Adieu, Elephant Mother

In June 2020, a pregnant elephant emerged from a region called “Silent Valley” in Kerala, India and died soon after consuming pineapple that had been filled with crackers by local farmers prepared to prevent elephants from entering their village. A wave of shock swept the nation, demanding that we reflect on speciesism: What is it to be human? What are non-human animals to humans? And as a friend articulated, to whom do the forests belong? As many mourned the death of the pregnant elephant mother, my thoughts took me to the dim rustle of disquiet for a pregnant Muslim student activist, Safoora Zargar, arrested for participating in the student led protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act. The CAA amends to accept illegal migrants who are Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Parsi, Buddhist and Christian from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan following the religious persecution. The bill excludes Muslims, Sri Lankan Tamils in India, Rohingyas from Myanmar and Tibetans refugees leaving them vulnerable to being declared outside citizenship registry. How do we account for the contrasting response to the two pregnant mothers? When studied together, the rules of speciesism devolve before our eyes. The elephant mother was a clear winner of our pain. It became clear to me that our heart did not sway the same way: it was easier for most to enter the scene of mourning for the elephant-mother while the incarcerated human-mother became a container of abjection.

The outrage experienced by my contemporaries reminded me of another instance. In 1926 in Pre-Independent India, the municipality of Ahmedabad had to address the problem of increasing numbers of rabid dogs in the city. Instead of killing the canines, they caught the strays and let them go outside the city limits. The dogs then became a concern for workers who worked and lived in those areas. Erikson, in Gandhi’s Truth, reflects on the moment in the Indian imaginary: “Considering arsenic cruel, they (the police) shot them. The cadave