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Kerala’s temple festivals have had their tragic casualties.
Of the 19 captive elephants that have died this year, 17 were broken by the ghastly battering inflicted on them during the festivals. And, during this same period, 11 humans were killed by these over-worked angry elephants.
Most of these deitified animals that are paraded at even world-renowned spectacles such as the Thrissur Pooram (sometime in April) are drugged to make them fall in line. They are made to walk on melting-hot tarmac for hours, without rest or water. Many have broken bones falling out of trucks on which they were transported from one festival venue to the other. Keralites are obsessed with the elephant in a primitive sense — the way the medieval Romans fawned over gladiators. And much like the duelling gladiators who entertained for the baying Romans, the suffering of the idol-carrying elephant is carnival in the state. Not even the sternest Supreme Court diktats have deterred the Malayali from toying with the lives of these majestic giants.
But pressure is now being exerted from the outside.
Internet travel giant TripAdvisor has declared that it will not sell tickets to destinations or events that are considered cruel towards animals. V.K. Venkitachalam, who runs the Heritage Animal Task Force, has shot off a missive, complete with photos, to TripAdvisor CEO Stepfen Kaufer. These photographs, taken secretly over the years, reveal the unspeakable suffering meted out on the elephant in the name of temple festivals.
“Human brutality expresses itself on the canvas of the elephant’s body in macabre ways,” Venkitachalam says.
Kerala’s powerful tourism department is now worried.
“Not because such abominable things are brought to the notice of the world,” a top official says. “But because I’m sure temple committees do not care two hoots about global opinion.”
The outrageously excessive fireworks display during this year’s Thrissur Pooram, which took place just a week after the notorious Puttingal fireworks tragedy that killed 110 people, had demonstrated a strange lack of remorse. The fireworks licencee had permission to manufacture only 15 kilo of fireworks but as it turned out, his team blew up 2,800 kilos. It is then an open secret that no court order can dissuade temple or church officials from dangerous or cruel displays. Committees even claim they are afraid of devotees. “Our homes were stoned after we put up a proposal to bring down the number of elephants for a procession,” says Raghavan Meppadi, a former festival committee member of a temple in Kannur.
But state Animal Welfare Board member M.N. Jayachandran says the ‘wrath of the devotee’ is nothing but a bogeyman created by the committees to implement their agenda.
“The incumbent committees want to be seen as doing more for the festival than the previous one, and so with every year, a festival turns more aggressive,” Jayachandran adds.
