People, even without realising it, have a way of admitting to their sins. See how the state spilled out its guilt recently. Desperate to have a 'kumki' unit, the state had picked three tuskers from two of its elephant rehab centres to be trained as the state's first batch of 'kumki' elephants. The interesting part is, these elephants were not handed over to even the most reputed elephant handler in the state. Instead, the forest department has lorried them across the border to Tamil Nadu, to Mudumalai Elephant Camp. The official version is that Kerala, which has more elephants per sq km than in any other part of the country except Assam, does not have the “expertise.”
But that is just a bureaucratic way of upholstering a mangled reality, which is that brutal violence is the only technique at Kerala's disposal to tame its elephants. Though a 'kumki' elephant's job (neutralising the fury of a wild tusker gone crazy and controlling its movements) involves power play, the training process involving humans is strictly non-violent. Such a training, therefore, is impossible in Kerala where every captive elephant reared for temple festivals or heavy logging duties are first clubbed, battered and crushed by handlers into submission. There, at the Mudumalai camp, the three elephants will be trained by skilled tribals using ancient techniques perfected during a time when elephants were revered as supernatural beings.
Forest minister K Raju is unwilling to concede the point, yet his response is a giveaway. “As it stands, the material conditions that obtains in the state is not conducive for 'kumki' training,” the minister said. “Also, the forest department does not possess the technical knowledge to impart 'kumki' training,” he added. It looks like the only technology his department needs to develop is compassion.
(The word 'kumki' is a derivative of the Persian 'kumak', meaning aid. A 'kumki', essentially, comes to the aid of a wild elephant in deep distress. The Persian connection is also an indication that the 'kumki' system was in vogue from time immemorial. It is also widely believed that a starry-eyed Persian traveller like Al Beruni might have given such elephants the name.)
The tribal trainers in Mudumalai mostly use whispers, strange percussive sounds (by tapping on trees, stomping on the ground, and also with their mouths), and also mimicry (they do a variety of elephant sounds like rumbles, snorts, grunts, and trumpets, and also the sounds of other beasts). “After a month or so, it is almost magical to witness the elephants doing the bidding of the tribals,” said Shanmukhapriyan, a former Tamil Nadu forest official. “The tribal handlers will have sticks in their hands but they use it only rarely, that too for just a tap,” said Shanmukhapriyan. The stick, he says, is a relatively recent introduction.
Then will begin the violent phase of the training. The violence will be inflicted not by humans but by trained 'kumki' elephants. “The trained 'kumkis' will physically harass the greenhorns, testing their strength and staying power. They will rush at them, poke them with their tusks, lash them with their trunks, and will generally push them around,” Shanmukhapriyan said. “In a month, if the elephant selected is of the right kind, it will start to withstand the bullying. A clear sign that a 'kumki' has been born is when a trained 'kumki', who just a few days ago had been doing all the bullying, refuses to go near it,” he added.
The state's first kumkis, if all goes well, are expected to be back in the state on September 12, after their three-month training; the training had begun on June 15. The three elephants picked for the training are young tuskers Neelakantan, 17, (Kodanad) and Surendran, 18, (Konni), and the she elephant Suraja, 14, (Konni). Besides young age, the height of the beasts, their strength, and also the length of their trunks mattered in their selection. They are among the 37 wild elephants that the forest department had taken custody of over the years.
The she elephant is a crucial presence in the kumki unit. “She works like a honey trap. Certain wild tuskers that barge into human settlements can be easily lured away by the female 'kumki' to the trap set for it,” Shanmukhapriyan said.
Wild elephants bursting out of the forests have now acquired a scary frequency. There are at least 18 areas in the state where human-elephant conflicts have been reported. In August 2017, two tuskers barged into mainland in Palakkad, and stayed put for 10 days. In between, they unleashed a reign of terror in the Palakkadan villages of Mathur and Mannampulli, known for their devout serene lives. All efforts to chase them off, even tranquilizer shots, didn't work. Six months later, early this year, two other tuskers strayed into human settlements. They mercifully stayed for just two days.
It has been officially estimated that there has been agricultural losses worth Rs 5 crore as a result of wild elephant menace during the 2017-18 fiscal alone.