‘There are studies that have concluded that elephant calves go through the same kind of post-traumatic stress disorder that human children go through when they survive war and genocide,’ he says.
‘Their entire existence is one in which people chase them with fire, crackers, sticks and abuse. The herds are constantly fleeing electrocution, railway accidents and mobs. They grow up hateful and vengeful towards humans, worsening the already intense conflict. Their interactions with humans are much bolder and more aggressive than, say, the shy forest elephants that less frequently face conflict on forest fringes.’
In short, the calves probably think of people as monsters. We would likely rush to defend our kind against these statements: some people are bad, not all are monsters. But elephants are huge, they are scary, perhaps killing us is always on their mind. But it is not just the violence in the clash between people and elephants that is the problem. It is the constancy and circularity of it. People die, elephants die. To protect their crops, people have gone back to their roots, and the one thing that separates humans from animals: the control of fire. In West Bengal, it has become regular practice to prepare something special to throw at elephants: balls of fire, used by elephant squads known as hula parties. Pictures of a mother elephant and her calf, pelted by fire balls, made history. The pictures were taken by Biplab Hazra in West Bengal.
In the photo, the calf screams, its mouth open in shock and pain. Fire engulfs its feet and backside. The calf is following its mother in panic. She runs ahead, her tail up in a characteristic gesture of alarm and stress. She has a fireball under her front foot, the one that’s trying to find a way out for her calf and herself.
In the background are young men, some running away from the elephants after having flung the balls of fire. Reality hits hard: Elephant calves of East India live, baptized and scarred by fire.
In the latest meeting of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), an international treaty that seeks to conserve different types of migratory species, an unusual new idea was mooted. Two species of wild animal—one from the sea, one from the trees—were recommended for protection based on their ‘cultures’. Biologists argue that these animals have ‘culture’, socially learnt behaviour, which is specific to a particular place. At the meeting, the CMS recognized that the Northern Sperm Whales communicate using whale songs which are different from other sperm whales. And in west Africa—in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire—chimpanzees have learnt to crack nuts with stones and wooden tools, used like hammers. Though stones and wood are available in other parts of Africa, other chimpanzees do not crack nuts using these tools. And perhaps the elephants of Athgarh and parts of West Bengal have learnt cultures of fear.
Panda observes what is the worst of human behaviour. ‘In Athgarh, young men gather around elephants in the evening. These mobs are usually all-male, unemployed and drunk. They need to do something to entertain themselves. So, they abuse elephants, pelt stones and chase them around,’ he recounts. Panda is part of campaigns to draw attention to the herd and the daily, simmering abuse.
He saw all boundaries collapse between people and elephants, when he witnessed a young man go up to an Elephant and pull its tail. The Elephant, with memories of screaming people in its eyes, ran away like a rat.
In other parts of India, if you pull a wild Elephant’s tail, it will whip around and come crashing down on you. It would all be over in a trice. But the elephants of Odisha and Bengal seem to have imbibed the culture of fear. They appear both more tolerant to human intrusions like tail-pulling, and more decisive when they do retaliate in anger.
One thing is for certain: direct confrontation like tail-pulling and fireball-throwing, which is rimmed with violence and stoked by fear, will cause more horrible accidents. But it is hard to believe just how dangerous the situation is, when everyone sees the Elephant as a rodent to be chased, and not as a mighty beast with memory and feeling.
What goes on between man and animal in a rural part of India is not likely to make news, but even the mighty Supreme Court noticed the violence. In 2018, it questioned the state of West Bengal on the practice of throwing fireballs at elephants. The state said it could not stop making hula, and use of fire torches was also recommended by elephant guidelines released by the environment ministry in 2020. It is tragic that things have come to such a head today that throwing fireballs at a living creature—the national heritage animal, no less—is being discussed in courts.
Excerpted with permission from ‘Wild and Wilful' by Neha Sinha, published by HarperCollins.
You can buy the book here