Farmers Near Karnataka Forests Can’t Renew Gun Licences — MP Brijesh Chowta Writes to DGP, Says Wildlife Attacks Won’t Wait for Paperwork
Picture this. A farmer in Dakshina Kannada has spent decades legally holding a firearm licence. He’s never misused it. Never been in trouble with the law. He uses the gun purely to keep wild animals away from his fields. And now, when he goes to renew that licence, the application gets rejected. The reason given? No wildlife incident was officially reported on his land last year.
That’s the situation hundreds of farmers near Karnataka’s forest belts are facing right now. And it’s this exact absurdity that has pushed Dakshina Kannada MP Capt Brijesh Chowta to write directly to the state’s Director General of Police, demanding that something — anything — be done about it.
What’s the Actual Problem Here?
Crop-protection firearm licences have existed in Karnataka for a long time. Farmers living near forest areas — where elephants, wild boars, leopards and other animals routinely raid agricultural land — were given the legal right to hold firearms as a deterrent. Not to hunt. Not for anything aggressive. Just to scare animals away and protect their harvest.
For years, these licences were renewed routinely. It was straightforward. Now it isn’t.
According to Capt Chowta’s letter addressed to the DGP and district authorities, the renewal process has become increasingly difficult to navigate. Applications are being rejected. Procedural requirements have tightened considerably. And farmers who have done everything right — legally obtained their licences, maintained clean records, followed all the rules — are finding themselves stuck.
The MP made it clear in his letter that the problem isn’t isolated to one or two farmers. It’s widespread enough across Dakshina Kannada that he felt he had no choice but to escalate it to the highest level of state police administration.
The Logic Behind Rejection Is Deeply Flawed
Here’s the part that genuinely doesn’t make sense. Farmers are being told their renewal applications are being declined because there were no officially recorded wildlife intrusion incidents on their land in the previous year.
Capt Chowta’s response to this? That’s precisely because the firearms worked.
“The very presence of a licensed firearm acts as a deterrent and often prevents wild animals from entering farmlands,” he said in his letter. It’s a pretty straightforward argument, actually. If your property didn’t get raided by a leopard last year, it may well be because the leopard saw or heard a firearm being discharged in the vicinity and decided to find an easier target elsewhere.
Punishing farmers for successful deterrence by refusing to renew their protection tool is, to put it plainly, backwards. You can’t ask someone to prove they needed their umbrella on a day it didn’t rain.
Wildlife attacks are by their nature unpredictable. Nobody schedules them. A herd of wild boars doesn’t give advance notice before destroying a paddy crop. An elephant doesn’t announce its arrival before flattening a banana plantation. The whole point of having a licensed firearm is to be ready before an attack happens, not to scramble for help after one already has.
What’s at Stake for These Farming Families?
This isn’t a small inconvenience. For farming households in areas bordering forests, crop damage from wildlife can mean the difference between a functional income and financial ruin. Dakshina Kannada has extensive forest cover, and the agricultural land that borders these forests is constantly at risk.
Farmers in these areas grow paddy, arecanut, coconut, banana and other crops — all of which are vulnerable to large animals. A single raid by a herd of elephants can devastate months of work in a single night. Without any means to deter the animals or drive them away, farmers are effectively defenceless.
Capt Chowta stressed in his letter that the issue goes beyond crop loss. These are rural households whose entire livelihoods depend on agriculture. When crops fail — whether due to weather, disease or wildlife damage — there’s often no backup. No alternative income stream. The family just absorbs the loss. Removing a farmer’s only effective tool against wildlife intrusion without any alternative solution in place is not a neutral administrative decision. It has real, immediate consequences for real people.
These Are Law-Abiding Citizens, Not Threats
The MP was also careful to point out something that should be obvious but apparently needs to be said — the farmers seeking licence renewals are not criminals. They have no history of misusing their weapons. They obtained their licences through proper legal channels. They’ve complied with every requirement put in front of them.
There’s no public safety argument that justifies making it harder for this group of people specifically to hold their licences. The firearms in question are possessed for crop protection and personal safety — nothing more. Treating these farmers as if tighter restrictions on them serve some greater security interest misses the point entirely.
Capt Chowta urged the administration to step back and look at the bigger picture rather than mechanically applying rules in ways that end up hurting the very people those rules were designed to protect.
Who Has the MP Written To?
Beyond the DGP, Capt Chowta has reached out to multiple senior officials to ensure this doesn’t get buried in bureaucratic back-and-forth. His letter has gone to:
Inspector General of Police, Western Range
Superintendent of Police, Dakshina Kannada
Police Commissioner, Mangaluru City
By involving officials at different levels simultaneously, he’s essentially ensuring that the issue gets visibility across the entire chain of command — and that nobody can claim they weren’t aware of it.
What Is He Actually Asking For?
The MP’s requests are reasonable and specific. He wants the administration to stop rejecting renewal applications on flimsy grounds. He wants authorities to acknowledge the preventive — not reactive — role that these firearms play. He wants the renewal process to be simplified, made more transparent and handled within a sensible timeframe.
Most importantly, he wants guidelines that actually reflect the ground reality faced by farmers living next to forests — rather than rules designed with urban or non-agricultural contexts in mind.
A balanced approach, as he put it, that respects public safety while also respecting the practical needs of farming communities.
The Clock Is Ticking
The monsoon season is approaching. That’s when crop activity peaks in Karnataka — and coincidentally, when wildlife movement near farmland tends to increase as well. Farmers without valid firearm licences heading into this period are in a genuinely vulnerable position.
With pressure building from the farming community and local representatives pushing for resolution, all eyes are now on how the Karnataka DGP and district administration respond. The ball is squarely in their court. Whether they act quickly or let this drag on will say a lot about how seriously agricultural communities near forest belts are taken by the state’s law enforcement machinery.
