If you wish to discover a truly incredible relationship between humans and the wild, travel to the Dooars region of northern West Bengal. Here, on the way to the Gorumara National Park, right beside the highway, in a small clearing bordered by tall forest trees, you will find the Mahakal shrine. A decorated elephant statue stands there, a symbol of intense devotion and a traditional belief system that has fostered human-elephant co-existence in the Dooars for ages.
For those who keep a note of conservation issues in India, you might have come across news stories about human-elephant conflicts in the Dooars. Sometimes, it is elephants raiding the crops of farmers or trampling down an unfortunate victim upon a sudden encounter and at other times, it is people driving away elephants with cruel intentions, injuring the giants, or causing a tiny elephant calf to fall into a ditch and lose its life.
Why then the Mahakal? Why worship a being that is involved in so much conflict with humans of the Dooars?
To understand this unique and highly intriguing relation, we need to delve deeper.
Humans worshipping animals as deities is deeply ingrained in India's cultural fabric. Across the country, you will find humans living closely with the wild, villagers sharing landscapes with megacarnivores and megaherbivores. At the same time, their temples and shrines have deities in the form of animals and plants. In Maharashtra, Warli tribals can be observed bowing down before their Waghoba, the tiger or leopard God, praying to the big cat to protect them from evil. In Karnataka, travel across the countryside in places like Agumbe, the stronghold of the mighty King Cobra, and you are bound to come across shrines dedicated to serpents. These animals and more, in their biological form, are nature-designed lethal weapons that can bring humans down with a single bite, but in their deity avatar, they are the guardians of the local communities.
It is perhaps such a blend of emotions of love, reverence, and fear that people hold in their hearts for these animals that allows co-existence in conflict. The case of the Mahakal is no different.
If you ask local Mahakal believers in the Dooars about why they worship the elephant, they will probably find it a weird question. For them, seeking the blessings of the Mahakal for the well-being of their loved ones is a part of their very existence. They grow up learning about the significance of their Elephant God and how it has protected their kith and kin from all harm.
Yet, when you travel across the Dooars and meet the local communities, you will hear tales of tragedy. There are instances where elephants came in search of paddy to village homes, and ravaged the walls of the tiny mud structures, seeking the stored grains. At times, they have rampaged across fields, finishing everything just before harvest, putting the farmers’ years of work to waste and risking their ability to feed their families.
Interestingly, at the same time, you have a publication in which researchers note that believers in the Mahakal refuse compensation offered by the forest department in exchange for the loss of crops to elephants. According to such farmers, the Mahakal feeding on their crops is a blessing in disguise, ensuring that they will achieve a bumper crop the next year.
While all this might appear like a romantic tale of coexistence, there is some bitter truth to it as well. Such cultural beliefs are increasingly getting diluted in an age of consumerism and globalisation. People’s desires and aspirations are changing across urban and rural landscapes, and their acceptance of wildlife in their midst is declining. Climate change is bringing doom to agricultural yields due to unpredictable rainfall and extreme heat. Migrant workers arriving from other parts of the country also have little regard for traditional cultures and beliefs. To them, elephants are a threat and not a deity. The tsunami of rapid development has also reached the Dooars. Now, along with highways and railways, sprawling housing complexes and resorts are mushrooming everywhere.
The people of the Dooars and their Mahakal are now in the grasp of changing times. They need the support of each of us to continue living together successfully, as they have for eons. Without the elephant, the lush forests and grasslands of the Dooars will wither away, and with them the hope of a bright future for the people of the region. The elephant’s survival into the future is thus vital to a fertile, nurturing Dooars landscape.
Writing and photos by: Dr. Oishimaya Sen Nag
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