Festival buffs hold 'symbolic' Thrissur pooram without jumbos as mark of protest in Kerala

Thrissur: Days after the Kerala High Court stipulated conditions to be followed for grant of permission to parade elephants in festivals or other events, a group of festival buffs on Saturday staged a protest holding a symbolic 'Thrissur Pooram" here without jumbos.

The protest was held in front of the famed Vadakkumnathan Temple, the venue of the iconic Thrissur Pooram festival here annually.

In the place of parading jumbos, the protesters stood at the southern entrance of the shrine holding "nettippattam" (caparisons) and "venchamaram" (decorative circular fan) in their hands.

"Poora premi sangham", an outfit of pooram admirers who organised the protest, said it was part of their effort to make the court and the government understand the necessity to continue the traditional rituals and practises without any fail.

Senior CPI leader and former minister V S Sunilkumar, who inaugurated the protest, wanted the state and union governments to look into the matter.

"The state government should examine the possibility to bring out new legislation to practically address the conditions in the recent verdict of the High Court," he told reporters here.

The festival buffs, who took part in the protest, expressed concern that many famed temple festivals in the state could not be held as per the new conditions prescribed by the court.

The Kerala High Court, on Wednesday, termed the life of a captive elephant as an "eternal" Treblinka -- the second deadliest extermination camp built and operated by Nazis during the second world war-- and stipulated conditions to be followed for grant of permission to parade jumbos in festivals or other events.

The court observed that captive elephants were being extensively used in religious festivals in Kerala and the same was being sought to be justified on the touchstone of tradition and religious practice.

It said that in reality, the animals were being commercially exploited without any care.

"As such, the possession of the majority of the elephant appears to be illegal, which needs to be verified by the government," the court said while stipulating the conditions to be followed for grant of permission to parade jumbos in festivals or other events.

The conditions included adherence to the model feeding schedule, issuance of fitness certificates by a government veterinarian only, providing a shaded, clean and adequate shelter and eight hours of rest in a day.

The court also laid down conditions on transportation of elephants for exhibition, saying that no pachyderm should be transported on foot for more than 30 kilometers a day and anything more than that, upto a maximum of 125 km per day, has to be by vehicle.

It also said that no elephants be transported between 10 pm and 4 am, no procession of pachyderms be permitted through public roads between 9 am and 5 pm and no jumbos be exhibited for a continuous period of more than three hours.

The bench also said that no contest like head lifting, saluting, showering of flowers or making elephants stand on their two rear legs and salute -- a practice now introduced at the 'Thirunakkara Pooram' -- shall be permitted under any circumstances.

"In addition to the above, we direct that no organiser or Devaswom shall permit the deployment of any squads which go by the name 'elephant squads' in any festival or exhibition where elephants are being paraded.

"We also prohibit the use of any 'capture belt' or such other crude and inhuman method of capturing elephants that may run amok or otherwise misbehave," the court said.

The bench issued the directions while observing that the Kerala government and its officials "have failed to implement the directions issued by the Supreme Court" to implement the Kerala Captive Elephants (Management and Maintenance) Rules, 2012 and have in fact "conveniently chosen to ignore them".