Supreme Court backs Kerala HC order to translocate ration shop-raiding wild tusker Arikomban

Initially, the court directed the government to capture and release Arikomban in the Parambikulam Tiger Reserve on the southeastern border of the Palakkad district.

The court later instructed the government to find an appropriate forest area to release Arikomban.

The decision to relocate Arikomban was made following complaints that it frequently raided ration shops and houses to devour rice, its favourite food.

The elephant’s penchant for rice got it the name Arikomban, a portmanteau of two Malayalam words, ari, meaning rice, and komban, tusker.

What did the apex court say?

While rejecting the Kerala government’s petition, a bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and comprising Justice JB Pardiwala observed that the CoE recommendations were logical and based on scientific facts.

The high court had ordered the translocation of Arikomban based on the CoE’s recommendations on 5 April.

However, the order was met with stiff resistance in villages abutting the Parambikulam reserve.

Nenmara MLA and CPI(M) leader K Babu approached the same high court bench, requesting it to order the pachyderm’s translocation to some other forest area with no human presence.

Earlier, Babu said that there were ration shops in the vicinity of Parambikulam.

Following the MLA’s petition, the high court division bench directed the government to find another suitable location to shift Arikomban within a week. Any failure in doing so would facilitate the translocation of the tusker to Parambikulam as planned earlier, it warned.

Instead of exploring another location, the LDF government approached the Supreme Court, saying it had failed in finding an alternative location to translocate Arikomban.

Claiming that human inhabitations or agricultural lands surrounded all the forest areas in the state, the government categorically argued that the high court-ordered translocation would be impossible.

The state government also said that no relocation would be possible without provoking the local human population.

“You have an expert committee, and experts have said that the elephant must be relocated. It is a reasoned order. We will not interfere,” Chief Justice Chandrachud observed orally.

“If the expert panel has suggested something, the state cannot go over and above it,” the chief justice added while dismissing the state’s plea.

Also read: HC orders Forest Department to relocate tusker to Parambikulam

The Palakkad uprising

Advocate Jayant Muthuraj, who appeared on behalf of the Kerala government, facilitated the hearing on 17 April through an urgent mention. Still, the result went against the state government.

The lawyer also repeated unsubstantiated claims of the local settler lobby that the elephant had killed at least seven people and destroyed several houses.

Following intense agitations by local settlers in Chinnakanal near the famous hill station Munnar in Idukki, the government last month decided to capture the rice-eating elephant and keep it in permanent confinement at the Kodanad Elephant Camp in Ernakulam district.

When some elephant lovers took the matter to the consideration of a division bench of the High Court on 29 March, the court prohibited the forest department from tranquilising the elephant to keeping it in permanent captivity.

It then constituted an expert committee to recommend options. After verifying the situation in different forest regions of the state, the committee advised relocating Arikomban to Parambikulam Tiger Reserve, spread over Palakkad and some parts of Thrissur districts.

Additionally, the reserve has enough fodder and water to support such a pachyderm which became restless after its habitat in Idukki was destroyed almost completely by human encroachment.

However, the high court order sparked an unexpected massive protest by people living close to Parambikulam, especially residents of Muthalamada grama panchayat in Palakkad. They argued that the elephant would pose a threat to them.

The issue reached a dead end, with the local MLA leading the agitation approached the high court. The division bench then directed the forest department to find a suitable location for translocating Arikomban.

It warned that the elephant should be shifted to Parambikulam if no alternative location was found within a week. It was then that the department approached the Supreme Court.

Also read: In defence of Arikomban — the ration-​shop raider of Munnar

Slap in forest department’s face

“The Supreme Court’s verdict is a slap in the face of the Kerala Forest Department, which attempted a dirty game on behalf of the settler lobby,” animal rights activist Sreedevi S Kartha told South First.

“Instead of engaging in conservation and eco-restoration, the department played second fiddle to the encroachers who declared that there would be no forest for Arikomban. They decided the elephant must live in permanent captivity,” she alleged.

“Have you seen anywhere in the world this kind of targeting a wild elephant that struggles because of habitat destruction,” she asked.

The Mission Arikomban initiative of the state government aimed at keeping the elephant in permanent captivity was shattered by the ‘Walking Eye Foundation for Animal Advocacy’, an animal rights organisation that began the legal war.

It has now filed a caveat at the Supreme Court. The organisation requested the court to hear its argument before passing any interim order in case the state appeals against the high court’s decision to rehabilitate the elephant to Parambikulam or any other suitable forest location as decided by the government.

However, the court’s sudden dismissal of the case made all such actions invalid. The court order has also hindered the government’s move to invoke the Wild Life (Protection) Act, of 1972, to deal with harmful wild animals.

Also read: ‘Can’t move court for tusker’s relocation every time locals protest’

What next?

In the case of the state government, there is now no option other than to translocate Arikomban. Even while claiming that the government would not confront the local farming communities by translocating the elephant, Kerala Forest Minister AK Saseendran on Sunday, 16 April, told South First that the government would abide by the Supreme Court’s directive.

On Monday, he was unavailable for comments.

The development happened when the forest officials in Chinnakanal and its interiors, like Cement Palam, remained fully prepared for capturing and shifting Arikomban to Kodanad.

The preparations involved a dummy ration shop loaded with rice and other provisions. Four kumki, or trained elephants, Vikram, Surendran, Kunju, and Surya, are camping nearby to force Arikomban into submission.

In Kodanad, about 100 km from Chinnakanal, a kraal, or a wooden enclosure, was being readied to confine and train him to obey humans.

Eight teams of more than 30 trained people are camping in Chinnakanal and Munnar to tranquillize, capture, and take him to Kodanad.

In addition, 71 senior forest officials are on duty in the locality. They can capture the elephant as per the Supreme Court order, but it must be released soon in Parambikulam.

According to forest department insiders, the protests against Arikomban’s relocation were unexpected.

Like in Chinnakanal, residents of Muthalamada also created blockades causing severe traffic problems.

In the writ petition filed before the high court, Babu argued that Arikomban was wont to stray into human settlements to raid ration shops.

If relocated to Parambikulam, it would damage ration shops and provision shops in Muthalamada Grama Panchayat.

But the division bench, after hearing experts,  dismissed the MLA’s arguments as unfounded fears. It also dismissed his argument that translocating the ‘unruly’ tusker would upset the ecological balance in the tiger reserve.

The high court also said those who live on reserve forest fringes have no right to decide on the nature and character of wildlife being relocated.

Also read: HC to hear pleas seeking release of captured elephants, tigers

Not a rogue elephant

According to Idukki-based conservationist MN Jayachandran, Arikomban is neither a “rogue” nor a “menace” as projected by the vested interests.

“It enters human habitats as it is hungry, thirsty, and homeless. It lost its traditional habitats to encroachment.  He visits villages to find fodder and water, as nothing is left inside the forest. Climate change and human interference have made his survival miserable,” he said.

“If you deplete food and water, where will the animals go? Today, it is Arikomban. Tomorrow, it will be another elephant. How can we continue to capture all elephants and put them in captivity? What is the state doing? Complete apathy is what we need to address,” he stated.

“The problem is, we have authorised human settlements in the forest. We need to revisit revenue records to find out who owns the land,” the high court asked on  12 April during one of the hearings.

The CoE report also held unscientific settlements responsible for elephant-man conflicts.

In Chinnakanal, land was assigned to people over 20 years ago despite warnings from then Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Prakriti Srivastava.

The officer had then pointed out that it was an elephant habitat and that allowing human settlements in Chinnakanal would cause severe human-animal conflicts. However, the leadership chose to ignore her warning.

An elephant with short tusks, a stout physique, and a broad cranium raids local ration shops and kitchens of houses to feed on rice, jaggery, and salt.

The residents have branded Arikomban notorious, claiming he has killed 12 people. The claim, however, remains unsubstantiated, according to forest officials.

Forest officials and a sizable number of locals confirmed that Arikomban had caused no harm to life and property in the region so far other than occasionally raiding ration shops and houses for rice. Stories of the elephant unleashing terror at night are also told without adequate proof.

A vilified tusker

Such narratives have vilified the elephant. A campaign was unleashed through local and social media a few months ago, painting Arikomban as a dangerous elephant roaming around human settlements and killing people.

According to Forest Department sources, the Chinnakanal-Anayirangal area was a natural wild elephant habitat till 2002, when the policymakers made a grave mistake.

The then-AK Antony-led UDF government relocated 301 low-income families of tribespeople who were alienated from their landholdings by powerful settlers. Instead of restoring their land, the government took the easy route and assigned reserve forests to the landless tribals.

Their settlement later came to be known as the 301 Colony.

Contrary to the propaganda, only 41 people from 15 families live in the 301 Colony area now. The rest of the 301 tribal families had already moved out, unable to withstand the presence of many elephant herds.

The high court has enquired about the possibility of relocating the remaining tribal families to safer places. Incidentally, the Forest Department submitted an affidavit before the court, saying relocating the remaining families would provide a lasting solution.

Jumbo corridor to dam

Elephants will inevitably frequent the corridor as it is the way to the Anayirangal Dam, which holds adequate water even in summer.

Incidentally, not all protesters are tribespeople. There are a set of non-tribals who, over time, have taken over the land assigned to tribe members in both Anayirangal and Muthalamada.

They thwart any relocation move by creating the impression that it is impractical. Even in 2006, there was an official move to shift the tribal families to revenue land in Vallakadavu and merge the existing colony and its surroundings with the Chinnakanal sanctuary.

The Anayirangal colony remains the major obstruction in the elephant path stretching from Anamudi Tiger Reserve of Tamil Nadu and Parambikulam in Kerala to Periyar and Mathikketan Shola in Idukki.

Experts say the capture of Arikomban would not solve the issue. If not Arikomban, it will be another tusker as more and more settlements are coming up near forest areas.

Other tuskers roam the area: Mottavalan, Chakkakomban, and Padayappa. The settlers claim that they, too, were creating a menace in the region.

A demand will likely be raised to capture and relocate others after Arikomban. It has been alleged that barring Padayappa, the three other elephants had killed 15 people.

There are allegations of vested interests — tourism lobbies and land mafia — using tribespeople and plantation workers as tools to create a scare that would help them continue their illegal activities.

In the past six months, local politicians said these tuskers destroyed 128 houses in the Munnar region. Towards the end of January, forest watcher G Sakthivel, 48, was trampled to death, and Arikomban has been accused of murdering the elephant expert.

The blame was put on Arikomban based on circumstantial evidence. He was sighted in the area a few days before Sakthivel’s death.