blog of wildlife photographer Meethil Momaya

The Indian Gov­ern­ment has decided to declare the ele­phant to be a national her­itage. Which basi­cally means that like the rest of our national her­itage, we will now see love-graffiti on the ele­phant too.

“We will soon declare ele­phant as a national her­itage ani­mal as they have been part of our her­itage since ages. We need to give same degree of impor­tance to ele­phant as is given to tiger in order to pro­tect the big ani­mal” said Jairam Ramesh.

Our dear Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Jairam Ramesh lives in the jun­gles. He has, of course, not been to any of our national her­itage sites. For if he had been, he would know that national her­itage basi­cally means baap ka maal (father’s prop­erty) to Indi­ans and we don’t care what hap­pens to it. I mean, if the Taj Mahal were to become black and crum­ble tomor­row what dif­fer­ence would it make to me, or you, or your best friend? Well, noth­ing – no difference.

So, by declar­ing the ele­phant to be our national her­itage, the Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter means to tell us it is now under the ‘I don’t care’ cat­e­gory and we need not worry about its future. Its future is safe and the ASI (Arche­o­log­i­cal Sur­vey of India) will dig them out when they become fossils.

The Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter wants to give the same degree of impor­tance to the ele­phant as has been given to the tiger. We all know the sit­u­a­tion of the tiger today. Its pop­u­la­tion is going only one way – down. It receives spe­cial pro­tec­tion, which is of no use to it when it is alive.

The gov­ern­ment will also be set­ting up the National Ele­phant Con­ser­va­tion Author­ity (NECA) on the lines of the exist­ing National Tiger Con­ser­va­tion Author­ity (NTCA). Yes, i am sure that it will be of great help as it has been in the case of the tiger (sarcasm).

And all this is being done to pro­tect them before they go the tiger way. When will we under­stand that it’s not pro­tec­tion that the ani­mals need, but space. Give them space and they will pro­tect themselves.

…for even the Gods can­not save them now, let them be blessed on their jour­ney to the ele­phant graveyard.

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