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Odisha man builds memorial for electrocuted elephant to honour his mother’s word
Respecting her mother’s wish, Dr Naik, a retired Odia teacher in a local college in January 2019 erected a 35-feet tall memorial for the dead elephant on the same paddy field and called it “Hathi Minar”.
The death of an elephant in a region where they get electrocuted, run over by speeding trains and trucks, or hunted by poachers is mostly a matter of statistics for state wildlife department, but a 62-year-old tribal man in Keonjhar district was determined not to let it remain just like that.
In November 2009, when a tusker from Jyotipur reserve forest stomped towards paddy field near Jali village of Champua block in Keonjhar district on Odisha-Jharkhand border, little did it know about the sagging electric lines. But no sooner did it reach the paddy field of Padmini Naik to chew on the ripening paddy after quenching its thirst at the nearby river, the tusker raised its trunk only to touch the sagging high voltage power lines. Within seconds it fell to the ground as huge amounts of electric current coursed through its body.
“My mother was too shocked about the elephant dying on our field as she considered her vehicle of Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth. She asked me to build a memorial for the dead elephant on our paddy field where it died. She was so heartbroken over the death that she did not take food for next 2-3 days,” said Dr Krushna Chandra Naik, son of Padmini.
Respecting her mother’s wish, Dr Naik, a retired Odia teacher in a local college in January 2019 erected a 35-feet tall memorial for the dead elephant on the same paddy field and called it “Hathi Minar”.
“After the elephant’s death, my mother kept telling me and my younger brother that the pachyderm’s death was a bad omen. The next year my younger brother died in a road accident and a year later, my mother passed away too. The twin tragedies steeled my resolve to build the elephant memorial at any cost,” said the retired teacher.
With her mother’s last wish to see a memorial for the elephant uppermost on his mind, Naik started earmarking a portion of his profits from the farm and dipped into his personal savings. Though villagers suffered crop loss to rampaging elephants, they also came forward to help him in construction of the memorial. He donated five acres of land to develop the site into a children’s park and planted 30,000 saplings for a herbal garden.
“In January 2019 I opened it to the public where people could come and pay tribute to the fallen elephant. More than 5000 people had gathered at the site for inauguration of the Hati Minar. Since then, people have been flocking to the place,” said Naik. “I hope the memorial makes people aware of the importance of elephants who are facing a massive crisis of habitat.”
After the death of the tusker in 2009, there have been numerous incidents of elephants being electrocuted in Keonjhar district, known for iron and manganese mines. In June this year, two elephants — an eight-year-old tusker and a 30-year-old female elephant — were found electrocuted dead in Baitarani reserve forest of the district raising suspicion of poaching.
The district, which had 112 elephants in 2002 reported just 40 in 2017 elephant census, mostly due to large-scale mining as the pachyderms deserted the area for neighbouring Dhenkanal district. The destruction of elephant habitats has seen rising human-elephant conflicts over the years.
In January this year, a 10-year-old girl in Hariharpur village of the district was trampled to death by a rampaging tusker while she was playing outside her home.
In 2019-20, as many as 115 people were killed and 132 injured in 204 human-elephant encounters in Odisha.
Noted elephant conservationist Biswajit Mohanty said Padmini Naik deserves a posthumous award for her enormous contribution to elephant conservation awareness for public.
“The distressed elephants of Odisha face an uncertain and dangerous future and the safety of our national heritage animal in Odisha is in peril. Once the pride of Odisha, the state has turned into a graveyard for elephants. I hope more and more people would visit the elephant memorial so that they become a little more sympathetic towards the majestic animal,” said Mohanty.
