By Rajdeep Pathak
Aj Samajhna hoga/janwar kaun hai/Bohut hi byathit hai man (Have to understand today/who is the animal/the mind is very upset).
These above lines in Hindi taken from a Facebook post by Navendu Mishra (a social thinker) with image of a graphite pencil work on paper of a baby and mother elephant standing together raises innumerable questions on human behaviour and how far humans can go in their acts of barbarism. The image of the pregnant animal, which was fed pineapple stuffed with crackers and left to die, has caught the attention of national and international media and invited severe criticisms from environmentalists, animal activists, sports persons, film stars and common citizens.
It was on May 27 that the pregnant elephant strayed into a village in Kerala’s Palakkad in search of food. Here it was fed a pineapple stuffed with crackers. The crackers stuffed inside the pineapple exploded in the jumbo’s mouth and caused severe injuries. Unable to withstand the pain, the 15-year-old elephant started running around the village. Eye witnesses said even as the elephant was experiencing excruciating pain, it did not cause any damage.
The elephant had reached the Velliyar River while running across the village and stood inside the water body. The forest department took two elephants, Neelakanthan and Surendran, for the rescue operation. The elephant, however, did not step out of the river and died while standing in it.
The incident caught headlines when forest official Mohan Krishnan took to Facebook and shared an emotional note. Krishnan wrote, “She trusted everyone. When the pineapple she ate exploded, she must have been shocked not thinking about herself but about the child she was going to give birth to in 18 to 20 months.”
While Kerala is boasting about its health infrastructures in managing the pandemic COVID-19 in a systematic manner, this horrifying incident has caused more damage to the growing reputation of the state. It was also in early last November that Kerala was in the news for such a disaster that had befallen on a pregnant cat which was found hanging inside a house in Vanchiyoor district.
The cat that was heavily pregnant was found hanging from the pillar with a knot tied around her neck with the other end of the rope being tied in another knot around the pillar. It was also a Facebook post of animal rights activist Parvathy Mohan that prompted the police to take immediate action, including a postmortem.
Meanwhile, as the outpour of grief and anger has been continuing over this heinous act of the death of the pregnant elephant, forest officials citing ‘no conclusive evidence’ came up with a report — perhaps to douse off the flames of anger — that the elephant must have eaten food that was set as a trap by farmers to prevent wild boars from destroying crops.
However, on June 3, a top forest officer told PTI that another female elephant had died in a similar incident in April in Pathanapuram forest range area under Punalur division in Kollam district.
“It was very weak. When the forest officials approached, the elephant ran into the forest and joined the herd of elephants waiting there. But the next day, the elephant was again found alienated from its herd. Proper treatment was given but unfortunately it succumbed to its wounds,” he said.
If Kerala has often been in news for its successful literacy programmes, it has also more than often been in the news for its treatment of elephants. Multiple reports suggest the abuse of captive elephants in the state. And Kerala alone does not figure on the list of keeping elephants in captivity. Stories from Rajasthan, Assam and Tamil Nadu also tell the same tale. Chained, beaten and exploited like slaves, this is the sorry state of over 4,000 captive elephants in India, which according to a World Animal Protection report, is widely considered the “birthplace of taming elephants for use by humans” — a practice which began thousands of years ago.
As per conservation status, the Indian Elephant has been listed as endangered due to loss of habitat and poaching. Also, according to the count in 2019, the estimated population of the Asian Elephants in India is placed at 27,785 to 31,368 in wild areas.
In her researched and published report on the condition of temple elephants, filmmaker Audrey Gaffney has recorded the vicious form of atrocities on the jumbos. She writes, “They are the country’s icon but behind the dazzle of religious festivals, these giants of the wild are painfully abused in Kerala”.
She further adds: “They are the world’s forgotten elephant victims of mankind. While the world has focused on the threat of extinction to Africa’s elephants caused by the ivory poaching crisis and the cruelty of tourist elephant rides in Thailand and Cambodia, the plight of their captive counterparts in India has remained largely hidden — or ignored — from public gaze.”
Gaffney further records: “The southern coastal state of Kerala has the highest number of festival elephants, about 500 out of 3,500-4,000 across the country. ‘Action for Elephants’ UK (AfE) brands Kerala “ground zero for elephant torture”, and has called their illegal treatment “the worst case of animal cruelty in the world”.
Soutik Biswas, BBC Correspondent in India in his report ‘The tragic lives of India’s mistreated captive elephants’ (April 24, 2018) points a similar state of affairs. He writes: “In southern India, ‘pachyderms’ are rented out during religious festivals for noisy parades and processions, including weddings and shop and hotel openings. They travel long distances in open vehicles and walk on tarred roads in the scorching sun for hours”. This has a drastic affect on their health.
Activists within India and abroad have raised concern about the atrocities on the jumbos. They have cited issues of poor space, restricted diet in comparison to their requirement of 100 kinds of roots, shoots, grasses, foliage and tubers in natural surroundings free from captivity. Vets have also time and again pointed to their malnourishment, citing that they suffer from intestinal infection, septicemia and lung-related infections. More than anything else, it is the long effect of the barbaric torture inflicted on this otherwise gentle creature that has reduced the life expectancy of captive elephants below 40 years from 70-75 years a couple of decades ago, records Soutik.
Union Minister Smriti Irani while terming the recent incident a ‘heinous crime’ has remarked that “the question that needs to be ascertained is if this is a trend, one needs to break that chain right away. And if this is a trend specific to that particular area then it should have been concern that some kind of solution was brought forth by the state government”.
The Supreme Court has outlawed the sale and exhibition of elephants in fairs and has even directed authorities to ban use of elephants in religious functions. It is believed that over 350 captive elephants in Kerala and Rajasthan are illegal — they don’t have any ownership papers. This is despite the fact that there are powerful animal protection laws and adequate guidelines to protect ‘captive’ elephants. But not enough is being done.
According to government figures from a reply to Parliament in 2019, the mean number of elephant deaths per year in India was 56.6, The Hindu reported in February 2019. According to the last Elephant Census conducted by the government, 75 elephants died in 2018.
While these silent animals are hired by different agencies — from politicians for their campaign processions to companies for promoting their goods in trade fairs — when it comes to their shelter and proper care, it is a far cry. There are many reports that suggest that these animals are used for lucrative trade and can easily fetch from Rs 50,000-70,000 on a single day during religious festivals for their appearance and the cruelty inflicted upon the elephants is unfathomable.
Filmmaker Sangita Iyer, who was born and raised in Kerala, has in her award-winning 2016 film ‘God In Shackles’ revealed the murky picture of the equally murky business of festivals and brutal atrocities that the poor creature bears silently. There are many like Sangita or Audrey who are speaking the truth and raising campaigns to save the elephants.
The greatest advantage for speaking the truth is that one need not have to remember what one had said. If this statement is true enough, it is time the Kerala administration rises up to the occasion of taking the strictest of actions against the perpetrators of killing the pregnant elephant and ensuring that no such incidents occur in future.
Mahatma Gandhi had said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated”. Hope this nation that at almost every stroke dwells on the Gandhian principles of non-violence and peace, also follows what this man had said on treating the animals and not stoop so low in killing a creature in search of food.
(The author is programme executive at Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti, Gandhi Darshan, Rajghat)