The elephants that went berserk during a temple festival at Manakkulangara Bhagavathi Temple, at Koyilandy in Kozhikode district, Kerala, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025.
Credit: PTI Photo
Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala has a double standard with regard to elephants, say activists, with the state raising a hue and cry about deaths caused by wild elephants, and at the same time, parading captive elephants during festivals, which in itself comes with considerable risk.
This year so far six persons were killed after captive elephants brought to festivals ran amok. The figure was almost on par with the deaths caused by wild elephants.
"On one side Kerala laments over the threats posed by wild elephants. On the other side the state is against tightening the safety norms for parading elephants for festivals and thereby inviting danger," said V K Venkitachalam, secretary of Heritage Animal Task Force (HATF), an NGO working for animal rights.
Among the six people who died in captive elephant attack-related incidents so far this year, five were ordinary people and devotees and one mahout.
In the wake of the death of three persons after two elephants ran amok during a festival at Koyilandi in Kozhikode on February 13, HATF has written to the state chief wildlife warden stressing the need to strictly enforce the Kerala Captive Elephants (Management and Maintenance) Rules - 2012.
"All norms including the restrictions on parading elephants with health problems and minimum distance of three metres to be maintained between elephants and public are blatantly violated," Venkitachalam pointed out.
Even as the Kerala High Court recently prescribed stringent norms for parading captive elephants at festivals, the Supreme Court issued a stay after the festival organisers approached the court. The state government also opposed the stringent norms citing piratical difficulties in implementing.
Leader of opposition V D Satheesan told DH that it was high time that some stringent regulations were put in place to avert deaths caused by captive elephants. "The Congress party will look into the matter and will take a stand on it," he said.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is holding a meeting this month to discuss the issue.