According to the Heritage Animal Task Force, 540 people were killed from elephant attacks during temple processions in Kerala and742 individuals injured between 2007 and 2024. This year, an elephant attacked a tourist at Amer Fort in Jaipur. Another injured four people at the Bhagavathy Amman temple in Chavakkad. At a temple festival in Pattambi, an elephant injured one person, killed two cows and damaged property. During the Arattupuzha Pooram festival in Thrissur, an elephant charged at and chased another, causing panic. At Sree Ramaswami Temple in Vaikom, an elephant killed a mahout. In West Bengal, a mahout was killed at Iskcon’s Mayapur temple by his elephant. At a safari park in Idukki, an elephant crushed a mahout to death.
The systems of capturing and training elephants have evolved variously in different regions of the country—from the use of female elephants as decoys to the use of nooses concealed on the ground. The only thing they have in common is cruelty. Domesticated elephants in India are supposed to be subject to the provisions of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960. The Prevention of Cruelty to Draught and Pack Animals Rules of 1965 prohibits the use of elephants for drawing a vehicle or carrying a load for more than nine hours a day. At Amer, elephants go up and down the hill carrying tourists all day.
The law prohibits the use of any sharp equipment for driving an elephant. But the ankusa or goad is still used to prod the animal to obey. Cruelties to elephants include beating, over-riding, over-loading, torture, subjecting them to unnecessary pain, wilfully administering injurious substances, confining them in a cage constricting movement (training is done in a kraal, a confining cage) and not providing sufficient food, water or shelter. In North India, they are commonly used for entertainment or begging. They are chained continuously on cement floors, developing foot-rot and arthritis. This naturally makes the animals suffer acute pain, and become frustrated. When the largest mammal on earth gets angry, it can be devastating.
So what is the solution? As a practising Hindu who has read the shastras, I know that no scripture requires the use of elephants in rituals. The elephant is Lord Ganesha, to be loved and worshipped. Kautilya’s instructions for managing elephant forests and the Gaja Shastra relate to the battle elephant, used as a battle tank to break down fortress gates. Then too, it was unpredictable, as many turned tail when hit by weapons and trampled their own soldiers to death.
To prevent injuries and deaths, three temples in Kerala and one in Mysuru have adopted a novel alternative: the mechanical elephant. Irinjadappilly Sree Krishna temple in Thrissur has Raman; Thrikkayil Mahadeva temple in Kochi has Mahadevan; and Pournamikavu temple in Thiruvananthapuram has Baladhasan, while Jagadguru Sri Veerasimhasana Mahasamsthana Math in Mysuru has Shiva. Tamil Nadu got its first ‘robotic’ temple elephant in 2024 at the Shivan temple in Devarshola.
The mechanical elephants are 3 metres tall, weigh 800 kg and are made of rubber, fibre, metal, mesh, foam and steel; they run on electric motors. They are super-realistic and look just like the living animal. A mechanical elephant looks, feels and is used like a real elephant. It can shake its head, move its ears and eyes, swish its tail, lift its trunk and even spray water. It can be climbed upon. It is mounted on a wheelbase, allowing it to be moved around for rituals and circumambulation. To run the motors, a small generator is moved along with it. Presently, three vendors manufacture mechanical elephants: two in Kerala and one in Maharashtra.
Kerala’s temple elephants are male; when they come on heat, there are terrible battles and injuries among the pachyderms. Guruvayoor’s Anakotta houses 60 elephants trained for puja. Tamil Nadu’s temple elephants are solitary females, the worst punishment for a social animal. There are frequent complaints about ill-treatment by the mahouts. Many develop diabetes and become overweight. The animals are controlled by threatening them with weapons and being shackled. Each animal spends about 15 hours within an enclosure, wearing leg chains round-the-clock.
In 2021, after a video of an elephant being repeatedly beaten with sticks at the Thekkampatti rejuvenation camp went viral, the Tamil Nadu Hindu religious and charitable endowments department suspended the mahouts, who were subsequently arrested. Frustrated captive elephants often kill their mahouts. Apart from the examples above, such tragedies have been recorded in Madurai and Tiruchirappalli too.
The Indian elephant enjoys more legal protection now, but the enforcement of laws is terrible. The sale and purchase of elephants at the Sonepur fair in Bihar, disregards the law every year. No formal census of captive elephants has ever been attempted—the 750 in North India, 700 in South India and 460-660 in the Northeast are presumed and underestimated numbers.
Today’s population density, traffic noise and cruel control make the abused animal turn around and attack with ferocity. The elephant is unsuitable for cities as well as villages. And the mechanical elephant is a much better alternative.
Nanditha Krishna
Historian, environmentalist and writer based in Chennai