Human-ity and Elephant-ity

In one of my recent daily research sessions (for Queer Public Radio/Gay Talk Radio) I ran across a story that moved me, to write this piece.

The story was about Elephants in India. For me, the fact the story takes place in India makes it even more startling. After all Hinduism practices ‘cattle worship’. It is illegal to even sell beef in most Indian States.

I guess it’s too much to expect; you know, thinking that a group of people so compassionate towards one animal group would probably be compassionate towards other animal groups. And of course, compassion toward other human beings would be a ‘given’.

So when I read the article about a train killing 7 elephants in India I became concerned. It seems the train tracks must cross known elephant trails/paths. In that area, since 1987, 118 elephants have been killed in elephant-train collisions.

Evidently the distance traveled on this route is great so the trains travel at high speeds. The train company officials have been contacted and asked to slow down the trains in that area. Apparently elephants are not as important as timely delivery of cargo.

Even more concerting about this story was the reason it happened. Two baby elephants were stuck on the train tracks. Other elephants were trying to save them. There were 6 adults desperately trying to get the two baby elephants off the train tracks. Only one elephant, of the 8, survived the incident.

After the event, crowds of people gathered. However they were cautious and careful because many more elephants were now at the scene, protecting their fellow elephant family members; both dead and living!

A thought crossed my mind about reincarnation. I’ll have to give a bit more thought to coming back as an elephant!

As I envisioned the elephant-train scene and the difference of emotions from both human and elephant ‘citizens’ (of earth) so many questions came to my mind. At first I thought about reversing the roles. What if it were 6 adult humans with 2 babies stuck on the track?

Do you think the casualty rate would be the same? I personally don’t think the casualty rate would be as high. Does this make humans smarter and/or less caring (ie: less ‘humane’)?

Do you think all 6 of the adult elephants were related to the 2 younger elephants? Because I think this would play a big part in the self-sacrifice decision-making process for most humans in this scenario.

But regardless of the ‘inner workings/details’ I feel that at least one, if not more, of the humans, under the same scenario, would save themselves.

Some will argue that this allows the survivor(s) to continue living and have more of an impact. Others will argue that it was this person’s destiny to stay and, in fact, this person may have saved the child!

Putting aside all the ‘pomp and circumstance’ and focusing on the extreme ‘humanity’ of the elephants’ actions, in this story, it just seems to me that elephant-ity trumps human-ity.

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