The elephants of India are prospering and multiplying, but a simultaneous decline in the numbers of human beings willing to work with them is creating a crisis which is worrying conservationists.
India's elephant population has increased to 25,000, of which several thousand are trained, in the last 20 years. However, the number of mahouts, or elephant drivers, employed by state forestry departments shrank from 800 to 200 over the same period.
Their dwindling number, due to low pay and limited job prospects, is the major concern of the Project Elephant programme, started three years ago to preserve the elephant and its habitat.
Better pay and additional perquisites, like food and housing, have been introduced to encourage the offspring of mahouts to pursue their traditional calling. At present, a mahout's monthly wage averages around 1,000 rupees (£14).
Mrs Usha Rai, a leading conservationist and environmental writer says the children of mahouts no longer want to follow their fathers' calling. Instead, they are opting for a faster mode of transport, becoming chauffeurs or seeking other better paid jobs. She says some mahouts were so poorly paid and worked in such wretched conditions that they often ended up eating their elephants' ration of sugarcane, flour and bananas. But elephants have prodigious memories, and the hungry beasts sometimes trampled those keepers to death. But the mahout who manages to earn the trust of his elephant has a loyal, lifetime friend. Subedar Ali was one such mahout at the Corbett National park, some 250 miles east of Delhi who, after being mauled by a tiger, was carried to safety by his beloved elephant with the bloodthirsty tiger in pursuit for several miles.
Until the 1980s, the eldest son of a mahout would be apprenticed to his father at a young age. For 10 years he would learn the intricacies of controlling the huge creature, pushing and nudging it with his knees and feet. Elephants have 120 maramstahls or vulnerable points, 64 of which are used by experienced mahouts to control them.
Elephants are an integral part of Hinduism and Indian culture, and mahouts, too, feature in ancient scriptures. They have been classified into three types: Reghawan, those who control elephants through love, friendship and understanding; Yukthiman, or those mahouts who use ingenuity in outsmarting the highly intelligent creature; and Balwan, those who use brute force and harsh words.
The latter frequently end up being attacked by their charges. The proliferation of elephants is causing a different kind of problem to a Hindu temple in southern Kerala state. The holy place faces the jumbo-sized problem of raising enough money to feed 42 elephants given as offerings by devotees.
The Guruvayur Devaswom Board, which administers this popular Sri Krishna temple, is caught in a bind over the regular offering of elephants, which it cannot refuse. This resource crisis, which is being resolved through generous donations, is especially acute these days when all 42 elephants are undergoing their annual, month-long "rejuvenation" treatment, during which they consume vast quantities of food.
Their daily diet comprises 5,000 kgs of rice, 1,830 kgs of greens, 600 kgs of a herbal tonic and 62 kgs of a powder specially prepared from an ancient Hindu recipe. The temple also pays an annual premium of 942,000 rupees (£13,457) for the 42 elephants which are insured for 913 million rupees (£13 million).
The Oriental Insurance Company which provides similar insurance cover to around 550 privately owned elephants in Kerala gives 25,000 rupees (£357) to cremate each dead animal. It contributes an equivalent sum to sedate the ones who periodically turn "rogue" during the mating season and have to be chained for weeks to stop them from wreaking havoc.
It also pays compensation to elephant-owners, mahouts or drivers and others killed by the tuskers. The temple also has the additional monthly expense of employing three mahouts per animal at around 1,500 rupees (£21).
Possessing elephants is a symbol of prestige in Kerala but more so in the Krishna temple where the elephants are frequently taken out in holy processions. Several individuals own elephants in Kerala, but are increasingly finding them a financial burden and handing them over to temples which are then duty-bound to look after them.
Meanwhile, elephants employed by the forest department in the eastern Indian state of Bengal will now be provided a "pension" of food, shelter and health care facilities on retiring at 65. Forest officials said each animal will also have a "career" file to record its behavioural pattern, areas of specialisation and any meritorious service performed.
In nearby Uttar Pradesh state they have recently become eligible for maternity leave - which in an elephant's case lasts nearly two years.
