Obsession, outrage and a plea for change

Every year, thousands gather to watch the Thrissur pooram, the temple festival. Perhaps the most arresting sight is provided by the 30 caparisoned elephants. But hidden behind the spectacular bells and ornaments are pus filled deep wounds — inflicted by mahouts and their owners. Yes, the repeated and merciless beatings are what ensure obedience and they are shackled in iron that bites into their injured legs. What’s more, they are starved, blinded, made to stand under the scorching sun and neglected.

Sangita Iyer, born in Palakkad and based in Canada, is an award-winning environmental journalist, an independent documentary filmmaker and biologist who has come up with a documentary, Gods in Shackles, that reveals the dark side of Kerala’s glamorous cultural festivals where temple elephants are exploited for profit under the guise of culture and religion.                        She believes she has a profound soul connection with elephants. In fact, the mere mention of Thiruvambadi Lakshmi makes her eyes moist. She says, “Lakshmi is a female and I am a female and she is the symbol of female subjugation for me in a patriarchal society like India. I have been through my own personal set of challenges and overcome them.”

When I saw Lakshmi tethered in a compound of a temple, there, was a poignant moment when I thought that she was such a powerful animal and yet she was surrendering and not fighting humans. In that fraction of a second, a voice told me that I myself had forgotten my own potential, like Lakshmi had and that was a turning point for me. She allowed me to hug her, soothe her, bathe her and she remembers me every time I see her. Now people there call me Lakshmi’s Amma!”

The connection that started in her childhood when her grandparents took her to a temple in Palakkad lay dormant after moving to Canada. “In December 2013 when I was in Kerala, one of my friends took me to some temples and I was devastated seeing the conditions in which the majestic animals were kept. Most of them had massive ulcers on their hips, bleeding shackled legs and I saw a mahout whipping an elephant although it did exactly what was commanded!”

An emotionally charged Sangita takes a moment to collect herself. “I asked myself why they were being tortured. It broke my heart. Incidentally I had a camera with me and I filmed 25 hours of footage and after viewing it in Toronto the images haunted me and I decided that I had to do something.”

Sangita returned to Kerala to embark on a journey that had her investing three years and her life’s savings to chronicle her documentary, gathering more than 200 hours of undercover footage and the evidence of barbaric torture filmed by her and her activist friends. “I did a lot of research and I thought that there was no other way as a journalist and filmmaker than to make a documentary to show the plight of my soul animal. These majestic animals were deprived of their right to mate, to drink water, eat food and roam free and the emotional challenges were a lot more than the physical effort of gathering footage.”

The documentary was screened for the first time in the Kerala Legislative Assembly and Sangita was adamant that the first screening be in Kerala itself because she was impressed by the government’s stand on elephants. The documentary has already received seven international awards.

Sangita sees a part of herself in the shackled elephants. She explains, “In India, women are just realising their independence. I was raised in a conservative Brahmin family and everything was restricted. When I see the elephants in shackles, not free to do what they want, somewhere I identify myself with them. Making the film was a deeply healing journey for me and I nurture a hope that these elephants will be free of their shackles and when that happens I see myself being liberated!” The documentary was done through a crowd sourced campaign and Sangita invested $140,000 of her own money. She did not want to charge any money from the audiences and wants to screen it for free in different cities.