Elephants in temples: Why cling to a cruel, archaic practice and call it ‘culture’

If we can forego war elephants and human sacrifices, we can certainly do away with the horrible, outmoded ritual of parading tuskers in temples.

This was First Published in The News Minute, 28 March 2025   

( https://www.thenewsminute.com/kerala/elephants-in-temples-why-cling-to-a-cruel-archaic-practice-and-call-it-culture ) 

The Supreme Court's recent remark that using elephants in temple celebrations is part of our culture highlights how selectively we understand culture. Yes, elephants have always played an important role in Indian history, mythology, and traditions. We adored them, developed treatises on how to care for them, and even rode them into combat. However, India no longer fights wars on elephant backs. We changed, adapted, and abandoned methods that no longer aligned with the ethical and practical realities of today. Why, then, do we insist on holding on to the cruel spectacle of captive elephants in religious festivals?

Let us be honest. The elephants we see now at temple festivals, tethered for hours, forced to walk through firecracker-blasting crowds, and subjected to constant blaring from loudspeakers, are not symbols of cultural pride. They're victims. Victims of an outmoded assumption that the greatest being on earth should be the one that parades our deities and beliefs and, in the process, suffers hell.

From battle elephants to chained elephants

India has a long history of engaging elephants, not just in religious contexts but also in administration and warfare. Thomas Trautmann's Elephants & Kings: An Environmental History describes how elephants were once symbols of both divine power and state authority. From the Mauryan Empire to the Mughal courts, they were indispensable to rulers, valued for their intelligence, strength, and role in warfare. They were valuable resources for kings, and yet, they were allowed space, dignity, and vast forested areas to thrive.

Today's temple elephants, by contrast, are captives rather than soldiers or royal companions. They are stripped of their individuality, deprived of their social relationships, and forced to live in environments that are entirely alien to their nature. The very animals that were once considered too noble for common labour are today exposed to endless parades, loud fireworks & noise, and cruel captivity.

A culture that once understood elephants—and now fails them.

India wasn’t just a country that ‘used’ elephants. It was also a country that understood them better than most. The ancient Sanskrit text Matanga Lila, dating to over a thousand years ago, is regarded as one of the most comprehensive manuals on elephant care. It described elephants' deep intelligence, emotions, and social nature and provided guidelines on how they should be treated—with care, patience, and respect. The irony is that everything it cautioned against—overworking, neglect, and harsh training—is precisely what we do now, under the guise of "culture."

Elephants in captivity were once given forests to roam, bonds to build, and a dignified life, even while they worked for humans. What we see today—elephants held in solitary confinement, displayed as live trophies, and dying of stress-related ailments—would be unrecognisable to ancient Indian scholars and mahouts.

The reality of temple elephants

For every temple festival adorned with a gorgeous tusker, there are innumerable hidden stories of pain. Like Thechikottukavu Ramachandran, one of Kerala's most famous elephants, who has killed many people and even other elephants—most likely out of fatigue and stress— is nevertheless celebrated as a star attraction. Or the case of Rajeshwari, a temple elephant in Tamil Nadu, that died of weariness, standing on stone floors for hours, blessing the devotees, and an accident where it broke its legs and had sores all over her body.

And most recently, at the Manakulangara temple festival in Koyilandy, Kerala, two elephants, Peethambaran and Gokul, were startled by fireworks, leading them to go on a rampage. This incident resulted in the death of three individuals and injuries to at least 30 others. These aren't single incidents; they're patterns.

But these patterns get overlooked, and each incident is seen as an issue of individual elephants. No one seems to want to see the situation as a failure of the system – one that should ensure the proper and healthy treatment of elephants, the regulations that need to be adhered to for their use in public functions, their handling by the mahouts and so on. Even the Supreme Court that dealt with this matter perhaps ignored these patterns and fundamental questions.

The fact is the system itself is failing; perhaps the owners of the elephants or the institutions that hire them—temples, mosques, churches, and so on—do not believe in having a decent system. Many temple elephants in Kerala and elsewhere are privately owned and rented out for profit. They are not treated as sentient creatures, but rather commodities. The larger society, and specifically the Supreme Court judge, need to be reminded that the so-called "culture" and "tradition" have today degraded by choice into a ruthless industry in which elephants are bought, sold, and exploited with almost no control, neither traditional, modern, nor legal.

Doesn't culture evolve?

Let us now look at the argument of culture. India was formerly a land where, in some cultures, widows were burnt on pyres (sati), child marriages were prevalent, human sacrifices were rituals, and caste ruled a person's entire life. All of these were justified as "tradition" and “culture” at one point. But we did away with them. We succeeded in doing so, although it wasn't without challenges or difficulties.

Elephant parades may have had a place in temple rites when elephants were well cared for and their presence was symbolic and not exploitative. However, those days have long since passed. Elephants at today's festivals are not symbols of divinity; rather, they are living testaments to our society's incapacity and insensitivity to recognise suffering when it confronts us.

However, change is imminent

But then there is a gradual but steady shift happening—not from outside the faith but from within. Many temples in Kerala are currently exploring humane alternatives, including symbolic processions, decorated chariots, and artistic representations. These rituals are designed to honour tradition without harming animals.

The Irinjadappilly Sree Krishna Temple in Thrissur introduced a life-sized mechanical elephant in 2023. The same year, the Aluva Thiruvairanikulam Mahadeva Temple used a wooden palanquin instead of the elephant. In 2018 itself, the Nalppathenneeswaram Temple in Cherthala had shifted to wooden structures. Both the Kanichukulangara temple and the Cherthala Sree Mahadeva Temple in Alappuzha have discontinued the use of live elephants, citing safety and compassion in their decision. Many more temple trusts and devaswoms are considering doing away with the cruel practice of elephant parading, which today has also turned dangerous.

This course of action is not novel. Sree Narayana Guru, the great reformer, is known to have called for temples to be free of elephants and fireworks—“Kariyum karimarunnum illatha kshethram venam” Following the 2016 Puttingal fireworks tragedy, the Sivagiri Mutt reaffirmed this vision. Swami Prakasananda, the president of the organisation, encouraged temples to relinquish elephants and explosives in accordance with the Guru's teachings. Following recent incidents of rampage by elephants, they reiterated this stance.

In the present day, a multitude of contemporary spiritual voices reaffirm this sentiment, emphasising that devotion should not be equated with domination and that the essence of worship should be compassion. And when we explore new ways of processions and parading the idols, human creativity gets a renewed space; “culture” and “tradition” are reinvented and preserved, and no harm is caused to the most magnificent of animals, the elephants.

The way forward: A culture of compassion

We have a choice. We can stubbornly cling to a cruel, archaic practice and call it “culture”. Or we can do what India has done for centuries—evolve, adapt, or innovate and lead.

And, if the underlying issue is devotion, it cannot be at the cost of terrible harm and suffering to others. If the gods can only be pleased by an elephant, surely they would have chosen one that is free, joyous, and unchained rather than a beaten, broken creature standing lifelessly and in pain among a festival crowd.

Culture is not a museum piece; it is a living, breathing entity that evolves. And if we can forego war elephants and human sacrifices, we can certainly do away with the horrible, outmoded ritual of temple parades.

So, the next time you see an elephant swaying with its legs chained and tears in its eyes, ask yourself: Are we actually honouring the gods? Or are we simply showing them the devil in us? And calling it “culture”.

Sridhar Radhakrishnan is an observer and writer on development and policy related to the environment, agriculture, and climate.

 ASHA workers’ protest: If the state takes pride in its public health system, it must also honour those who maintain it

These women have no formal employment status, no pension, no insurance, and no leave benefits. That this indifference is coming from a left-wing government is disturbing

First published in The Indian Express, March 27, 2025 ( https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/asha-workers-protest-public-health-system-9906788/) 

For over a month now, the pavement outside Kerala’s secretariat in its capital city, Thiruvananthapuram, has been witness to a powerful protest as resolute as it is revealing. More than 26,000 Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) — the unsung heroes of Kerala’s famed public health system — have gone on indefinite strike, braving the streets, sun, and silence from the state government. And what are they demanding? Dignity. Fair wages. Recognition. Respect.
What makes this protest so remarkable is not just its scale or its persistence but the uncomfortable silence from a government that claims to be progressive. The Left Democratic Front (LDF) government — supposed to be a champion of worker rights— has refused to engage meaningfully with these women. These women, who spent the last two decades carrying out crucial community health work across the state, are now forced to fight not illness but indifference.
Kerala takes pride in its health system — it has the best health indicators in India. Life expectancy is the highest. Maternal and infant mortality rates are the lowest. Immunisation and outreach systems are robust.
This much-celebrated “Kerala Model” is built by the health workers, of which a very significant role was played by the daily labour of ASHA workers. These women, especially in rural and marginalised communities, conduct home visits, immunisation drives, and antenatal and postnatal care; track fevers; spread knowledge on nutrition, hygiene, and mental health; maintain disease surveillance; and give emergency responses.
During Covid-19, ASHAs were the frontline, ensuring contact tracing, quarantine monitoring, vaccination, and care for vulnerable groups. Yet today, those same hands are forced to raise fists in protest. 
Currently, ASHA workers in Kerala receive a monthly honorarium of ₹7,000 from the state, a fixed incentive of ₹3,000, and minor task-based payments, bringing their average earnings to about ₹10,000. Of this, only ₹1,600 comes from the central government. In return, they work 10–12 hours most days, with no formal employment status, no pension, no insurance, no set working hours, and no leave benefits.
This makes their demands very reasonable: a monthly wage of ₹21,000, not merely task-based honorariums; a retirement benefit of ₹5 lakh; timely incentive payments; fixed working hours; and, most importantly, the government recognising them as formal health workers.
That this indifference is coming from a left-wing government is particularly disturbing. The same LDF, which has rightfully resisted unfair labour legislation at the Centre and coordinated nationwide strikes in solidarity with workers across sectors, now finds itself on the other side of the barricade.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has not met the workers. The Health Department has merely restated budgetary constraints and procedural hurdles. The official stance appears to be one of dismissiveness, bordering on contempt.
Even worse, some ruling front leaders have resorted to vicious personal attacks, accusing the demonstration of being politically engineered, demeaning women on strike, and casting doubt on its genuineness and legality. The insinuation is clear: Protests are valid only when led by the ruling party’s affiliated unions; they are illegitimate if supported by others. They have specifically targeted the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI), a smaller Left party that has stood in solidarity with the ASHAs.
This slander is not just misplaced — it is dangerous. When workers protest, the test of any government is its ability to listen, not its ability to label. When a protest’s legitimacy is judged not by the merit of its demands but by who leads it, we betray the very soul of democracy and left politics. A struggle that is led by women should not be dismissed because it isn’t controlled by the ruling party’s trade union. That’s not proletarian unity; that’s not solidarity — that’s control.
The central government is just as complicit as Kerala’s administration. The ASHA programme was launched under the National Rural Health Mission and continues to be centrally guided. However, the Centre has not increased incentives in two decades and refuses to grant ASHAs any form of job security or social protection.
Even though Kerala pays its ASHAs more than some other states, this does not justify inaction. The state and its people are the direct beneficiaries of this workforce. If the state takes pride in its public health system, it must also honour those who maintain it. To hide behind the Centre’s failures while silencing legitimate protest at home is political cowardice.
The ASHA protest in Kerala is not isolated — it is a continuum of a long and transformational legacy of working-class women demanding recognition and justice.
Perhaps it began with such historical struggles as the Matchgirls’ Strike in 1888 in London, where teenage girls and young women walked out of toxic matchstick factories demanding safer conditions and fair pay. The press and their employers vilified them, yet their strike succeeded in forcing regulatory reforms. The strike helped lay the foundation for Britain’s labour rights movement. Notably, Annie Besant, who supported the strike, would later go on to play a key role in India’s freedom struggle.
After years of being classed as volunteers, community health workers in South Africa, primarily women, fought for employment status in 2016. A court ruling in their favour compelled the government to acknowledge their employment rights. Their struggles for better wages and working conditions continue even today.
Closer to home, in many states like Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, ASHA workers have regularly taken to the streets to demand fair wages and were able to extract some concessions after long-drawn protests. These are all movements led by working-class women, often unsupported by mainstream political parties, fighting against invisibility and exploitation. Kerala’s ASHAs are now carrying that legacy forward.
From the Channar Revolt, where women fought for the right to cover their upper bodies, to the Pembilai Orumai movement in Munnar, where plantation workers struck work demanding better wages and working conditions, Kerala’s history has been shaped by women who refused to be silenced.
The 2015 Pembilai Orumai strike saw more than 10,000 tea plantation workers —almost all women—take to the streets. The “Irikkal Samaram” (Sitting Protest) led by Penkoottu in Kozhikode forced the amendment of Kerala’s Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, enabling saleswomen to sit during work hours. The United Nurses Association’s 84-day protest in 2012 transformed the labour landscape of private healthcare institutions.
The protest by the ASHA workers, therefore, is a continuation, not an anomaly. It is not solely about wages; it is also about the future of public health in India. The health system’s foundations will be undermined if the largely feminised care labour continues to be underpaid and dismissed as voluntary. The public may cheer for health workers in times of crisis, but if we do not support their right to a dignified life, that applause is empty.
The ASHA workers are fighting for a more honest definition of “public service”. The system they are challenging is one that demands everything and provides little in return. Their protest serves as a reminder that social progress is insignificant unless it extends to the very people who deliver it.
Radhakrishnan is an observer and writer on development and public policy