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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: January/February 2007

Landmark verdict in Jaipur elephant case

 

JAIPUR--Eighteen years after a jeep killed an elephant used to give tourists rides up the narrow, winding road to the Amer Palace overlooking Jaipur, the Rajasthan High Court on December 20, 2006 upheld a 1993 ruling by the Motor Accident Tribunal of Jaipur that elephant owner Saddique Khan should be compensated the same amount as if the elephant had been a human being.

The sum, about $12,500 U.S. plus interest, is to be paid by the New India Insurance Company. The company contended that it should only pay the standard rate for livestock of equivalent size, about $41.50 as of 1988, when the accident happened.

The case was judged as controversy and attempted litigation continued over elephant polo, played in Jaipur since 1975, but only protested since September 2006, when British author Mark Shand began promoting a match to benefit his charity, The Elephant Family, and the Jaipur-based animal charity Help In Suffering. The November 18 match was played without the traditional use of the ankus, or "elephant hook," to demonstrate that it could be done.

Shand is brother of Camilla Parker Bowles, wife of Prince Charles of Britain.

Activists Shubhobroto Ghosh, of Kolkata, and Azam Siddique, a television reporter in Assam state, orchestrated global Internet protest against the match. PETA organized a protest at the scene, by activists wearing elephant masks. The Haryana chapter of People for Animals sought an injunction to halt the match, further elephant polo games, and most film making use of elephants.

But the match was resolutely defended by Help In Suffering head trustee Christine Townend, who with philosopher Peter Singer cofounded the Australian animal rights group Animal Liberation in 1978, and has conducted annual elephant care clinics for the working elephants of Jaipur since 2000.

Wrote Townend, "A number of groups objected to the practice of alternative elephant polo, a slow and ambling game in which elephants walk across a soft field in cool of evening, in the winter months, under command of bare feet and voice only.

"For example, PETA claimed that the match should not take place because the elephants in Jaipur live in terrible conditions. This is exactly why Help in Suffering believes that alternative elephant polo should be encouraged, so that these elephants have enrichment in their lives.

"In a photo circulated to the media, the caption read, 'Elephant with marks from a steel hook showing on its truck and belly (Photo courtesy PETA-India).' We know this elephant well," Townend said. "We twice saved her life, when she was suffering from a urinary tract infection. The marks on her belly are patches of depigmentation due to a skin disease she had long ago.

"Alternative elephant polo was endorsed by the Animal Welfare Board of India and the Forest Department of Rajasthan," Townend continued. "We were honoured that the chair, Major General Kharb, and his wife, attended the event, along with many other dignitaries who deeply care about the miserable conditions under which the Jaipur elephants live at present, who want to see their lives improved and enriched."