The Kerala Elephant's Death & We Beings

The killing of a 15 year old elephant had triggered not just country wide, but world wide protest after a Facebook post by a forest officer Mohan Krishnan who witnessed her death, wrote a sad post in Facebook. Many across the world joined to condemn the action, which indeed was unfortunate. The elephant had wandered off from Silent Valley National Park in the Mannarkkad region of Palakkad district. Palakkad and Malappuram districts share a long border, dotted with villages all along. The elephant was found near the Thiruvizhiamkunnu forest station, which falls under Mannarkkad forest division. This is geographically located in Palakkad district.  Initial reports suggested that the elephant died after eating a pineapple stuffed with crackers but the latest post-mortem report said it was a coconut and that her wounds were two-week-old. By the time the elephant died, all that remained of her body was a skeleton, and during the autopsy, it was found to be pregnant.

Some tried to give a communal twist to this among others the hypocrisy and devious intentions of Mrs. Maneka can't be overlooked. She made baseless allegations, intended to misguide and defame certain sections of people and politicize the situation claiming it to be from Muslim-majority Malappuram district. 

Death of the Elephant was cruel and sad; but it did not happen in Malappuram and the elephant was not fed. It had eaten the food kept to scare away wild bores. This is an atrocity, which has been a bad Practice being followed since long. My gut feeling is this news is being highlighted in a fabricated manner at this juncture when there are so many things happening around, because there is something happening behind the scenes, which has to be hidden. That indeed is the murder. What could that be? Increasing Covid Count, Decreasing GDP numbers, Increasing Chinese incursions into India,, Reducing environment and forest cover,,Increasing death count on Shramik Trains, Reducing employment opportunities, Increasing Poverty and crime,, Reducing interest rates on deposits, Increasing NPAs of Banks, Reducing SSIs and MSMEs, the ending of Manu Sharma’s life term murderer of Jessica Lall after 17 yrs.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10158182204931138&id=551396137 - This reads as below:

"Posted by Harishvara Venkat: Yesterday at 12:24 · 

Long post alert about the #ElephantStory

1. People did not "Feed" the Elephant with cracker stuffed Pineapple.

2. The Elephant ate the pineapple that was kept as a bait to kill Wild Boards.

3. 1000s of Wild boars are killed every year in a similar fashion.

4. Some don't even die immediately, they suffer for a few days without a face or mouth to eat. I have personally seen wild boars with jaw missing.

5. Wild Boar lives matter too.

6. It didn't happen in Malappuram.

7. Where did religion come into this picture.

8. Black Lives matter, but before that, stand up for your own country and your own people first.

9. Try to understand the crux of the problem and then provide a solution if you can. .

10. Change.org doesn't change anything!

11. The Government destroys more forests and animal lives more than anyone else in this country in the name of clearances for "development" aka, an opportunity to swindle fortunes.

12. During the COVID 19 lockdown, more than 2 dozen clearances in more than 10 States were issued by the Ministry of Environment in India.

13. This means, more and more elephants will be driven out of their homes, more wild boars will roam facelessly, more tigers will be caught in the snare and more leopards will be pelted with stones until they die.

14. IF you fight for the right reason, with the right understanding of an issue, this can be avoided.

15. As we speak, #DibangValley in #ArunachalPradesh is going to lose more than 3,00,000 trees to a useless dam project approved by the Ministry of Environment WITHOUT PROPER research.

16. If you save the forest, you will in turn reduce the number of human-animal conflicts and you have been indirectly saving elephants from dying.

17. Spare a thought for a poor farmer, who has been living off a small piece of land, cultivating small amounts of crops to feed his family.

18. What will he do when the crops are damaged by wild animals? Who will feed his family?

19. He will approach the forest department who is not empowered to help them.

20. After umpteen requests and eternally going hungry, he will retort to such malpractices to protect the crops and feed his family because, in his eyes, he'd rather lose a wild boar that's not his, than to see his kid starve.

What is the Solution?

There is no permanent solution. But the good news is, you can mitigate the problem.

1. The Government needs to step up. I am not talking about this party or that party or thaaat party. Anyone who wants to make this political or religious, I warn you! Stay away.

2. Take care of the farmers' needs.

3. Introduce insurance plans and compensation plans for farmers that lose the crop due to famine or wildlife.

4. Employ more people to go do the fieldwork and follow up on this issue and compensate farmers rightfully.

5. Employ more people at the understaffed Forest Departments to monitor wildlife movement.

6. Employ "Passionate Experts" who can advise and treat every situation and incident as an individual case scenario than bring in blanket rules which have no use at all.

7. Create an ecosystem that includes responsible tourism and get the future generation to protect our Natural History.

8. Instead of saving animals, save the forests. Save the land! The animals will take care of themselves. They have been doing that for millions of years.

9. Stop spreading hate.

10. Peace out!"

Tired and ashamed of all who bring religion and politics into everything. All these are basics of Humanity. When that is lost, there is no hope. Only hatred, darkness and blame games. Ridiculous. Even during these times. May truth and peace prevail. 

The Beings..'- Good to see the anger and feelings of a lot of celebrities ( as they are called ) to the business tycoons on the suffering of a fellow animal being ..every single 'being' matters. Hoping for the same Empathy or Courage of the same people and many many more ( don't know who needs what ) when a fellow human being is lynched, brutally murdered, dies due to religious riots or hunger, commits suicide on petty loans or suffers while walking hundreds of kilometres etc..etc.. am sure then this nation will become a much better, more loving nation respecting all the 'beings' !! - Anshu Gupta - So well said.