The Elephant in the Room

Abstract

In a letter dated 14 October 2015, the Minister of State (Environment, Forests and Climate Change; henceforth MoEF and CC in the series), Shri Prakash Javadekar wrote to the Minister of Women and Child Development, Smt. Maneka Gandhi—in response to an earlier email she had sent—announcing the Bihar State Board of Wildlife’s decision regarding banning transport of captive elephants from Bihar to other states and vice versa, and also banning their sale, purchase and transfer across the country. This received considerable attention in several regional and national dailies, and in several forums on social media. To many people, the larger context (or relevance) of the order was (is) not very clear. The objective of this article, and the forthcoming ones in this series is to deal with various issues and shortcomings in the captive elephant management sector in the country, with emphasis on the southern Indian state of Kerala, which boasts of its centuries’ old association with the largest land mammal in captivity.