At Latada village, Rajasthan, Gamnaram Raika waits for the skies to let up. His 30-head camel herd is getting restive; their hindquarters digging into slush, faces turned away from the heavy rain. Afflicted by mange, some of his camels are limping. Worry writ large on his face, Gamnaram surveys his herd and makes a pronouncement: “Pickings will be slim at Pushkar.” His search for a camel mahout to manage his herd has also been in vain. Tough as it is to find a good camel handler in these parts now, a more pressing problem is finding brides. “Girls don’t want to marry camel herders anymore. They find them too smelly, just like the camels,” says Gamnaram, who is happily married but has two daughters who are coming of age.

In the largely pastoral society of the Raikas, goat and sheep herders have replaced camel herders as the prize catch. Their camels are not faring any better. At Pushkar mela this year, Gamnaram has to sell off his male calves, find a robust one for breeding and, if made a good offer, also sell a female one. But ill-fed and prone to disease, his camels might not attract the price he wants. Or worse, his haandiyan (female camels) might not find a mate. Poor prospects for both his camels and children have kept Gamnaram up for days.

Till a few years ago, Gamnaram’s herd was 60-camel strong. A few decades ago, his family owned more than 1,000 camels. His brother Thanaram, who had a herd of 60 till the early noughties, has only two camels now, for he has moved on to other livestock for nuptial and financial reasons. Gamnaram’s own brood has fallen by half, and the camel has all but disappeared from his village.

Once ubiquitous, the Dromedary camel population has nosedived since the early noughties, falling more than 20 per cent in the last livestock census to less than four lakh. In the desert landscape of Rajasthan — where camel caravans moved freely, lovers rode them to clandestine meetings and notorious highwaymen plied their trade on them — the decline is as steep as 50 per cent (even 70 per cent in some parts), as per a local household survey conducted by Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan (LPPS), a collective of camel herders. At Pushkar melas, which usually attracted thousands of these ungulates, participation has reduced and trade has slumped. The Bactrian camel — with two humps — has already made it to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list as a critically endangered species; it won’t be too long before its cousin, the Dromedary, joins it.

In July this year, the government of Rajasthan accorded ‘State animal’ status to the camel, acknowledging its steep decline. The State assembly will also table a bill that seeks to protect the camel like the cow; ban its slaughter and promote camel products such as milk, dung and hair. However, several challenges remain — disappearance of grazing land, proliferation of disease and a fall in male camel population. As the decline brings a slow change to the desert ecology of Rajasthan, pastoral practices of the Raikas and Rewaris too have lost their place.

In Jojawar village, located in the foothills of the Aravallis, the Maru Raikas have gathered for a funeral and a few weddings. They will bid farewell to one of their oldest camel breeders, and will also marry off six girls of the village for whom they have secured matches. Opium pipes are lit, cups of camel chai distributed and pamphlets announcing the twin ceremonies handed out. Distinct from the red-turbaned Godwar Raikas like Gamnaram and his brothers, they are a larger, close-knit community of camel herders. The Godwars and Marus wear different turbans (red and pink) and don’t intermarry, yet both face the same problem: a rapidly shrinking camel population. Once Jojawar, a village of around 50 households, owned 13,000 camels. More than 150 Raika families today keep less than 800. Sixty-year-old Jagannath Raika blames it on the lack of grazing land. “Since Kumbhalgarh became a sanctuary, few pastures remain for grazing. Gochar bhumi (common lands) of our villages have also disappeared.” Rajasthan is a peculiar study in the problem of grazing. In the early ’90s, environmentalists believed that overgrazing by livestock had led to a decline in bird and predator populations. Subsequent studies have shown that this is not true. In fact, keeping out livestock directly led to a fall in the bird population at Bharatpur. Despite the evidence, forest departments have continued to keep cattle and camels out. Unsurprisingly, the census has registered negative growth for all livestock animals, except buffaloes.

From diagnosing illness by smelling camel piss to helping them mate, the Raikas’ repository of ungulate knowledge is enviable. “I will recognise my camel even if it has been 20 years since I last saw it,” says a confident Jagannath. While it sounds impressive, identification is made easier by the herd sign. A long, thin line on the left hind leg is the mark of Gamnaram’s camels, a circular design on the neck for Jagannath’s herd. The camels are branded with iron rods before they turn one.

“The Raika-camel relationship is unique,” says Hanwant Singh Rathore, who runs a camel conservation farm and LPPS at Sadri, 20km from Latada. Set up in 1996, the collective is a loose association of camel breeders and herds. What started with medical help for camels in the early ’90s, the LPPS is now a full-fledged organisation to restore camel populations, market its products and sustain pastoral practices.

Even in a herd of nearly 800 camels, Jagannath knows them all by name. “Suladh, Bheral, Bhiran, Heran…” he prattles on. Camel herds, however large or small, are matrilineal. Female calves are named after their mother — if she is red, her daughters are called Laali, if she’s black, they are all called Kaali. In Jagannath’s herd, there are at least 20 Suladhs, 10 Bherals, 10 Bhirals, five Laalis, many Kaalis…

The herders’ expertise also comes in handy once the breeding season sets in. “The camels need a lot of help to mate,” says Rathore. The herders, claims Jagannath, can divine the right time simply by looking at their eyes. Usually, at the end of monsoons, male camels get aggressive. Separated from the herd, the males act up, stalking the females wherever they go. While the males become ill-tempered, the females get friendlier. In one breeding season, a male camel is expected to ‘service’ at least 50 females. Herders help the males mount the females; the danger of a camel plonking on them is ever present, as 60-year-old Sojaram Raika discovered when he broke his arm one season.

In the ’90s, the camel population registered its first big fall when a disease outbreak resulted in many abortions. “But that’s not the case anymore; other reasons have replaced that problem,” says Rathore. During that time, Rathore and German veterinarian Ilse Koehler-Rollefson, who has authored a book on camels, travelled for months with herders and their caravans. Armed with medical supplies, they also maintained a roster — of the sexual activities of the camels, the successful and not-so-successful attempts. Since 2002, when trade in camel meat began, most males started being sold for slaughter, not breeding. A year later at Pushkar, female camels followed suit. “If female camels are disappearing for slaughter, then extinction can be quite fast,” says Koehler-Rollefson, as camels reproduce “very slowly, only one calf in two years.”

For the Raikas, this is an untenable situation. Their relationship with camels goes back several hundred years, they claim. Part of their religious lore, the Raikas regard camel-herding as duty, not a livelihood. Funerals, weddings and household economies are designed around them. And the nomadic Raika enjoys family life for only a quarter of a year; travelling for eight months with his herd in a 50km radius, subsisting on camel milk and stopping by at the Pushkar and Nagaur fairs, where he might realise his yearly income. When asked why they continue to keep camels, the Raika looks at the past for answers. He tells of years marked by severe drought, when their families survived on camel milk for months together, sometimes even an entire year. “Yeh ek jaanwar hai jo sabko paalta hai (this is one animal that takes care of everyone’s needs),” says Jagannath. “During the chappan ka akaal (the drought in 1956), I went for 90 days without food. Anaaj ka mooh nahin dekha maine (I didn’t see any grain at all).” Once in two months, they would chew on green chillies to clean their palates, while their camels lived on air. The hardy animals have seen the Raikas through the worst of times.

Their close relationship, perhaps, explains the community’s initial reluctance to market camel milk. In Jojawar, Amanram pulls out a few aak leaves tucked into his pink turban, twists them into little cups and pours out fresh camel milk. It is sweet, light and pleasant (similar to cow milk, except saltier). Why is camel milk so unpopular then? Dairies don’t stock it and a High Court ruling in 2000 (now overturned) called it unfit for human consumption. “We are partly responsible,” admits Amanram. Earlier, when a demand for camel milk arose from nearby villages, the Raikas did everything to arrest it. They dipped camels’ tails into the milk, contaminating it (which led to a diarrhoea scare). They spread rumours, warning unsuspecting people of frightful afterlives. Now, camel milk finds few takers, despite its documented health benefits for diabetes and autism.

The younger Raikas have moved on from camel-herding to more lucrative jobs in Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore. The routes that camel caravans took, skirting the foothills of the Aravallis to the deserts of Pushkar and Jaisalmer, have changed, growing shorter and shorter over the years. The vegetation too has changed — acacia bushes have given way to Prosopsis juliflora , which has now become an environmental threat. Despite the dwindling camel population, collectives have sprung up to preserve pastoral livelihoods.

But, what if the camel were soon to become extinct, much like the gharial or the civet? How much would the food web change? “They won’t turn into zoo-animals just yet,” says Koehler-Rollefson. “But if it disappears from Rajasthan, the consequences to the food web will be substantial.” The Raika herders, many of whom refuse to keep other livestock, shake their heads in disbelief. That day will never come, their camels will “survive almost anything”. Goats may perish, sheep may die out, even cattle, but not their camels.

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