Gajamukha, Vinayaka, Ganapathi, ... the elephant-headed deity Ganesha with so many names is said to be the remover of obstacles and hence always the first Hindu deity to be prayed to. He is incidentally said to be the one who wrote down from dictation the Mahabharata, with the tip of a tusk broken from himself. Sadly, with all the positive qualitites like intelligence which we like to associate with the elephant like this, there is a story seldom told of this majestic animal which is rightly an eternal symbol of India. In fact, it is probably because the animal seems so revered that one does not realise it has become an animal most badly abused in India, precisely for the sake of religious worship. You would probably not spare a thought for this as you see impressive images of the grand Thrissur Pooram festival, where elephants stand in a row amidst the fanfare with big crowds thronging about, to the tumultous sound of not one but many many chenda. It would never occur to you that these elephants have to travel for hours under the hot sun, walking on hot tar road without the luxury of footwear like what we human beings have; that in fact they are going without food and water for hours as if we are deciding for them to perform a penance.

A documentary entitled The 18th Elephant, which I happened to see some days back in a little screening here (its director and screenwriter were actually present), tells the sad stories of elephants suffering precisely such abuse in India. Narrated in the first person from the point of view of the elephants, the documentary in Malayalam reveals how badly elephants have been treated in the name of religion, in the hand of mahouts who have no love for them at all. They walk uncomfortably with their legs chained, sometimes with spiked shackles, and when they so much as make noise or try to shake off the chains that are binding them, they get shot with bullets to tranquilise them. You can easily imagine how inhumane and brutal that is if you put yourself in the shoe of such an elephant, made to perform tasks as a prisoner with your legs chained 24 hours a day. But apparently those people who are keeping elephants for religious and non-religious purposes never think even for a minute about animal rights. So much for a culture that supposedly preaches ahimsa. As the film puts it through imaginary words of the elephants, all those rituals performed with all the chains and burdens on the poor animals are totally incomprehensible. All that the elephants can feel is vedana - pain. One may ask whether these rituals can be monitored with proper guidelines so as to ensure better welfare of the elephants. Or better stiil, one may question if such practices should just be stopped altogether. Apparently a temple like Guruvayur actually keeps as many as 55 elephants. Are such things necessary? I also heard, incidentally, that a study by a foreigner has already shown that elephants in Indian temples tend to be ill-treated. There are about 800 captive elephants in Kerala.

The most gruesome part of the documentary shows that elephants have also been maimed or killed in countrysides by greedy farm owners of today who encroach on the natural habitats of wildlife and then decide the elephants need to be punished if they try to take food from these new farm lands. What they do is so cruel it's unthinkable. They disguise little bombs in the form of food which would explode in the mouths of the elephants, leaving them better dead than alive. And of course, that would facilitate the greedy people in tearing the tusk from the semi-conscious elephant and then selling it as ivory to make a fortune for themselves. The biggest joke is that some of this ivory will be carved into figures of Ganesha. Is that our idea of reverence for gods and nature, our idea of being one with nature? Now you can argue that Hindu practices of offering and wearing flowers or breaking coconuts show a tradition of love for nature, but this? This and any religious practice that involves the abuse and torture of elephants should only be called primitive. It is not reverence for the elephants, it is like killing an animal or a child to perform a sacrifice and steal energy or strength for our own well-being, it is a form of exploitation and it belongs only to the darkest manifestations of Hindu culture that needs not be. I almost feel now like I can no longer listen to a Ganesha Stuthi or watch an elephant dance the same innocent way again. Maybe you can say the drunken elephant who was in the story of Krishna fighting his evil uncle Kamsa just had to be killed and his tusk used to impale Kamsa. But that is old mythology, go find some philosophical meaning in it. Religious practices can change for the better. Thousands of years ago animal sacrifice might have been common; in fact Indians were apparently known to eat beef too until King Asoka who believed in Buddhism decided to put a stop to it, and now we all know of not eating beef as part of Hindu culture.

I was recently reading this excellent book entitled Being Indian by Pavan K. Varma, who makes very sharp social observations and criticisms on Indian society. One thing he said was that "traditional Hindu society had no real concept of moral problems. Any action considered wrong in a certain context is condoned and even lauded in a different context." He also quoted a book (The Speaking Tree: A Study of Indian Culture and Society, by Richard Lannoy) which said: "India has no developed indigenous ethical system - it has concentrated more on the mystical apprehension of an ultimately reality which transcends good and evil than on differentiating between good and evil acts." The special concept one finds in Hinduism instead is dharma. And Pavan Varma adds: "Dharma is an undefined and ehemeral ideal... A man can do no wrong if he acts to protect his vadharma, conduct that is right for one's jati or station. He cannot be held accountable for actions that are a part of his ashramadharma, conduct that is right for one's stage of life. He canot be penalised for transgressions made in the interests of kuladharma, conduct that is right for one's family. And finally, almost anything he does would be justified in a situation of distress or emergency, when he would be guided by his appadharma, conduct that is right in moments of crisis." Now I hope this isn't the right interpretation or it implies that being Indian means shirking all moral judgements and leaving everything to fate or karma, and that also means we definitely have a lost cause here then.

Filmmakers of The 18th Elephant clearly run the risk of facing hostility from the community as their message can easily be twisted and wrongly interpreted as anti-Hindu. If you do an internet search on this film you can see how a report about the film in The Hindu newspaper can be phrased so conservatively in order not to offend the religious public. That sadly may just perpetuate the romantic idea of love for elephants without people realising that elephants are best left on their own to roam free. And please, religion itself is not the object of criticism here. I for one still like the image of Ganesha, especially the symbols of Pasa and Ankusa. But the lesson there is that we should apply the rein and the hook on ourselves, to exercise self-control and avoid unnecessary desires so as to go on the right path.