Vanishing act: Will the camels of Rajasthan be the next Cheetah?

That’s who I am. That’s what my heart wants, Ram says.

About seven years back, after months of prodding by his wife, Ram sold his herd of 25 camels and migrated to Maharashtra to work on daily wages at a roadside eatery, miles away from home. It made no economic sense to raise camels. Trade in camels had collapsed after the Rajasthan government introduced a law in 2015, which banned slaughter and transport of camels beyond the state’s borders.

Ram worked for two months in Pune. Then he scurried back home, unable to take the grind. Next, he built his herd back, one camel at a time.

With a 40-strong herd of mostly female camels, Ram now makes around ₹30,000 a month selling camel milk. More importantly, he gets to spend nights-on-end under starlit skies with his herd. But the future remains bleak—little has changed in the last seven years.

“The tide has turned against us. So, I will not push my son into this," Ram says, sitting on a charpoy in his courtyard as evening falls in Dantiwada village in Pali, Rajasthan. The giant animals in the open courtyard move their long necks, wanting to be petted by the master. In the dark, they resemble prehistoric dinosaurs about to fade out.

Ram is the last of the venerable raikas, a pastoralist community from Rajasthan, who share a deep emotional bond with camels. He carries on with the legacy passed on by eight generations of his ancestors. The folklore goes: none other than the Hindu god, Lord Shiva, moulded the first raika from the dust and ashes of his own body. Because no one else was able to take care of these giant and weirdly-shaped animals. Camels, in turn, were created by Shiva’s consort, goddess Parvati. And it was Shiva who breathed life into the camels of clay, on Parvati’s insistence.

Ram, like a true-blue raika, knows the story by heart.

Endangered?

As per official livestock census reports, the population of camels in India has been on a steady slide since the early 90s. Between 2012 and 2019, their numbers fell from 400,000 to 250,000— a sharp 37% drop in just seven years. The decline is sharper when compared to the 2007 census which counted 520,000 camels (a 52% decline by 2019). Compared to the early 90s, the camel population in India has dropped by a staggering 76%.

As per the last census in 2019, Rajasthan is home to over 85% of the camels in India, followed by Gujarat (11%), Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

The day may not be far when camels may disappear altogether as a domesticated species and end up as zoo exhibits in India. For the desert state of Rajasthan, which counts camels as one of its state animals, this would mean losing a part of its cultural heritage and a state icon.

The predicament of camels in India is in contrast to the global scenario which is seeing a surge in population. In East Africa, ethnic tribal groups are moving away from cattle to camels as the latter is more resilient to droughts and vagaries of climate change, said Ilse Köhler-Rollefson, a German veterinarian and conservationist who has lived and worked with the camel herders of Rajasthan for over two decades.

Rollefson, who authored the 2023 book Camel Karma, added that oil-rich Arab states are spending millions to conserve camels—organizing racing events, beauty contests and promoting camel milk—to conserve their cultural and religious heritage. None other than the Prophet Muhammad rode on a camel during his journey from Mecca to Yathrib (now Medina), an event which marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar.

The global camel population nearly doubled to 39 million heads in two decades to 2021, as per data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (UN). 2024, in fact, was designated as the International Year of Camels by the UN to highlight the animal’s role in poverty alleviation and sustainable use of resources.

So, what is happening to camels in India? According to herders and conservation groups, multiple factors are at play. Camels, which forage on a variety of desert vegetation and medicinal plants, have fewer pastures and forests to graze on. Their access has shrunk due to stricter enforcement of forest laws, mushrooming of hotels near reserve forests and orans (sacred groves) handed over to solar and wind power projects. Unlike domesticated cattle, camels cannot be kept in confinement and made to eat manufactured feed. They need to forage daily in a 10-km range.

Secondly, the 2015 law stopped the trade and transport of camels, which pushed traditional herders away from camels to cattle, sheep and goats. The law created an imbalance, raising the number of male camels in some herds. The males neither provide milk nor are they used for transport, ploughing or hauling loads anymore.

Earlier, traders from other states would visit Rajasthan and purchase males for slaughter and tourism. This was a source of income for herders as young males sold for ₹10,000-15,000 per animal.

The gender imbalance in some herds led to aggressive males fighting with each other and even attacking humans, resulting in gruesome deaths. It may sound ironic, but Rajasthan’s camel law is more stringent than cow protection laws which allow trade and transport for breeding and dairy purposes.

The camels found in Rajasthan have a lifespan of 25-26 years. A female can bear calves from the fourth year and continue till she is 21.

Finally, camel milk is a niche, low-volume business with limited demand from premium consumers. Sure, it’s a superfood known for multiple benefits which include management of diabetes, autism and lactose intolerance. For a consumer living in metros, frozen camel milk can cost up to ₹300 a litre.

The challenge is, camel milk should ideally be processed separately and not mixed with cattle milk—it would lose its nutrients otherwise. Specific technologies such as freeze drying are used to process liquid milk into a powder form; freeze drying technology can prevent nutrient loss.

Large dairies, however, find this to be uneconomical.

Herders get paid a price even lower than cow milk, though camel milk is of superior quality. This is because farmers are paid based on fat content, and camel milk is low in fat. Herders receive between ₹50-60 per litre, when their milk is marketed separately. But when they supply to regular diaries, they are paid less than ₹20 per litre.

Horsing in Pushkar

Camels will vanish from Rajasthan if we fail to act now, warns Hanwant Singh Rathore, secretary of Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan (LPPS), which works with pastoralist communities in the state. The action points include rescinding the 2015 law or at least allowing trade and transport of camels for dairy and breeding purposes, allowing access to forests and common pastures, and infrastructure and marketing support for dairy products.

LPPS helped herders apply for community rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2006, but nothing came of it. Instead, a proposed tiger reserve in Kumbhalgarh (spanning 1,400 sq km and five districts) is threatening to further shrink access for grazing. Hotels around the area want the tiger reserve. No one is asking camel herders what they want.

LPPS now sells products like frozen and powdered camel milk, milk soaps, poo-paper and wool, plus a variety of cheese (feta and cream variants, which are sold to premium hotels in the state). It’s a last-ditch attempt to provide a steady source of income for herders.

The products are sold under the brand name Camel Charisma. The milk is collected from a radius of 25-30 km around the LPPS dairy in Sadri in Pali district, adjacent to the Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary. The volumes are low: about 3,000 litres of milk per month, but it is a lifeline to herders like Karna Ram, with whom this piece begins. The last few raikas holding on to camels would have abandoned them, if not for the earnings from the milk.

In the 80s, recounts Rathore, the famed Pushkar Camel Fair used to see a footfall of 35,000-40,000 camels. The 2024 count was less than 500. The ship of the desert has been replaced by horses—a newfound obsession of rural elites.

In addition, trade in camels suffered as influential communities like the Jains (due to their religious beliefs on non-violence) and animal rights groups lobbied for a law banning slaughter and transport—a law framed with a poor understanding of the economics of livestock keeping. At the Mahaveer Camel Sanctuary in Sirohi, Rajasthan, where camels are kept in captivity—it houses 150 camels in eight acres—deaths due to disease, infestation and negligence are common, multiple people involved in conservation and research told this writer.

Jasraj Shrishrimal, president of the sanctuary and an animal rights activist, termed the news of deaths rumour-mongering. “We are against slaughter because we believe in ahimsa and compassion towards all living beings. Why does one need to transport camels out of the state if not for slaughter?" he asked.

‘Cruelty-free milk’

The herders of Rajasthan share a unique emotional bond with camels. They leave half the milk for young calves. There is a sense of mutual respect and companionship. This is the gold standard of humane livestock management and an antithesis of industrial meat production systems of the west, argues Augusta DeLisi, founder of Abu Dhabi based nutrition startup, Nomadic Nutrition.

DeLisi, also a health coach, sources powdered camel milk from Rajasthan to make ‘cruelty-free’ protein bites and chocolates. “There is a domestic and international market waiting to be tapped— to cater to consumers looking for humanely raised livestock products and better disease management."

In India, Amul, the largest cooperative dairy brand, launched camel milk products back in 2019. Despite the limited market, it continues to procure more than 5,000 litres of milk daily from the Kutch region of Gujarat. But the grapevine is, the volumes are too tiny for the dairy giant to aggressively market camel milk or expand the product range. Amul did not respond to queries sent by Mint.

An important lesson from Amul’s intervention is that the camel population has stabilized in areas from where it is procuring milk, said A. Sahoo, former head of National Research Centre on Camel, Bikaner, and currently director at the National Institute of Animal Nutrition and Physiology, Bengaluru. “It is for Rajasthan to take urgent corrective steps. Take back the impractical law. Push the state dairy cooperative to procure camel milk at a fair price. Position it as a unique offering in the growing nutraceutical market."

Back in 2015, Aadvik Foods was the first in India to launch a range of camel milk products. For the bootstrapped startup, it’s been a roller-coaster ride with annual revenue swinging between ₹6.5 crore and ₹9 crore. The limited market for camel milk also prompted Aadvik to diversify into other niche segments like goat and donkey milk products.

“The top challenge is to boost demand via aggressive campaigns but being a small brand, our marketing budget is limited," said Hitesh Rathi, founder of Aadvik. “We expected the market to expand following Amul’s entry. That did not happen. 2024 was a lost opportunity for India to promote camel milk (since it was designated by the UN as the International Year of Camels)."

The policy apathy camels are facing in India could lead to uneasy choices in future: like importing camels from other countries to revive their population, a bit like the recent intercontinental translocation of wild Cheetahs from Africa.

The writing is on the wall. At Mundara village in Pali, 90-year-old Harji Ram is the lone raika herder left in the neighbourhood. His son teaches in a government school. One grandson is preparing for law school. Harji Ram knows an era will end with him. There was a time when wealth was measured by the number of camels one kept. Now, no girl wants to marry a camel herder, Harji Ram’s grandson, Karan Raj joked.