Elephants have always had pride of place in Keralites’ collective psyche. They have been an inevitable part of celebrations, irrespective of faith. Some elephants have acquired celebrity status thanks to Malayalis’ obsession with these giants. It’s festival season, and controversies about elephants have also started surfacing. The latest is related to 58-year-old Thechikottukavu Ramachandran, one of the tallest elephants in Asia. He has killed 15 people and three elephants, and is considered the most dangerous captive elephant in India.
Ramachandran, with his broad skull and long trunk, has a cult status among elephant lovers. A temple in Thrissur has managed to get him for a day’s parade for Rs 6.75 lakh after beating 45 other temple committees. It is another story that Ramachandran is blind in one eye. After he killed two people in 2019, the veterinary surgeons who checked on him said that he is more prone to get agitated in a crowded and loud environment. But none of this was enough to dampen the spirits of his fans, it seems.
The bid and related events have brought to the fore the age-old schism between two sets of elephant lovers—one which calls for an end to the domestication of the gentle giants and the other which defends the practice as part of the tradition. While a section of elephant lovers is in celebration mode, another is questioning the whole rationale of parading the pachyderms in a festive environment that is totally against these giants’ basic instincts.
They allege that it is torturous for the tuskers to stand under the hot sun for long hours without adequate food and water. While the traditional “elephant lovers” are ready to spend any amount to have the majestically caparisoned elephants for a day, the other side questions the genuineness of their love for elephants and insists that parading is nothing but a form of torture for the animals. There is merit in the latter’s argument if one looks at it from the modern perspective.
It is only common sense to realise that these gentle giants are least bothered about the fandom surrounding them. Standing under the sun amidst thousands of cheering people is unlikely to be a matter of pride for them. Any custom or tradition stuck in a time warp and not in sync with the current ethos will not stand the scrutiny of times. It is high time the traditionalists realised this and allowed a change in practices.