Language has shaped or disfigured landscapes, human communities, wildlife populations and our perception of the very earth we call ‘home’ over the years
Arjuna with his mahout and kavadi in 2018. Photo: Cciesri / Wikimedia Commons_ What can stories of the lives of elephants post-capture tell us about its inadequacy as an effective, fair solution to human-elephant interactions? Also, what’s the impact of the word ‘Rogue’ in addressing these elephants? Is it possible that with overuse and lack of scientific bearing, the term has de-animalised the entire species’ population?
Let me present two case studies here first:
A 20-year-old male elephant became popular after incidents of interactions between him and people in Hassan, Karnataka. He was named Mountain. The reason was not his size. Rather, it was because he hung out near a mountain in the district, foresters explained. His name itself is a misrepresentation, considering Hassan has no mountains. He was captured in 2021, on a day which is now celebrated. That is because two pachyderms (Gunda, another elephant named for being ‘round’) were caught on the same day — a ‘big feat’, according to the foresters. Mountain was translocated to Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, hundreds of kilometres (km) away. Images and videos of the capture went viral, for Mountain resisted long, even slinging mud at mahouts (elephant handlers) sitting atop kumkis (wild elephants tamed to capture wild ones) in protest.
Within a few days, Mountain started walking towards Hassan, having refused to accept the new area. He failed at the first attempt after foresters drove him back. The second time, donning a radio collar, he counted on speed. He travelled nearly 100 km for the next few days, through a river and a bird sanctuary, till his confused self arrived at the Mysore Road State Highway. While travelling at night, Mountain kept to the forests and avoided human-dominated landscapes. However, he was not alone. He was followed and watched by over 60 forest department staff throughout this ordeal. Stressed from being constantly monitored and weak, he tried crossing the highway twice. He was captured again.
The next day, the media celebrated the capture. And Mountain received more adjectives — ‘naughty’, ‘notorious’ and ‘adamant’. Like his peers, Old Belt, Beetamma, and Sara Martin, he is one of the few captured elephants to be named. State-wise, this exercise gets more interesting, with articles about how elephants in Kerala are often given more upper-caste names and those in Tamil Nadu secular. Nonetheless, most remain numbers like PT 7, PM 2, etc. They are often named to make capture operations smoother, foresters state. Messages with titles make it easier for search teams to keep track. In the end, like many of his peers, the 20-year-old elephant was just another among hundreds of the infamous gang humans call ‘Rogue’ — a blanket title rendering hundreds of individual elephants featureless, nameless, forever dismissible, and to be feared.
For years, thousands gathered to watch him, fully adorned, while pulling the 750-kg golden howdah with an idol of the Goddess Chamundeshwari behind him. He was called Arjuna. He was celebrated as an icon, with many adjectives — ‘legendary’, ‘brave’, ‘majestic’ and ‘showstopper’. It has not been easy to get here — having undergone several years of training, many more spent in kraals (small structures that restrain movement of wild elephants to tame and subjugate them to submission). He wasn’t the bearer of such appeasing praises before. In 1996, a mahout fell while bathing, and Arjuna stepped on him accidentally. At this time, he had other colourful names — ‘bad-tempered’, ‘angry young bull’. They said he was reprimanded and taken off duty. He returned and was made to work hard to meet hierarchies set by humans. He played the ‘leading elephant’ role from 2001 to 2011 at the Dasara camp. The following year, he was the carrier of the golden howdah. Some even called it his ‘redemption’.
Like many celebrities, Arjuna’s past remains less discussed. No one wants to remember that he was also a ‘Rogue’, captured in a Khedda operation (the ‘stockade method’ practised to capture wild elephants/herds, discontinued since 1973) in 1968. While he was forced to give up his life in the wild (the only one he knew), he was also trained to capture his peers in the wild. Besides working for Dasara processions for 20 years, Arjuna doubled his time as a kumki. His retirement from Dasara was slated for 2020. Yet, a 64-year-old Arjuna was used for a capture operation in 2023, which led to his death. Many things were wrong with the operation, according to the mahouts — using a retired Arjuna, him being allegedly hit by a misfired bullet as well as him being used to capture a wild counterpart in musth.
All headlines screamed foul. Many said he died fighting bravely. Others called, ‘Who killed Arjuna?’. Memorials were built, cases filed, and protests held against using an aged elephant for a capture operation. Others blamed it on the shortage of kumkis, alleging the forest department of gifting them to other states. Yet, no loud noises were made against capture as mitigation or about the existence of kumkis and their role in capture. Here we are, a month later, in January 2024, with the forest department and media declaring, “Operation to capture the wild elephant that killed Arjuna is on!”.
Human distinctions towards animal identities remain extractive and opportunistic — from a ‘Rogue’ to an ‘Icon’, or vice versa. Most kumkis are often first introduced through headlines — “Rogue tamed”, “Killer tamed”. They graduate to “superhero kumki captures rogue elephant” or “brave kumki traps rogue one”. This repeated framing and reframing of the species in an episodic manner paints this complex issue in black and white. Ironically, many kumkis have been killed by wild elephants, even when not on capture duty. Is it still anthropomorphising to assume that a wild elephant tamed to be a kumki, made to capture its wild peers, is often in pain or fear, or could it be remembering too?
Human-elephant interactions have seen a steep rise in India in recent years. Yet, Karnataka is the only state aggressively resorting to capturing elephants as mitigation, despite evidence of its futility in yielding no long-term positive change in reducing interactions. The rescue centres are almost full, too.
The Centre for Research on Animal Rights (CRAR) and the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations (FIAPO) have petitioned the Karnataka government regarding these captures, insisting on a comprehensive plan instead. This petition comes in the wake of the Karnataka Forest Department’s plans (Operation Jumbo) for a fresh round of capture of 40-50 wild elephants in the Hassan-Kodagu region.
Operation Jumbo, which commenced again in January 2024, captured three wild elephants in less than a month. It is postponed temporarily because forest officials claim the elephants have moved to inaccessible places. In other words, the move to capture elephants will continue, regardless of its incompetence as a long-term solution.
The case studies above are just two of the many stories about elephants branded as ‘Rogues’ — their lives altered permanently by capture operations. This article is not about the lives of individual animals, fighting for whom does not serve the purpose of conserving the species at large. But it’s not that these animals lack any agency. The fact that elephants have adapted and changed their ways and persist in the face of interactions is telling. They think, socialise, have families like us, and have emotions. Our cultures are different!
This is about how a blanket solution, when applied at scale without frequent review, can have dire consequences. It can only be fully understood once the other party to this solution gets an equal representation too. It’s also unfair to advance solutions, starting by barbarising one party as ‘Rogue’. Questions then raised border on whether they should be captured or held captive — varying between degrees of punishment, making it easier to dissociate, disengage and, importantly, forget about their lives post-sentencing.
Many elephants have been long gone. Many are being held captive. Plans to import more into the featureless ‘Rogue’ gang remain. The humans and the elephants they interact with, all have stories. Both feature in each other’s memoirs. These stories, inseparable from each party, offer testimonies with strong appeals for inclusive solutions if we listen enough.
Language is also intent, and over the years, it has shaped or disfigured landscapes, human communities, wildlife populations and our perception of the very earth we call ‘home’. As scientist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer explains in one of her essays, “Understanding other beings as objects, as mere “its,” opens the door to exploitation. When Maple is an “it,” we can take up the chainsaw. When Maple is a “her,” we have to think twice.”
Gana Kedlaya is an independent journalist based in Bengaluru
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth
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