Blind men and an elephant parable teaches lessons for human-wildlife coexistence in modern India

For centuries, a parable has been passed down in which four blind men try to determine the shape and size of an elephant and arrive at varying conclusions. The one who touches the trunk thinks an elephant is a large snake; the one who touches the leg believes it is a tree trunk; the one who touches the sides says it is a high wall; and another concludes that the tusk is a smooth piece of rock.

They cannot imagine the elephant as a whole, their inability preventing them from piecing the parts together. The moral of the story lies in ‘seeing’ the bigger picture, with the blind men serving as an allegory for being unable to perceive a thing as more than the sum of its parts. It is a lesson in perspective, which shapes how we conceptualise and evaluate our understanding of individual elements.

In one version, the men squabble amongst themselves; in another, they fight to defend their perceptions. While the blind men are an allegory, the elephant serves as a metaphor for God. This parable is said to have originated in the Indian subcontinent, with some versions dating back to 500 BCE.

Over 2,500 years later, this fable remains relevant, particularly in the context of human-elephant interactions. The metaphor in the modern version is the conflict between humans and elephants, while the varying perceptions of this conflict serve as today’s allegory.

India’s elephant population was estimated to be around 27,312 in the 2017 assessment. A recent investigation has revealed a decline of 20 per cent in this population over the past five years. As we await the official status — delayed by two years, as the elephant estimation exercise is conducted every five years — the statistics of elephant deaths due to unnatural (human-related) causes, alongside human injuries, fatalities and property damage, paint a worrying picture.

In the last decade, nearly 1,000 elephants have died, with approximately 102 elephants dying of unnatural causes each year. Simultaneously, nearly 5,000 people have lost their lives in encounters with elephants, equating to about 493 deaths annually.

The perspective on this conflict has been limited. There is little to glean from yearly statistics – they lack in more ways than they provide. The big picture is revealed by analysing parts of the data, such as understanding how these deaths are distributed spatially and temporally. This helps in piecing together other elements: why do these incidents occur in this place and at this time? 

It further aids in understanding how humans and elephants use that space and time, the demographics of the victims and the overall socio-ecological dynamics of the region. For instance, in East-Central India, elephant deaths show a distinct peak during the crop-ripening season. 

In Northeast India, the period from October to December is known as ‘hathi season,’ when elephants raid paddy fields, leading to increased human and elephant deaths due to heightened interactions.

Elephants move through a mosaic of land uses, ownerships and areas governed by different laws and regulations. With large-scale habitat conversion for agriculture and increasingly fragmented habitats, conflict has become acute, shifted, or even evolved into a chronic, localised issue with manifold ramifications. Injury and loss of human life, along with property damage—whether standing crops, stored grains, houses, or storage facilities—have consequences that extend beyond the immediate prospects of conflict mitigation. 

Meanwhile, the globally declining elephant population, threatened by international wildlife trafficking, retaliatory killings as acts of revenge, or the use of lethal means to protect crops, alongside increasingly isolated herds, has made elephants the poster child for human-wildlife antagonism.

The premise of the parable is not that we are blind to human-elephant conflict but that we have failed to realise it requires all measures to come together. With elephants spanning vast areas, the challenge of managing human-elephant conflict solely through state forest departments — beyond the purview of their jurisdiction — is the blind man of the story. Human-wildlife conflict is often perceived as a specific responsibility of state forest departments, which ‘own’ the species as it traverses public lands, private properties and areas under revenue or other governmental jurisdictions. 

Forest departments are generally seen as treating human-elephant conflict as a conservation issue. Meanwhile, the human welfare and development aspects — typically the purview of other departments such as agriculture, veterinary, health, irrigation, revenue, power, police, roads and railways — are rarely, if ever, considered for mitigating human-elephant conflict, saving human lives, or conserving elephants.

Isolated perspectives not only make efforts to mitigate human-elephant conflict one-sided and restricted but also hinder understanding of the social, economic and cross-sectoral dimensions of the issue. Although steps are being taken to integrate perspectives — such as constructing elephant underpasses on highways passing through elephant habitats and imposing speed limits on trains — the broader picture, including addressing crop damage by improving compensation mechanisms and incorporating mitigation measures into upcoming and existing infrastructure projects, is often overlooked.

The Guidelines for Human-Elephant Conflict Mitigation, published by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, provide an overview of the central ministries and state departments crucial for conflict mitigation. However, policy implementation remains insufficient. Even today, key stakeholders such as oil refineries and mining industries — major contributors to habitat fragmentation — are often excluded from deliberations.

The scale of human-elephant conflict in many parts of India is calamitous and may inadvertently erode the sense of belongingness towards elephants. Over the past decade, more than 70 per cent of elephant deaths have been due to electrocution and poisoning—both forms of retaliatory killings — with cases of electrocution increasing by 28 per cent over the past 14 years. 

While elephant deaths caused by electric shocks from loose overhead wires are frequently reported, the use of electric fences powered by overhead lines to protect crops has significantly increased elephant fatalities across the country.

In this 21st-century parable, perhaps the most significant development is the brief but recurring discussion on human-wildlife conflict, particularly involving elephants, during question hour sessions in India’s Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha.

Yet, the moral of the story remains elusive: until all relevant sectors are identified and brought together, human-elephant conflict will persist, leading to localised elephant extinctions amidst a changing human-nature dynamic, with communities bearing the burden of property loss, livelihood disruption and fatalities.

Aniruddha Dhamorikar works as Lead for Species Conservation for WWF-India's Brahmaputra Landscape based out of Tezpur

Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth