birdwatchers.[56][57]

Ali had considerable influence in conservation related issues in post-independence India especially through Prime Ministers

Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary, the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary[60] and in decisions that saved the Silent Valley National Park. One of Ali's later interventions at Bharatpur involved the exclusion of cattle and graziers from the sanctuary and this was to prove costly as it resulted in ecological changes that led to a decline in the waterbirds. Some historians have noted that the approach to conservation used by Salim Ali and the BNHS followed an undemocratic process.[61][62]

Ali lived for some time with his brother Hamid Ali (1880-1965) who had retired in 1934 from the Indian Civil Service and settled at Southwood, ancestral home of his father in law,

Dosco fraternity and became one of the very few people to be made an honorary member of The Doon School Old Boys Society.[64]

Personal views

Salim Ali held many views that were contrary to the mainstream ideas of his time. A question he was asked frequently in later life was on the contradiction between the collection of bird specimens and his conservation related activism. Although once a fan of shikar (hunting) literature, Ali held strong views against sport hunting but upheld the collection of bird specimens for scientific study.[65] He held the view that the practice of wildlife conservation needed to be practical and not grounded in philosophies like ahimsa.[66] Salim Ali suggested that this fundamental religious sentiment had hindered the growth of bird study in India.[41]

...it is true that I despise purposeless killing, and regard it as an act of vandalism, deserving the severest condemnation. But my love for birds is not of the sentimental variety. It is essentially aesthetic and scientific, and in some cases may even be pragmatic. For a scientific approach to bird study, it is often necessary to sacrifice a few, ... (and) I have no doubt that but for the methodical collecting of specimens in my earlier years – several thousands, alas – it would have been impossible to advance our taxonomical knowledge of Indian birds ... nor indeed of their geographic distribution, ecology, and bionomics.

— Ali (1985):195

In the early 1960s, the

Indian peacock.[67][68][69][70]

Ali was known for his frugal lifestyle, with money saved at the end of many of his projects. Shoddy jobs by people around him could make him very angry. He discouraged smoking and drinking and detested people who snored in their sleep.[71]

Honours and memorials

Birth centenary commemorative stamps showing painted storks in Bharatpur and Salim Ali (1996)

Although recognition came late, he received several honorary doctorates and numerous awards. The earliest was the "Joy Gobinda Law Gold Medal" in 1953, awarded by the

Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. The Indian government decorated him with a Padma Bhushan in 1958 and the Padma Vibhushan in 1976.[72] He was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 1985.[73]

Citation of the Paul Getty Prize

The International Jury for the

J. Paul Getty Wildlife Conservation Prize

of the
World Wildlife Fund
has selected for 1975
Salim A. Ali
Creator of an environment for conservation in India,
your work over fifty years in acquainting Indians
with the natural riches of the subcontinent
has been instrumental in the promotion of protection,
the setting up of parks and reserves,
and indeed the awakening of conscience in all circles
from the government to the simplest village Panchayat.
Since the writing of your book, the Book of Indian Birds
which in its way was the seminal natural history volume
for everyone in India, your name has been the single one
known throughout the length and breadth of your own country,
Pakistan, and Bangladesh as the father of conservation
and the fount of knowledge on birds.
Your message has gone high and low across the land
and we are sure that weaver birds weave your initials
in their nests, and swifts perform parabolas in the sky in your honor.

For your lifelong dedication to the preservation
of bird life in the Indian subcontinent and your identification
with the Bombay Natural History Society as a force for education,
the World Wildlife Fund takes delight in presenting you with
the second J. Paul Getty Wildlife Conservation Prize.
February 19, 1976.

An interpretation centre at Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary named after Salim Ali

Dr. Salim Ali died in Bombay at the age of 90 on 20 June 1987, after a protracted battle with

Zoothera mollissima complex, was named after him in 2016.[78]
On his 100th birth Anniversary (12 November 1996) Postal Department of Government of India released a set of two postal stamps.[79]

Writings

Salim Ali wrote numerous journal articles, chiefly in the

Kutch (later as The Birds of Gujarat), Indian Hill Birds and Birds of the Eastern Himalayas.[84] Several low-cost book were produced by the National Book Trust including Common Birds (1967) coauthored with his niece Laeeq Futehally which was reprinted in several editions with translations into Hindi and other languages.[85][86] In 1985 he wrote his autobiography The Fall of a Sparrow. Ali provided his own vision for the Bombay Natural History Society, noting the importance of conservation action.[87] In the 1986 issue of the Journal of the BNHS he noted the role that the BNHS had played, the changing interests from hunting to conservation captured in 64 volumes that were preserved in microfiche copies, and the zenith that he claimed it had reached under the exceptional editorship of S H Prater.[88]

A two-volume compilation of his shorter letters and writings was published in 2006, edited by Tara Gandhi, one of his last students.[89] She also edited a collection of transcripts of radio talks given by Salim Ali, which was published in 2021.[90]

References

  1. doi:10.1111/j.1474-919X.1988.tb00986.x
    .
  2. ^ "Padma Awards" (PDF). Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 October 2015. Retrieved 21 July 2015.
  3. ^ Ali (1985):1
  4. ^ Ali (1985):18
  5. ^ a b Nandy, Pritish (14 July 1985). "In search of the Mountain Quail". The Illustrated Weekly of India: 8–17.
  6. ^ Ali (1985):8
  7. ^ Ali (1985):10
  8. ^ Ali, S (1962). "Extracts from Salim Ali's note book – 1". Newsletter for Birdwatchers. 2 (6): 4–5.
  9. ^ Ali (1985):15
  10. ^ Ali (1985):30
  11. ^ Yahya, HSA (1996). "Transcript of an interview with Salim Ali". Newsletter for Birdwatchers. 36 (6): 100–102.
  12. ^ Ali (1985):37.
  13. ^ Ali (1985):158–167.
  14. ^ Ali, S (1929). "A note on the work of nature study teaching at the Prince of Wales' Museum, Bombay, from 16th November 1926 to 10th February 1928". J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 33: 163–165.
  15. ^ Ali (1985):46.
  16. ^ Ali (1985):55
  17. ^ Ali (1985):57–58
  18. ^ Ali (1985):59–61.
  19. ^ Ali, Salim (1930). "The ornithological station at Heligoland. A short account and some reflections". J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 34: 743–751.
  20. ^ Futehally, Z. (1969). "[Editorial]". Newsletter for Birdwatchers. 9 (5): 8.
  21. J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc.
    34 (4): 947–964.
  22. ^ Newton, Paul & Matt Ridley (1983). "Biology under the Raj". New Scientist. 99: 857–867.
  23. ^ Ali, Salim (1927). "The Moghul emperors of India as naturalists and sportsmen. Part I". J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 31 (4): 833–861.
  24. ^ Ali, Salim (1927). "The Moghul Emperors of India as Naturalists and Sportsmen. Part II". J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 32 (1): 34–63.
  25. ^ Ali, Salim (1927). "The Moghul Emperors of India as Naturalists and Sportsmen. Part III". Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 32 (2): 264–273.
  26. ^ Ali (1985):78–83
  27. ^ Whistler, H (1929). "The study of Indian birds, part 2". J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 33 (2): 311–325.
  28. ^ Ali, S (1929). "The racket-feathers of Dissemurus paradiseus". J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 33 (3): 709–710.
  29. ^ Whistler, H (1930). "The tail-racket of Dissemurus paradiseus". J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 34 (1): 250.
  30. ^ Ali (1985):64–65
  31. ^ Futehally, Zafar (1974). "A portrait of Salim Ali". Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 71 (3): 579–586.
  32. ^ Ali (1985):248–249
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  35. ^ Ripley Papers. Accession 92-063, Box 1. Quoted in Lewis (2003)
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  37. ^ Lewis, Michael (2002). "Scientists or Spies? Ecology in a Climate of Cold War Suspicion". Economic and Political Weekly. 37 (24): 2324–2332.
  38. ^ Ali (1985):122
  39. ^ Ali, S (1979). Bird study in India: Its history and its importance. Indian Council for Cultural Relations, New Delhi.
  40. ^ a b Ali, S (1971). Ornithology in India: Its past, present and future. Sunder Lal Hora Memorial Lecture (PDF). INSA, New Delhi. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 March 2012.
  41. ^ a b Ali, Salim (1980). "Indian Ornithology: The Current Trends". Bull. Brit. Orn. Club. 100 (1): 80–83.
  42. ^ Ali, Salim (1978). "Bombay Natural History Society - the Founders, the Builders and the Guardians. Part 1". Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 75 (3): 559–569.
  43. ^ Ali, Salim (1981). "Bombay Natural History Society - the Founders, the Builders and the Guardians. Part 2". Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 78 (3): 232–239.
  44. ^ Ali, Salim (1982). "Bombay Natural History Society - the Founders, the Builders and the Guardians. Part 3". Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 79: 38–46.
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  46. ^ Ali (1985):192
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  51. ^ Ali, S (1936). "Economic ornithology in India" (PDF). Current Science. 4: 472–478.
  52. S2CID 19183508
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  53. ^ Ali, Salim (1935) A scheme for research in economic ornithology. Proposal to Government. National Archives of India. PR_000003020572. File number: Education And Health_Agriculture_1935_Na_F-37-6_35A
  54. S2CID 84709932
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  56. ^ Anonymous (1986). "A talk with Salim Ali about where do we go from here". Newsletter for Birdwatchers. 26 (7–8): 2–3.
  57. ^ Ali, Salim (1963). "Cooperative field studies of birds". Newsletter for Birdwatchers. 3 (2).
  58. ^ Sinha, Rajeshvar Prasad Narain (1959). Our Birds. New Delhi: Publications Division. Government of India. p. foreword.
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  65. ^ Ali (1985):20
  66. ^ Ali (1985):233
  67. ^ Ali, S (1961). "Our national bird". Newsletter for Birdwatchers. 1 (4): 3–4.
  68. ^ Ali, Salim (1962). "National bird". Newsletter for Birdwatchers. 1 (6): 4.
  69. ^ Bindra, PS (2009). "On the brink". Tehelka Magazine. 6 (16). Archived from the original on 18 June 2011. Retrieved 27 August 2010.
  70. JSTOR 1177550. Archived from the original
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  71. ^ Daniel, J.C.; Sivanand, Mohan (1988). "Unforgettable Salim Ali". Reader's Digest (India) (November): 146–154.
  72. ^ Ali (1985):215–220
  73. ^ Anon (2005). Nominated members of the Rajya Sabha (PDF). Rajya Sabha Secretariat, New Delhi.
  74. ^ Abdulali, H. (1960). "A new race of Finn's Baya, Ploceus megarhynchus Hume". J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 57 (3): 659–662.
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  76. ^ Whistler, H and N B Kinnear (1934). "The Vernay scientific survey of the Eastern Ghats. (Ornithological Section). Part VIII". J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 37 (2): 281–297.
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  79. ^ Jain, Manik (2008). Phila India Guide Book (1st ed.). Philatelia. p. 141.
  80. ^ Ali, S (1930). "Stopping by the woods on a Sunday morning (reprinted)". Newsletter for Birdwatchers. 37 (6): 104–106.
  81. ^ Ali (1985):205
  82. JSTOR 4079679
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  83. ^ a b Ali, S & Ripley, SD (1999). Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan. Edition 2. Vol. 10. Oxford University Press.
  84. ^ Anonymous (1987). "On Salim Ali". Newsletter for Birdwatchers. 27 (7–8): 2–7.
  85. ^ Ali (1985):213–214
  86. JSTOR 4083999
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  87. doi:10.1179/030801887789798962
    .
  88. ^ Ali, S (1986). "The journal: Its role in Indian natural history". J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 83 (supplement): 1–6.
  89. ISBN 978-81-7824-170-8
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  90. ISBN 978-9391028299
    .
Autobiography

External links
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