Elephants are revered in India but deadly attacks are on the rise
Families in rural areas are living in fear as they demand action
The elephant holds pride of place in the affections of the people of Kerala, a lush and verdant southern Indian state, who cannot imagine celebrating any major religious or cultural event without its presence.
But if the rising number of elephant attacks continues – 10 people have been killed since the beginning of the year by elephants bursting out of forests onto roads and fields – then perhaps the love affair’s days are numbered.
One recent victim was a 62-yearold woman who was trampled to death in Thrissur earlier this month while working in the fields. “We found her body, all twisted and the bones broken, in the weeds,” said her son, Santhosh Menon.
Another victim was Indira Ramakrishnan, 70, who was taking tea to her husband who was working on their rubber plantation when a young boy ran out, screaming that a wild elephant was approaching.
“I shouted to Indira to run away but she had a hearing problem,” eye witness and neighbour Susan Thomas told local media. “I saw the elephant hold her between its legs and attack her repeatedly with its tusks.”
Ramakrishnan’s body was taken to the morgue in Ernakulam for a postmortem. But anger at the attacks is at such a fever-pitch that local people took her body out of the morgue and carried it to the protest site.
Angry protests also took place in Munnar last month after auto rickshaw driver Suresh Kumar, 43, fell foul of an elephant while taking passengers home late at night.
The elephant turned over the vehicle and trampled on Kumar, killing him on the spot.
Recent weeks have seen protests almost every day from panicked people, particularly those living on the edges of the forest, demanding action. They have blocked roads and vandalised vehicles.
People in Kerala are accustomed to some deaths from human-animal conflicts. The state is thickly forested and has almost 2,000 elephants. Last year, 17 people died in such attacks. Hungry elephants on the rampage for food destroy farmers’ crops and eat up livestock and pets.
But the conviction has set in that the problem is spiralling out of control. “There is real anxiety, especially among people who live near the boundary of forest areas. No-one feels safe,” said law student Meghna Murali who lives in Ernakulam.
As Kerala develops and takes over more land for agriculture, the forest habitat of elephants has shrunk. In their search for food, they unwittingly end up near human communities.
This phenomenon is being played out all over India as humans take over wildlife habitat for building highways, dams, and railway tracks, and for mining and quarrying.
Both sides suffer. Over 500 Indians die every year in encounters with elephants. Some 110 elephants die either from poaching for ivory, electrocution by special fences erected by farmers to protect their crops or in collisions with trains.
In Uttarakhand state, the village of Jungalia Gaon was in a state of terror last November when two tigers ventured outside the boundary of Jim Corbett Wildlife Park and killed three local women.
Schools were shut as parents were too frightened to walk their children to school. Eventually, both tigers were captured but not before widespread panic had set in.
It’s not just elephants either, whether it’s Kerala or elsewhere in India. Government data for Kerala for 2022-23, for example, recorded 8,873 wild animal attacks. Of these, 4,193 were by wild elephants, 1,524 by wild boars, 193 by tigers, 244 by leopards and 32 by bison. The human-animal conflict has escalated to the point where the cabinet convened a special meeting on March 14 to discuss how to tackle the problem.
For elephants to be in the bad books of Kerala residents is a sad development for they revere the animal more than any other state in India. The word Kerala means land of coconut trees, but the great love of locals is elephants. They are woven into the state’s social, cultural and religious life. When people make money here, they don’t get a Rollsroyce, they buy an elephant.
“Some elephants are so famous they have their own fan clubs and Facebook and Instagram pages. We’re talking about rock stars here. We are crazy about elephants,” said Rajesh Gopalakrishnan, a member of the Trissur festival organising committee.
The Thrissur Pooram festival is famous for its 50 opulently decorated elephants. “When a big star is due to visit a town, posters go up announcing his arrival and there is tremendous excitement. No grand occasion is complete without one or more elephants,” added Gopalakrishnan.
Fans display framed photos of their favourite jumbos in their homes and energetically debate their physical features and personality. But these are domesticated elephants. The wild variety is another beast altogether and the cabinet has announced numerous measures to protect residents. Sensory alarms and drones are already being used to track elephant movement and alert residents.
Now officials plan to install 250 advanced cameras along the fringes of the forests to keep a watch on their whereabouts. A new control room will post warnings about any elephant approaching a village on Whatsapp groups.
Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan also said he was looking at breeding special bees that repel elephants. The only problem with these bees is that they are said to attract bears so they will have to be bred where there are no bears.
With a general election to be held on April 19, the human-animal conflict has even become a political issue.
“My party which rules Kerala wants the federal government in New Delhi to amend the national law on wildlife to make it easier to manage wildlife that poses a threat to humans,” said Joice George, a former MP for Idukki for the Left Democratic Front.
New Delhi, however, believes the existing laws are sufficient to handle the problem. “I don’t care what they do or how they do it. All I know is, my family worries constantly about an elephant coming crashing out of the forest near our house. What we feel is pure terror,” said Menon.