Stop Assam elephants from being sent to Gujarat, Gauhati HC urged

A Canada-based wildlife activist and film-maker On Friday moved the Gauhati High Court to stop the transportation of the four elephants from Assam to Lord Jagannath temple in Gujarat.

The Assam Forest Department had recently granted permission to transport four juvenile elephants to Gujarat, where they are likely to be used to pull the chariot of Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra through the streets of Ahmedabad during the Rath Yatra festival on July 4, braving the summer heat.

The petitioner, Sangita Iyer, sought the court's intervention to stop, with immediate effect, the transportation of the four elephants until such time the weather is conducive and the legal status of the two elephants, allegedly captured from the wild, has been established.

Iyer, who is based in Toronto, said that the four elephants will have to undertake a gruelling 96-hour-long journey under extreme heat to reach Gujarat. "These juvenile elephants are incapable of handling the brutal temperatures hovering at 50 degrees Celsius. They are also being transported in a cooped-up metal buggy which will heat up considerably. It is a four-day perilous journey that will cause unimaginable suffering to these sentient beings," she said in her writ petition.

"The key issue under consideration in this case is the fact that India is currently under the spell of a horrific heat wave that is killing hundreds of people... The media have been reporting that tens of thousands of people are fleeing the extreme heat wave, which has already killed hundreds of people," she said.

Although humans can regulate their body temperatures, she said that elephants do not have sweat glands nor do they have pores.

"Under such extreme heat conditions, their internal body temperatures could surpass dangerous levels, potentially causing collapse and sudden death," she said.

"A private owner from Assam has leased them out for money to the Jagannath Temple, which will draw thousands of devotees who will also donate lakhs of rupees. Here again, is it not ironic that the same animal worshipped in India are being commoditified by the very same people who worship them?" Iyer asked.

In her petition, she also appealed the court to direct the Forest Department to ensure that the elephants are returned to to the state if they make it alive to Gujarat and that there are provisions for air-conditioned wagons, adequate fodder, water and comfort during their transportation.

Born and raised in Kerala and subsequently settled in Canada, Iyer is a National Geographic Explorer, an award-wining broadcast journalist and documentary filmmaker. In her recent film, "Gods in Shackles", she seeks to show how caparisoned elephants are exploited ruthlessly for profit under the guise of culture and religion.

The film has garnered 13 International Film Festival awards, and was nominated at the United Nations General Assembly by the International Elephant Film Festival and CITES (Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species) - a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals.

( With inputs from IANS )