Book Extract: When elephants become refugees

. . . For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they are more finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other Nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.

—Henry Beston, The Outermost House

1 January 2016, Betakholi, Athgarh Forest Division, Odisha

‘Raha, Raha, Raha!’ urged Panchanan Nayak, a short, wiry man whose voice rose barely above a hoarse whisper—yet his sense of urgency to ‘stop’ reached the three-ton, eight-foot tall cow elephant. She ground to a halt then extended her trunk to encircle her young son to contain him. She is a wild elephant, even if she goes by the name of ‘Lakshmi’. She is the matriarch of a herd of twenty-five-odd elephants who followed her lead, and paused—impatiently—just short of the busy Bhubaneswar–Athgarh highway and the paddy fields beyond.

It was surreal: twenty-five wild elephants contained in their path by Panchanan or Panchu as he is known and his three colleagues: Sanatan Nayak, Dileep Sahu, Santosh Sahu. Together they form the ‘Athgarh Elephant-conflict Mitigation Squad’ which tries to keep people, their crops and the elephants safe by influencing their movements. Not by force, no, of course not. Not by blank-firing guns, bursting firecrackers, burning mashals (live torches) to drive away harried animals—which are the methods usually deployed across India to contain or get rid of ‘conflict elephants’ as they enter towns, bazaars, fields—places that were once forests that these animals lived in, and migrated through seeking water, food or avoiding monsoon flooding.

Here, man and beast communicated.

Calling this group a ‘squad’ is a bit grandiose. Panchu and his gang, a ragtag group of daily wagers employed by the forest department are armed with nothing more than lathis, and mobile phones to coordinate their movements, call in forest staff reinforcements, or summon the police to control crowds that form when elephants enter human settlements, crowds that all too frequently turn into angry mobs.

The elephants had approached the road in the late afternoon, a time when traffic was heavy, children were racing home from school, and cowherds were herding the cattle back to their paddocks. People were still at work in the fields and milling around doing brisk business in the dhabas and shops that line the highway. On the edge of the road, barely hidden within a fragment of forest, the elephants were restless. On the other side of the road was one of the few sources of water within this dry landscape, and the paddy was ready for harvest—offering an easy, power-packed snack for the pachyderms.

The scraps of patchy forests that the elephants are confined to do not provide enough food to sustain them.

These elephants are refugees, driven away from Chandaka, a sanctuary on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, the capital of Odisha, on India’s eastern coast. Chandaka was once connected to the Kapilas forests further north. Westward along the left bank of the Mahanadi, the forests extended towards Narsinghpur, and into what is today the Satkosia Tiger Reserve and Mahanadi Elephant Reserve…

Lakshmi’s herd waded through the river Mahanadi, moved through towns, villages, industrial areas and crossed highways to reach Athgarh.

The elephants were chased away from their home, chased everywhere, hemmed in scraps of forest. Wild, cornered, desperate. Pushed into conflict with man, they have retaliated by killing about ten people since 2010. Yet, they ‘listen’, and respond to the ‘squad’, who are literally, their shadow.

Why? I ask the trackers.

The answer is as simple as it’s complicated: ‘The elephants know we help them,’ they say.

When the elephants are harangued by a mob, the trackers lead them to safety, freeing them of the terror only a trapped wild creature knows. If the elephants are near railway tracks, the squad warns the stationmaster at the Raj Athgarh station who then signals trains to slow down. They have notified authorities at power utilities of sagging power cables; running into electrical lines poses serious danger to elephants. Death may be accidental, but avoidable, if simple measures are taken. Occasionally, it is deliberate poaching or retaliatory killing by villagers who set high voltage live wire traps or erect electrified fences.

In Odisha alone, electrocution has killed over 150 elephants in the last fifteen years, according to an analysis of forest department records and newspaper reports by the Wildlife Society of Orissa. Three months after I visited them (January 2016), two elephants—a mother and her calf—were electrocuted.

Panchu and his group once rescued Lakshmi’s five-year-old calf, Nungura (‘the one who teases’), when he fell into an open well. Nangura is a bit of brat, naughty, curious, whimsical, ‘actually not unlike my own son, Pintu,’ mutters Panchu as his mates holler in glee. The calf whimpered and shrieked as he flailed in the depths, with the herd desperately trying, and failing to lift him out with their trunks. The inevitable crowd gathered. Curious onlookers who tried to get close to watch the tamasha were charged at by an enraged, distressed Lakshmi, some moving particularly close, unmindful, even mocking of the animals. Many held mobile phones aloft, clicking selfies—not an uncommon occurrence these days in volatile situations. Lakshmi charged, stopping just short of the crowd. She bellowed in warning, once, twice, thrice; maybe more, but heedless, the men jostled ahead, peering into the well. Tormented by the crowd, and terrified for her calf, Lakshmi struck, killing one man.

The situation was fast becoming explosive when the squad arrived. They admitted to a brief moment of fear—after all Lakshmi had just killed a human—before it flickered out. ‘The elephants are not killers,’ said Panchu. ‘They will not harm intentionally. We knew it was only because she was provoked, cornered, and like all mothers, fiercely protective.’ So, they talked to the distraught Lakshmi, calming her, reassuring her, ‘that we would get her child back. But she had to let us do our job,’ said Panchu.

The matriarch moved away, a silent sentinel, and with the deployment of earth movers, the calf was pulled from the well and reunited with the herd.

In the alien, inimical world that the elephants have been tossed into, they know that they have these men on their side.

However, this man–animal relationship is taking a toll on the trackers. Their affinity for the elephants has alienated them from the other village folk, at times, even their families, who bear them a grudge for crops damaged by ‘their’ animals, as well as the havoc they create. Sanatan, another member of the squad, says his father is fed up with being at odds with his community, and fears for his son—with his strange job, and at odds with his people. Besides he worries, ‘who will marry my son who chases elephants?’ He offered to pay Sanatan the 200 or so rupees that he gets as his daily wages, if he left the job, and the elephants!

But Sanatan won’t leave his job. Like the rest of the squad, for better or for worse, he feels bonded to the pachyderms.

It wasn’t always so. They were hired in 2011, positions that were created because of escalating human–elephant conflict, with three human mortalities in rapid succession. Panchu and his men were unacquainted with elephants, knew little about them, and were apprehensive. They were also clueless. ‘We didn’t know how we were supposed to control the situation, much less the elephants. They were, are wild! And enormous!’ remembers Panchu. In the beginning they followed the elephants at a ‘very safe distance’, joining the crowd in firing crackers, shouting, and wielding lathis

to scare them away. But it didn’t work, in fact, it had quite the opposite effect. The uproar spooked the animals, sparking greater chaos and damage.

The turning point came when they discerned that the elephants were just as terrified, yet didn’t misuse their immense strength and power. ‘They could have caused us grievous harm as we bumbled behind, trying to chase them away,’ said Panchu. ‘This gave us courage.’ It also sparked empathy for the beleaguered pachyderms. As they monitored their charges 24x7, they learnt elephant behaviour and individual characteristics. They identified those who were calm—and those who could be unpredictable. They knew that Lakshmi was gentle and wise, yet if she felt threatened, or if provoked, she could become aggressive.

Elephant societies are close-knit and led by matriarchs, who are a repository of wisdom, and the hub of a complex, multi-layered society. As the matriarch, Lakshmi would put her life at risk, and even kill, if her herd was threatened.

The men also realized that it was hunger and thirst that drove the animals. They understood that the animals were intelligent, emotional beings.

They saw them grieve. When one of the elephants was electrocuted, the group tried to rescue the dying animal, trampling the live wire and getting hurt in the process. They surrounded the carcass, circling it, touching it with their trunks, shaking their heads back and forth, calling out in distress.

Extracts have been taken with permission from Penguin | Viking

Pages 326; ₹599