Tadoba village women want to drive tourists on tiger safaris. Men, money are the barriers

Shrikheda: With one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the gear, Mayuri Kulsunge, 24, carefully manoeuvres her Maruti Suzuki Gypsy down the rugged road abutting her home in Shrikheda village in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district. Clouds of dust rise from the ground and swirl around her face. Two men on bicycles stop to stare. As she turns toward the Shrikheda safari gate of the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve, the Gypsy grinds to a halt. Other safari jeeps laden with tourists rumble through the gate, but Kulsunge does not follow them. She has no spot at the gate, and no tourists to drive.

“I thought learning how to drive was the biggest challenge, but the real challenge starts now. How do I earn a living with this skill?” she asks.

Kulsunge is among the 70 local women from buffer villages around the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve who are beneficiaries of the forest department’s Bharari scheme to empower women. As part of the initiative, officials conducted a month-long free driver training session. But eight months since its launch, the reserve has yet to see its first female safari driver.

Jungle safari tourism is a male-dominated, testosterone-driven bastion—one where women like Kulsunge have been kept out of. For the men in Shrikheda and neighbouring villages, it’s easy—learn how to drive an SUV, then buy or hire a vehicle, get the required permissions for the jungle safari, and drive tourists for an encounter with a tiger. But women like Kulsunge are held back by social pressure and financial constraints, with their own fears stopping them from accelerating toward progress.

tadoba village women want to drive tourists on tiger safaris. men, money are the barriers

Illustration by Soham Sen, ThePrint

Illustration by Soham Sen, ThePrint

The Satpura Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh is perhaps the only reserve in India to have two women female drivers as part of a programme started in 2023. Of the six women trained, two were able to get jobs as drivers at the reserve.

“We’re training others too. Slowly but surely, we’ll have a team of women drivers” — Sandeep Fellows, Deputy Director of the Satpura Tiger Reserve.

So far, Satpura is proving to be an exception.

Corbett Tiger Reserve in Uttarakhand, too, had introduced an initiative to train women to conduct safaris in 2022. So far, 70 women have been trained as drivers, but none have a job yet, says Corbett field director Dheeraj Pandey. He ascribes this situation to the discontinuation of the Maruti Suzuki Gypsy several years ago.

“Once the issue of Gypsy accessibility is sorted, we hope we’ll have female drivers too in Corbett,” he says.

The seemingly insurmountable task of becoming safari drivers reflects a larger deep-rooted gender bias that exists on India’s roads. Of the 10.5 million driving licences issued in India in 2020, only 14.9 per cent were for women, according to data by Statistica.

In Maharashtra, the forest department is keen on women working as jungle safari drivers.

“Quite a few tourists are all-women groups, and they respond well to female guides. Women drivers would make them feel more comfortable too,” says Khushagra Pathak, deputy director of the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve.

But Kulsunge and her friends who learnt how to drive are constantly warned that the jungle is dangerous; that they won’t be able to manage over-enthusiastic tourists on their own; that they will be stranded if the vehicle breaks down; that the jungle is not for them and they are better off working for one of the many homestays and resorts that have sprung up around the reserve.

tadoba village women want to drive tourists on tiger safaris. men, money are the barriers

Mayuri Kulsunge poses with her gypsy. She has the training, but no tourists | Photo: Akanksha Mishra, ThePrint

Mayuri Kulsunge poses with her gypsy. She has the training, but no tourists | Photo: Akanksha Mishra, ThePrint

Only a fixed number of SUVs are allowed to be stationed outside each gate at the reserve—at present, permission has been granted to 362 Gypsy vehicles for 22 gates. Each outing into the jungle generates a revenue of around Rs 2,700. Tours are usually conducted twice a day, allowing drivers to earn well over Rs 70,000 in a month.

Bharti, 30, who lives in Kolara village, 20 kms from Shrikheda, wants a piece of the tourism pie.

“Even if I can somehow afford a Gypsy, the men in the village won’t let me station it outside our gate. If a Gypsy owner falls sick or takes leave, he’ll seek out another man to take his spot, but not give it to a woman,” she says, the frustration leaking into her voice.

Hurdles beyond training

The Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve was Bharti’s playground when she was a child, and a source of livelihood for the over 1,00,000 people who live in the 95 villages around the 1,107 square kilometre buffer area. Today, tourism drives village finances, and the forest department is a major employer. While guides who accompany tourists earn Rs 600 for each ride, a safari driver can earn three times the amount in a day.

tadoba village women want to drive tourists on tiger safaris. men, money are the barriers

Road to a village in the buffer zone. Residents of the buffer zone are a key part of the jungle tourism economy | Photo: By special arrangement

Road to a village in the buffer zone. Residents of the buffer zone are a key part of the jungle tourism economy | Photo: By special arrangement

When the forest department announced the Bharari scheme, Bharti, a daily wage labourer who worked in the cotton fields near her village, jumped at the opportunity.

“It was my dream to learn how to drive a Gypsy. I have grown up going into the forest on foot, but being able to drive inside while also earning money for my family seemed too good to be true,” says Bharti.

She enrolled in free driving lessons in December 2023 but has now hit a roadblock. So far, no one wants to hire her and she can’t afford to buy her own SUV.

As per the forest department’s rules, residents are part of the tourism industry— they are guides, drivers, souvenir shopkeepers, and even guards at checkposts. The safaris at all 22 gates of the tiger reserve are operated by villagers. Only villagers from a particular forest range are allowed to become safari drivers and guides for the gate in their range.

tadoba village women want to drive tourists on tiger safaris. men, money are the barriers

One of the 22 gates of the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve | Photo: By special arrangement

One of the 22 gates of the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve | Photo: By special arrangement

There’s no official gender-specific rule, but the ‘inner circle’ of men in every village has arrangements of its own. “When we ask the men to allow us to practise on their Gypsys or enquire about job vacancies, they grumble about facing competition,” Bharti says.

Forest department officials are aware of the hurdles the women face. It is a process, and acceptance will take time, says one senior official. The department saw similar pushback in 2016 when it decided to train women to act as nature guides.

“From wondering why women should go with strangers to asking whether they can even grasp the training, people questioned every aspect of the safari guide programme,” says Rajashree Nagoshe, a forest guard in the Kolara range at Tadoba.

“Now we’ve got over 60 women guides in the entire tiger reserve, and I personally think some of them are even better than the men,” she adds. After all, it’s the women who venture into the forest to collect firewood or mahua flowers. “Women are more aware of the flora and fauna inside.”

But unlike a guide who needs just the support of her family and her wits around her, a safari jungle driver needs a car—more specifically an SUV. The Maruti Suzuki Gypsy is not easily available any more, and SUVs can cost upwards of Rs 7 lakh. Men either take loans or borrow from relatives, but women find it harder to convince their families to invest such a huge amount in them.

Reshma Uike, 23, enrolled in the Bharari scheme with the full support of her parents, but they did not have the money to buy her a car. Her extended family thought it was a waste.

“What is the point in such an expensive vehicle if she’s going to get married soon? Who knows if her in-laws will even let her work?” Reshma recalls her relatives saying.

Now, Uike works as a labourer in the fields near her village, and will get married this year. Her friend Lakshmi, who learned how to drive with her, got a job at a farm in Hyderabad.

How the scheme began

Mayuri Kulsunge was the first woman in the village to question this prejudice against female drivers. She was intrigued when she saw the men signing up for free driving lessons back in 2022. It was the first time such an initiative had been announced by the forest department. She realised that the skill could also help her land a job at one of the resorts in the area.

tadoba village women want to drive tourists on tiger safaris. men, money are the barriers

The men in her village inspired Mayuri Kulsunge to take up safari driving | Photo: Akanksha Mishra, ThePrint

Mayuri Kulsunge took up safari driving after seeing the men in her village | Photo: Akanksha Mishra, ThePrint

“I lost my father in 2020 and had to look after my mother and younger sister. While I did odd jobs here and there, I thought a skill like driving would take me to many more places,” says Kulsunge. There was no official rule that women couldn’t sign up, so she put her name down.

“All other boys were so confused, wondering why a girl was among them,” she adds with a laugh.

As word spread through Shrikheda village, two other women, Reshma Uike and Lakshmi Kodape, came forward to register—much to the chagrin of their neighbours. Along with Kulsunge, they became the first female beneficiaries of the driving lessons, joining the ranks of 40 men. Every evening, they practised changing gears, parallel parking and reversing cars on the main road outside their village. The training lasted for a month, after which they were all taken to the nearest town of Chandrapur to appear for their driving tests, which they passed.

The three women from Shrikheda gave the forest department the idea of offering driving lessons specifically to women.

“We had initially trained women from the buffer villages only to become guides for the safaris, but seeing the way Kulsunge and the others took to driving, we realised that women could thrive in this area as well,” says Sachin Shinde, the divisional forest officer of the tiger reserve.

After they put out the notification for the lessons in June 2023, around 70 women came forward from villages such as Belara, Kolara, and Alizanza. Yet, none of them are currently earning a living by driving.

Overcoming fear, self-doubt

Kulsunge’s family scrounged together Rs  4 lakh and put a down payment on a Gypsy three months ago, making her the first female gypsy owner in the buffer villages of Tadoba. But she has still not been able to muster the courage to drive inside the reserve. From the highs of learning how to drive, Kulsunge has started second-guessing her skills.

“The other boys tell me that the road inside is rocky and difficult. Sometimes, their cars break down mid-way and they need to change their tyres or call for help. I don’t know if I will be able to manage that,” she says.

But she doesn’t allow her fears to get the better of her.

“The free driving lessons taught me one more thing – my self-confidence. I feel like if I could learn how to drive against all odds, I can learn this too. I owe it to myself.”

So, every evening, she practises her driving skills. Last week, she learned how to change a tyre. She sits with the other gypsy drivers from her village, asking them to recount their safari rides so she can learn from their experience.

By day she runs a tea shop outside the Shrikheda gate with her mother, where she watches the other safari drivers go in and out daily as tourists cheer them on. One of them is her fiance—he’s driving her Gypsy.

(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)

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