Formerly the hunting preserve of maharajas and colonial British officers, Kanha was declared a national park in the 1950s (after one hunter killed 30 tigers on a single shoot). Attitudes have come a long way since then, and Kanha is now one of India’s greatest conservation success stories. Not only has the tiger population recovered, but the state’s mascot animal, the endemic barasingha swamp deer (whose numbers dwindled from 3,000 in 1938 to around 66 in the 1960s) are now thriving, with a population of about 2,000 in 2024. Besides these flagship animals, there are leopards, wild dogs, sloth bears, jackals – and over 300 species of birds: black ibis, green bee-eaters, plum-headed parakeets and a whole raft of teals, eagles, fantails, buzzards, vultures and hornbills.

Many of these animals can be spotted in Madhya Pradesh’s other national parks. What makes Kanha different is its continuing connection to the indigenous tribal communities of the region. It hasn’t been an easy journey: Baiga and Gond villages have been illegally evicted in the past, leading authorities to be accused of violating their ancestral rights.

Nowadays, thanks in part to the efforts of organisations like WWF, local communities are more involved in conservation, and many safari lodges work with Baiga and Gond people to provide cultural experiences that benefit their communities. Visiting their villages in the Kanha buffer zone – many of them still strikingly traditional, with tribal architecture, weekly markets, and the smell of woodsmoke in the air – adds a wonderful human dimension to the region.