We all know the fable about the elephant, the seven blind men, and tricksthat mere touch can play on perception. (For those who came in too late forthe granny's tale, the one who felt the flapping ear thought of the animalas a giant fan, the second stroked a leg and swore it was a pillar, and soon.) Many of us have also heard before the gag about a Frenchman, anAmerican, and a German being asked to write essays on the elephant. (Forthose who haven't, the three wrote respectively on `The love life of theelephant', `How to make bigger and better elephants' and `The elephant: doesit exist?'. Ha ha.) The moral of both the stories is much the same: theelephant is everything to everyone. Three guesses should not really benecessary about what it is to the Marxist-led Left Democratic Frontgovernment of Kerala. The elephant is, to them, a worker. Or, morecorrectly, it should be one. Proletarianisation of the pachyderm wouldappear to be the ultimate objective of a pioneering legislation reportedlyon the anvil in the southern state. Proud of its legislative firsts like thelaw that gave farm labour benefits, including provident fund, Kerala is nowset to lay down the minimum working conditions for its toiling jumbos. Theemployee-employer relations between the elephants and their owners can nolonger be hidden under a haathi mera saathi line.To be enacted are measures of labour welfare for the captive beasts thattheir registered masters and licensed mahouts cannot evade in theory, withan expert committee to recommend even more. Envisaged already is aretirement age for the elephants, higher than for the Central governmentemployees, with a provision for an extension on production of a `fitnesscertificate'. The Marxists, who have made a much-dreaded horror of thehead-load workers in their union, haven't forgotten about the burden of theblue-collar beasts. The limits to the load are being laid down, in relationto the animal's height, while calf labour of this kind is being entirelyeliminated. The question is whether and to what extent the law, like otherswith similar lofty and laudable intentions, is implementable. Won't itsenforcement need a matchingly elephantine machinery? Won't palm-greasingcome into play in the grant of official certificates for the prescribed foodquantities and the post-retirement `fitness'? The law will go farther thanany legislation for human labour welfare, when it ensures that she-elephantsare mated at least twice in two score years and that the forest departmenthelps in the resultant reproduction. Nothing for philandering tuskers totrumpet about, perhaps, but the female of the species can even hope formaternity benefits. But, will mere law, which has not protected wildelephants from Veerappan's poaching gang, work better for their captivecousins in Appu's own country?There is another unanswered question: will the elephants covered by theproposed law consist only of those engaged in timber transport and savageentertainment in circuses or will they include the temple mounts as well? Ifthe latter is the case, won't there be a loud outcry from the other end ofthe political spectrum against state interference in the temples' internalaffairs including their elephants' load and love life? The election symbolof the stridently anti-Manuvad Bahujan Samaj Party can then become a symbolof saffron politics as well.
