Elephant Festival makes its arrival every year by the end of December in Sauraha, Nepal. The festival comprises elephant activities like Elephant Polo, Race, and Football accompanied by cultural showcases. And, the event spot gets filled with local vendors selling local goods, cuisines, or utilities.
[//]:# (!pinmapple 27.583382 lat 84.481140 long Elephant Festival Spot d3scr)
As the festival’s inauguration approaches close by, the preparation starts to make its presence in the nook and corner of the community. The town is filled with colorful festival banners, stick flags, and streets get decorated to provide a vibrant view to the tourists surfacing the town. Amid the celebration, the elephants are taken for the training as a part of the preparation for the festival. Not to forget, the winning elephants, and mahouts on different activities get awarded. The young elephant being more energetic and active gets chosen in the first place to make activities more competitive.
On the inauguration day, the roads get filled with decorated elephants of Sauraha, all lined up along with visitors and local people to roam the main street lane, and conclude in the main festival spot. The rally being crowded put the elephants in hard times to get along the way. If elephants could not do so, they get beaten up on the head. And, while it becomes hard for mahout to control, bull-hooks get jabbed on the back of the ears and head leaving scars, and wounds. The harassment is observable to everyone in the crowd. There are notable instances that visitors couldn’t tolerate the abuse and burst out their anger on the mahout.
On the day of the Elephant Festival, elephants enter, tearing up the crowd into the festival spot a few hours before the “game” from the same entrance made for visitors. They are lined up in the holding-spot nearby the arena.
Elephants are brought on the ground in between thousands of spectators. The main part of the spectator-stands is placed within the few inches of the ground radius segregated by a plastic rope fence.
Elephant festival days gets crowded when the core activities like polo, football, and race are “played”. The local visitors unaware of the abusive elephant activities cheer up as the elephants approach the ground for the “game”.
Elephant Games
Elephant Polo is a ball and mallet “game” filled with tackle and chase. The mallet (stick to hit the ball) at the other end is kept T-shaped. In elephant polo, the mahout acts as a driver whereas a player sits behind the mahout for handling the mallet to hit the ball.
The elephants are pushed and pulled on the very close proximity of each other battling for the ball-hit from the player while the mahouts also aggressively drive the elephant. While the player swings the mallet, it usually strikes on the trunk or body of the elephants. The players and mahouts are so driven for the victory that a pointed stick is jabbed behind the elephant’s head so as to frustrate the elephant and make the “game” aggressive as possible. During the halftime of the “game”, if mahout becomes frustrated with the inefficiency of the “game” displayed by the elephants then, it gets beaten on its head and mahout puts all their frustration of “game” on the elephants. The other half also goes in the same aggressive way as the victory is all being targeted in the end.
In the Elephant Race and Football, there’s no mallet but there’s very aggressive running from the elephants. The giant animal is moved to and fro on the ground to keep the hold of the ball in football. Even here, if the elephant doesn’t play well, the jabbing with pointed stick, and beating is not excused. Elephant Walk is all about race as the winning elephant and mahout gets the attention and awarded by local authority in between the thousands of spectators.
Elephant Picnic
There’s also an event in the Elephant Festival called ‘Elephant Picnic’ where elephants are offered fruits, vegetables, and local dishes. It’s really a glad sight to see elephants enjoying fruits and vegetables in the event. However, the beating of elephants could also be noticed on the picnic day as well while being held in the holding-site before the commencement of the picnic activity.
The self-ego makes a home for the victory. As a result, aggressive and competitive “game” gets displayed in between. This puts a question to the level of abuse that elephants go through behind the scene if the hitting and jabbing on elephants is done like this in between the spectators. How much torture is placed on elephants to make elephants capable of this ‘game” during the training session when no one is watching?
Usually, when the game ends, hundreds of people dispersed on the ground surround the elephant and people can be seen touching and interacting with elephants in close proximity. Not only this, some of the people (youths) could also be noticed silently pulling hairs from elephant’s tail which puts a question on the illegal activity happening on the ground.
Isn’t the Elephant Festival providing economic support for local tourism?
When we look from outside towards the festival spot, it’s a business hub for local vendors. Had there been any other ways of organizing the festival without harming elephants, people would still come in greater numbers. There are numerous occasions of festivals and fairs in the local community without abusing elephants and is usually filled with thousands of visitors entertained with higher engagements.
Even after the main festival event, local visitors love to interact with the elephants. Had elephants been sighted roaming in a type of natural habitat performing their natural behavior, it would have been beautiful. Moreover, the economic relationship that we are considering is elephant festival and other activities could be converted into elephant-friendly alternatives bringing thousands of customers into local tourism. The beautiful hub with no abuse and ride is a future-oriented business model bringing local and international visitors. Tourism in Sauraha must flourish but with a wildlife-friendly environment.
SAY NOT TO ELEPHANT RIDE
