Palakkad: What’s in a name? Everything, say the activists and tribals in Attappadi. Hence, they have opposed the decision of forest department officials to change the name of a wild elephant from ‘Peelandi’ to ‘Kodanadu Chandrasekharan.’
The elephant which was captured from the forest at Attapadi in 2017 was renamed ‘Peelandi Chandru’ by the principal chief conservator of forests when the activists complained to the chief minister about replacing the tribal name with an allegedly ‘elite’ name.
“That too is not acceptable and we don’t understand why the forest officials follow a similar pattern in naming elephants in their four training centres in Kerala, including Koda-nadu elephant training camp near Kalady. The elephant was renamed after it completed one-month training in June 2017 and became a captive elephant under the forest department,” environmentalist and Youth Congress leader Boban Mattumantha said.
The tribals say that Peelandi has brought them good fortune and they have made its clay models for worshipping. Though Peelandi had destroyed their farmlands and paddy fields and stamped to death several tribals, the tribals say that they had good harvest in all the years when Peelandi destroyed their crops.
“It was IFS officer M.S. Jayaraman, forest conservator of central region, who renamed the elephant claiming that there was no caste discrimination in Kerala and that animals do not have any caste. But I cited the honour killing of Kevin, the one at Areekode in Malappuram and the caste discrimination faced by Scheduled Caste people at Muthalamada colony in Palakkad among several instances. It was also noted that names like ‘Chandrasekharan’ and ‘Konni Surendran’ given to elephants in the camps under the forest department were chosen after senior forest officials. Similarly, some names like ‘Eva’ and ‘Pinju’ were also given to the elephants as they were the pet names of the children of North Indian IFS officers,” Boban noted.
The tribals and the activists said that they would again file a complaint with the CM and move the High Court to retain the original name of the elephant.
