In India, in Hinduism, elephants are revered as God and as incarnation of the Hindu god Ganesh. I am not a religious person but even I like Ganesh because he seems like a jolly good fellow and easy to please kind of God and his face definitely helps. He is not depicted as a god that needs some serious anger management therapy unlike some other Hindu gods like Kali or Durga or others. Seems very kid friendly God too who doesn’t give kids nightmares lol
Ganesh has his own festival and from what I reckon, he likes to eat tasty food as well like sweet momos.
But here is the plight of Indian elephants and this is especially in Hindu temples.
Every big Hindu temple in India seems to have some elephants and in the state of Kerala, there are multiple elephants in every temple and I heard some even have upto 50 elephants.
And yet, every temple elephant in India looks like a prisoner in a Super Max prison. Chained up and shackled all over restricting their movement and they are like slave labourers in temples
The process of making these elephants docile and obedient is very dark and animal cruelty at its worst. And temple elephants are just the tip of the iceberg. There are thousands of elephants in India in tourism industry as basically sweatshop labour.
So nobody, especially Hindus, see the irony in this?
I refuse to ride elephants or support any industry that uses and exploits elephants as slave labour. There are national parks in India that offer Elephant safari’s and I have seen them in Kaziranga and Manas national parks in Assam and we avoided elephant safari’s and instead preferred the jeep safaris.
So if India really likes this God
they will free every elephant from the sweatshop industry and temples and maybe let them live out their lives in sanctuaries without chains.
Elephants deserve to roam free in the wild.
Like these elephants.
Tourism and chained up temple elephants are a terrible sight.
Don’t support any industry that exploits elephants and stop giving them any money. The industry will die if you stop supporting them and Elephant slavery industry is one I would gladly see die.
And teach your kids not to ride them. Elephants don’t like you to ride them.
Elephants in zoos are ok as long as they have huge spaces to roam and not in chains. Elephants require a lot of territory and even zoo elephants in limited spaces are not ideal but as long as they have large areas to roam and not movement restricted in any way, it’s a fair trade off.
But tourism and temple elephants have got to go. Elephants in chains are an abomination no matter where they are.
Elephants are magnificent animals that deserve to roam free and be enjoyed from a distance. They are not sweatshop labour and elephants in chains are an eyesore.