A Biologist, Journalist, Documentary Filmmaker, Writer, & Speaker
Sangita Iyer Fights for Elephants
An environmental journalist and filmmaker, Sangita Iyer is known for her work in wildlife conservation, especially elephants, and environmental advocacy. Sangita has been involved in various initiatives and projects to save elephants and raise awareness about their preservation. Her award-winning documentary, Gods In Shackles, released in 2016, focuses on the plight of festival elephants in Kerala, India, and the challenges they face due to various forms of abuse and exploitation. The film, currently streaming on Amazon Prime, sheds light on the conditions in which temple elephants in Kerala are often kept and the cultural, religious, and economic factors contributing to their suffering.
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Interview by Susanna Schroadter
Written & Edited by Dina Morrone
Her non-profit, Voices for Asian Elephants leads several projects to save India’s elephants.
How did you find your life’s passion?
I always felt I wasn’t good enough that was instilled in my mind from a young age, so I was scared to pursue my heart’s calling. I had a difficult childhood, which I have documented in my book Gods in Shackles: What Elephants Can Teach Us About Empathy, Resilience, and Freedom. But, I also discuss why and how this elephant captivity resonated profoundly with me.
All that had been put into my mind since childhood impacted what I wanted to do with my life. I pursued everything, like being a media person, anchoring, broadcasting, and journalism. I accomplished my career goals, but they didn’t give me a sense of fulfillment. My soul said, “No, this is not your purpose, but it’s okay to detour and do this.” Then, in 2012, my whole world turned topsy-turvy. While I was pursuing my master’s in environmental education and communication, unfortunately, my father passed away. As soon as I graduated in 2013, I was traveling to India for my father’s first death anniversary. But, instead of going to Mumbai, where the anniversary of his death would occur, I took a detour and went to Kerala. As I was chatting with my friend, he received a distress call from a Chief Wildlife Warden, informing him that a Tusker had fallen into a trench, and he asked if we could help rescue the bull elephant. Of course, I said ‘yes’ and we immediately went to help the Tusker, instead of a safari into the forest.
We drove rapidly. Thousands of people lined the forested area as we entered. I could smell his dung. Seeing so many people surrounding this poor Tusker was very emotional for me because the Tusker was so stressed. Fortunately, they allowed me to get close to him. The trench was so narrow that he couldn’t turn either way, so he had his four legs in the air.
The veterinarian was also there, trying to tranquilize the elephant and give him a booster shot. The jaws of life were on their way to open the trench.
Meanwhile, I felt my father’s presence the whole time I was there. I had no great relationship with my father, so it was strange. And I was saying to myself, “What are you doing here?” I could hear myself communicating with my father. I looked around to see if anybody saw this mad woman talking to herself.
I feel I was divinely guided on this journey. I have been in love with elephants since I was three. My grandparents used to take me to this unique temple where there was an elephant who was shackled. My grandparents would leave me by his feet and go away and do their worship and service, and I would hang out with this Tusker, playing as if he was my best friend, and he would take care of me by putting his trunk and just holding me as if I was his little child.
Right then, I developed so much love and affection for them. I asked my grandmother why the elephants had shackles on their legs and why I didn’t have anything on my legs and I could walk freely. My wise grandma went out and bought anklets. She said, “Now you can also wear the shackles.” But she was unprepared for my next question. “How come his two legs are shackled together, but mine are not?” My grandma was speechless.
You said that the Elephants are deprived of food, water, and shelter. Why?
That’s a one-million-dollar question. Elephants are considered the embodiment of Lord Ganesh– a Hindu God with an elephant face. On the one hand, elephants are worshipped and revered, and on the other hand, insulted. They do this because they say it’s part of the culture. They don’t want to feed the elephant that much because they’re afraid the elephant will defecate in the temple. They don’t want to give them enough water because they will have to urinate. Everything is done for the convenience of human beings. All humans want to do is parade them in the scorching sun.
And then, when these elephants are so distressed and so depraved, they go crazy, so they round them up and then torture them. It is so sinister to take these elephants from the wild and train them, which is brutalizing them. These vicious acts are what’s going on in India.
Are there predators that prey upon elephants, or are humans the only predators?
Humans are the only predators. Recently, I received the horrible news that in Kerala, the same state where I was born, they did an elephant census, and in the last six years, the elephant population has decreased by 58%.
How can Elephants be saved?
Elephants must be saved because they are significant ecosystem engineers. Elephants are the largest living land mammals on the planet, they are megaherbivores that sustain forest ecosystems. That’s why they’re called megaherbivores. They wander across forest areas for 16 to 18 hours a day. Each elephant consumes about 150 wide varieties of berries, barks, seeded fruits, etc. a total of about 200 pounds
of fodder per day and only about 35 to 40% are digested. So, the balance that comes out of their dung is so rich. Each elephant poops some 300 pounds of dung per day. In that rich dung are the seeds and fruits and all those things they consumed, and they spread it across the forest areas where they wandered.
I explained this in one of the videos I just produced for National Geographic Society, part of Asian Elephants 101 series.
Because they have tall, long, fantastic trunks, they stretch it, pull down the canopy, and open it up, allowing rain and sunshine to penetrate the soil. These ingredients are desperately needed for the hardwood trees to grow; hardwood trees sequester a lot more carbon than softwood trees., So not only are they ecosystem engineers and support the other species, but also, they are climate mitigators.
We are experiencing a raft of climate change. Look at the heat. It’s like 32°C here in Toronto. The forest fires from Canada are drifting to the United States. What happens in Canada impacts the United States. Human beings have created borders for countries, but the atmosphere has no borders.
Climate change is borderless. So, what happens in India is going to reverberate across the planet. If elephants are gone, God forbid, it will have a cascading effect. It will create the collapse of ecosystems, impacting not only the people of India but worldwide. This is one of the reasons I was in the United Kingdom. I was trying to explain this to the members of Parliament. What happens in India will return to haunt us because, as I said, climate change is borderless.
I assume you are passionate about all animals.
Yes, I am. But I’m most passionate about elephants because they have always been part of my culture, and I feel like they are my soul animals to such an extent that when I see them suffer, I viscerally feel their suffering.
Although I’m not an animal communicator or anything, while producing Gods in Shackles, I could feel that they were trying to communicate with me. I could sense it. It was a soul connection that I felt. I love all animals, but elephants, even though they are gigantic animals, they are such gentle beings. And elephants teach us so much. They taught me that, more than anything, we need to be loving, compassionate, and kind. Elephants are very empathetic. Empathy oozes out of them.
Whenever I see an elephant, my heart is so whole I lose my breath. Elephants are perfect. They are a combination of the masculine and the feminine. Their feminine side is loving, compassionate, and empathetic, and their male side shows they have boundaries and know what helps them. They’re the epitome of grace and strength.
Having the combination of both the masculine and feminine within themselves, what type of society do they live in? Is it matriarchal or patriarchal?
I’m glad you raised this question. Elephants live in a matriarchal society, yet this matriarch doesn’t get to choose herself. She is selected. She takes care of everyone and carries memories transferred from generation to generation. She knows where the water holds are. She knows where the enemies are, and she’ll avoid those pathways. Elephants don’t want any conflict. They are so gentle by nature. They’re accommodating, incredibly tolerant, and so intuitive.
They will assess you from a distance. They are not the type that will come and attack. If they see a stranger, they’ll hold back. And this is the matriarch’s job.
They cooperate and communicate so beautifully in many ways. They will touch softly through tactile communication and alert each other. Elephants are like angels – angelic, divine beings. There’s no better way to describe them. They arrived on our planet some 80 million years ago, and modern human
beings have evolved only 200,000 years ago, and we have decimated the planet.
What can we do to help save them?
We need to do everything we can to save elephants because they’re ecologically significant, which means they support all living beings, not merely because they are ecosystem engineers and not simply because they are climate mitigators, but because they have arrived on the planet to teach human beings love, compassion, kindness, thoughtfulness, reflectiveness, how to be gentle with each other, and not take impulsive action. The elephant brain is three times as large as a human brain, and the cortical brain is a seat of consciousness. It is so highly evolved that elephants will only do something rationally.
They need to survive. Just like we all need to be able to live and survive on this planet, elephants knock on our doors and say, “Hey, we are here to help you. We are here to save you. Why are you decimating us?
Every human action completely decimates them because we have become so self-absorbed in our materialistic world: “I want a big car.” “I want a big home.” “I want a big palace.” We are decimating their habitats. In India, people are encroaching into their habitats. In America, for example, we have bees and bears, and we encroach on their space. We take their spaces, and when they come into what we call “our land” or “our home,” which was theirs because they arrived here some 80 million years ago, we hurt and kill them. Yet they are here to help us, and we are harming the same beings that are here to help us. How ironic is that?
No animal belongs in the zoo for entertainment, yet many people still travel to zoos for elephant rides or to see them perform in a circus. How can we change this?
Yes, we see many tourists traveling to India. We must change this and bring more awareness to everyone. Let me say that some tourists know what’s happening to elephants because I make it a point to speak out, talk to individuals when possible, and put it on my social media.
An elephant must endure a lifetime of slavery, neglect, and abuse to give you a few moments of cheap thrill. It’s a “That’s on my bucket list” mentality. Elephants, aged three or four, are taken away at such a young age to begin training. Imagine that happening to a human child. Elephants drink breast milk until they reach the age of ten. When taken, they are deprived of the essential breast milk they deserve.
Bull hooks are used to get young elephant babies to cooperate when being taken away. They tie the four legs onto a pole like a bamboo or cement pole, put them inside this little box, open at the top and side, and then poke, prod, and deprive them of water for 72 hours to one week. They are deprived of this until the elephant realizes and accepts that they have to learn and obey commands.
For a spiritual person, knowing elephants have been around for thousands of years, what is the deeper meaning of all of this?
Elephants have been around for 80 million years. I’ll bring back Lord Ganesh. Lord Ganesh is worshiped because he’s considered the remover of all obstacles.
Elephants clear up the obstacle. Lord Ganesha is the wisest God and grants us wisdom. An elephant’s brain is three times as large as a human brain. Their cortical brain is highly evolved, and they are very wise. When you look into their eyes, you see wisdom oozing out. They are reflective and thoughtful. All these gifts are what people worship Lord Ganesha for, so elephants embody Lord Ganesh. And yet, it is the exact embodiment that is being brutalized to please Lord Ganesh. It’s such a tragic paradox. On the one hand, they’re worshiped and revered. On the other hand, they are defiled, treated like rotten creatures, and brutalized.
And so, I describe elephants as:
Empathetic.
Loving.
Enduring.
Patient.
Humble.
Aware. They are the most
aware beings.
Nimble. They are so flexible,
and agile.
Tolerant.
All these qualities are what I have learned from elephants. We would all be so much better human beings if we could even implement just a few of them.
What a great way to describe these beautiful creatures. We all need to learn more about how amazing their life is.
Yes, it’s not just about putting out this article or any literature on them, but about coming together and serving the collective good. We need to raise enough funds to purchase land in India and give it to the elephants for re-wilding.
If anyone would like more information about my organization Voices for Asian Elephants they can check out our website https://www.vfaes.org/meet-sangita-iyer-team
It seems you live your life from the point of pure intention.
Pure intention and guidance. When it happens, intention comes to fruition, and that is where surrender comes into play. I surrender, and I follow. Given the production of Gods in Shackles, I never knew I would one day produce a film, let alone have the film being nominated for The United Nations General Assembly and winning 13 International Film Festival awards. I didn’t expect any of that. I don’t care about any of the accolades. I just wanted the atrocities against elephants exposed.
When I set out on this journey of making a documentary, I didn’t know how I would produce a film. After all, I was a broadcaster, not a film producer, nor did I go to school to be a filmmaker, yet here I am today, a documentary filmmaker.
When you wake up in the morning, do you have a plan? A ritual? Or do you go with what your heart feels?
That’s a beautiful question. I wake up in the morning, and the first thing I do is go to my altar and light the lamp. Hinduism is a philosophy. It’s not a religion. It’s a way of life. I do yoga and guided meditation. Then, I spend about two hours every day in the natural world. I walk outside and listen to \affirmations and meditations ingrained in my subconscious mind. There’s a small patch of forest here in the valley where I live in Toronto. When I walk there, I feel the spirit of the forest, and it makes me feel like a different person. I touch the earth, take the mud, and put it on my head, neck, arms, and face. I hug the trees, and when I see the earthworms, I rescue them. I listen to the creeks, the water, and the breeze, and I feel the sun shining down on me, and I say, “Give me your energy.”
As far as my diet, I’m a pure vegan. I love Thai food. And I love Tofu.
Special Thanks To:
Sangita Iyer
Voices for Asian Elephants
All Elephant photos courtesy of Sangita Iyer
All photos of Sangita & Elephants
by Kerala Forest Department
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