An Emotion Called Freedom

So, you’re an elephant walking alone in a forest and suddenly you get ambushed by humans. The next thing you know, you’re standing under a concrete stand. You feel tight pulls on your forelegs and hindlegs when you try to move a bit to scratch that never fading itch. The steel chains leashed on your legs become the devil in your claustrophobic mind.

You find your food already uprooted and kept in front of you on the cement floor that hurts your feet. Soon, you’re an entertainment item for human kids and adults. They try making noises to get your attention, they take your photos and most importantly, they just stare and walk away without setting you free.

Welcome to Kottoor Elephant Rehabilitation Centre, Trivandrum, Kerala, India. This site which runs in the name of a rehab centre for elephants in reality, a place practicing animal cruelty which is looked after by the Forest Department and funded by both UNEP and the Centre.

So every year, they get funds which amount to crores from the Centre for rescuing, treating and releasing the elephants back into the wild. However, this fund is used to build concrete sheds for elephants, building rented houses within the site and for constructing buildings which have never been used and is now rusting. Moreover, the sites in which these buildings were built are primarily the sites for elephants to walk around.

There are 18 elephants here. One of them was given by the Trivandrum zoo because it was caged and it needed freedom. We saw that elephant chained and kept under the shed. What more? Two mahouts were treating it cruelly with a cane. It was extremely depressing and enraging to watch it.

3pm to 5pm is the time when the elephants are taken out one by one for a “community” bath. Here, the visitors are given a demonstration. The elephants are still chained and not cleaned properly even with all the excess staff present there. The staffs walk around jobless. They gain additional money by conducting boat rides in the name of eco-tourism.

 

This rehab centre is also responsible to preserve indeginous plants. That is being violated; also, they grow palm varieties which will impact the micro ecosystem of Kerala. Temporary buildings which were to be demolished months ago, is still preserved like an artefact.

 

The officials have unnecessarily bought a jeep using the Central Govt. fund.

It is saddening to see the torture shown to these humble giants in the name of rehab. Their denied freedom and treatment instead of releasing them back into the wild is animal cruelty.

Elephants are social creatures which can easily survive the wild. They do not need to be protected or domesticated by humans. This is nothing but a program to gain profit illegally.

 

The elephants need their freedom, and those who are denying it by using up all the money from the people via the Central Govt needs to be put behind the bars. Freedom is an emotion too.