Thrissur Pooram: Kerala okays jumbo parades in festivals

Thiruvananthapuram: Barely a fortnight after the Supreme Court expressed concern about cruelty towards elephants, the State Government has stated that captive elephants would continue to be used in festivals including Thrissur Pooram. The decision was taken at a high-level meet convened by tourism minister A C Moideen here on Tuesday at the behest of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. However, the brief official statement released after the meeting could not have been vaguer. “The high-level meeting has decided to conduct festivals including Thrissur Pooram without hindrance to any of the traditional practices and also by adhering to the Captive Elephant Management Rules 2012,” it said.

Fact is, traditional festival rituals and Captive Elephant Rules cannot exist together. For instance, the Rules state that elephants should not be paraded or made to walk in the sun from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. “But during Thrissur Pooram, elephants are decked up and exhibited under the hot sun from 11 a.m. to 10 in the night,” said K Venkitachalam of Heritage Animal Task Force. “Such continuous parading is also against the clause that elephants should be made to walk or stand in the sun for only six hours, and that too in two session of three hours each,” he added.

Animal Welfare Board member M N Jayachandran described the government decision thus: “The tourism minister is trying to make omelette without breaking the egg.” Mr Jayachandran also wondered why the meeting was convened by the tourism minister. “It perhaps shows that the government views the ‘pooram’ not as a spiritual exercise but as a spectacle. This means that the elephants are exhibited for commercial purpose, which is against the law,” he added.