It's Time Kerala Temples took Mercy on the Plight of Elephants

ACUTE ANGLE

- Anand Neelakantan

In a recent judgement, the Kerala High Court devised a bizarre directive on using elephants for temple festivals. The directive includes maintaining a gap of three metres between elephants, a five-metre distance from fire torches, and an eight-metre buffer for spectators, besides norms for adequate rest and safe transportation of the beasts. At first glance, this directive looks progressive and humanitarian. Much cruelty is inflicted by taming the elephants, and the hardships these beasts face during the festival season are indescribable. They are chained for hours, forced to stand in the heat without proper food or water, listening to the high-decibel drumming amid a huge crowd. As most temple festivals happen around the same time, they are transported from one temple to the next in cramped trucks for hours. They have not evolved to take this torture, and often, they go berserk, resulting in tragic accidents and stampedes.

The Cochin Devasom board had challenged an earlier directive, stating the procession of elephants is an essential religious tradition followed for many centuries. The deity is mounted on caparisoned elephants and taken on parades. However, the honourable court, in its wisdom, has decreed that it is not an essential practice of Hinduism. One is curious to know how the court arrives at what is a necessary practice of a diverse religion like Hinduism and what is not. Hinduism has no central tenets, books, church, etc, to dictate what is essential and what isn't.