We must end this modern-day horror
the elephants. While some said it was sad, most thought the animals were fine; everyone was laughing. They had each paid to enter the temple, while Hindus from all over the world donate money.
Later that day I meet theologian and elephant expert Venkita Chalam, a man who has received death threats for his views. We discuss whether condemning the way the animals are kept will be perceived as attacking Hinduism (as so many people have told me since I arrived in Kerala, I will be insulting traditions going back thousands of years). He shakes his head.
‘It is the opposite of Hinduism. There were no elephants at that temple before 1969, which is when Hindu families, experiencing hard times due to land reforms, donated their elephants because they could no longer care for them,’ he says.
‘With the oil boom in the 1970s, when lots of Indians became rich, donating a “sacred” elephant became a status symbol.
‘And using elephants in festivals only started in the mid-1970s. This is not ancient, this is new.’
What can we do about this modernday horror, this daily torturing of the most loved animal to have ever padded upon the planet? And why am I writing about this issue now?
After meetings with STAE, David Cameron, in his 2015 Election manifesto, pledged to help the Asian elephant; he will meet the Indian prime minister in London this autumn.
We have to hold him to this promise. And most importantly, according to Geeta Seshamani of Wildlife SOS, which brought about the end of bear-dancing in India in 2009 and rescued Raju, the 51-year-old elephant blinded by repeated beatings on his head: ‘You can refuse to go on holiday in India with a travel company that promises interaction with elephants. The key force is tourism. The government will not end this: in fact, it is about to classify the elephant as vermin. Britain must lead the way.’
I met Raju, as tall as a skyscraper, on Thursday, at the charity’s refuge outside New Delhi. His forgiveness at what mankind has done to him was the most humbling experience I’ve ever had.
STAE, which says it respects India’s religious traditions, has written to more than 200 leading UK travel companies. Some, such as Responsible Travel, have withdrawn from offering any elephant interaction.
But, of course, some luxury safari firms send tourists to Kanha National Park, which ordered elephants from the very camp I visited, offering tourists the chance to ‘see tigers in their natural habitat from the back of an elephant!’, are still luring animal lovers who have no idea of this brutal business. If you have booked one of these holidays, cancel it.
I rode an elephant to Angkor Watt in Cambodia. I had my photo taken with an elephant in Kerala a couple of years ago, the very animal used by Julia Roberts in a movie. I didn’t know I was giving oxygen to the abuse. But I know now. You know now.
When I met Nandan, and Devi, and the two prisoners at the camp in Karnataka, I looked them in the eye. I saw shock, and incomprehension at what they had done to deserve decades of torture. I promised I would help them. The kraal and ankush, like the shoes, teeth and hair at Belsen, should exist only in a museum.
Those two bewildered males are still in that kraal, in pain from arthritis from standing for so long, terrified, depressed. Nandan is there still. You can see him struggling against his chains in a video I shot which will be posted on mailonsunday.co.uk.
Don’t let him have to endure it for one more day. We have to release the 57 elephants in that temple, and close down the secretive ‘training’ camps: there are 12 in all.
Wildlife SOS has told me it can take them. We have to release them. We have to release them. We have to release them.