This is what the TOI reports today (June 2, 2011) 'Villagers crowd around the carcass of a female elephant near Kalchini tea garden in the Dooars. The jumbo fell into a 20-foot-deep ditch while fleeing from villagers who had burst crackers to chase away a herd of around 15 elephants on Wednesday(June1, 2011).'
Where will the elephants go? we have destroyed the forests, devastated their corridors...mined them, submerged them, pillaged them.
Till the elephants have nowhere to go.
As they scrounge for food and water, struggle for survival and scurry for cover..from fields and villages to slivers and shreds of 'forest'/they are chased by terrified, enraged mobs. they are hit-stoned-burnt.
..Till they meet their death.
Very undignified deaths-for a very dignified, peaceable animal. If we would let them be.
They are poisoned, shot, electrocuted.
Little calves get separated from their mothers-and aunts..
they mostly die. At best, they are doomed to captivity.
And If they are lucky they eke their living a government servant 'department elephant'.
the following is what i wrote about five years back:
Barely five percent of the elephant's original habitat remains, comprising fragmented pockets of forests. Elephants are nomadic creatures dictated by ancient instincts leading them to sources of food and water, especially in times of scarcity. But their forests and migratory paths are swallowed by dams, devastated by mines or taken over by agriculture. Homeless and starved, elephants maraud crops, destroy structures and occasionally kills helpless people protecting their homes. In retaliation, people poison, electrocute or ‘blow up’ elephants, by placing crude bombs in jackfruits or bananas, that unsuspecting pachyderms eat.
Is Ganesha a God? Why, then, don't we have a place for him--in our home, and heart?
