Towards the end of 2020, a world desperate for feel-good stories celebrated the deliverance of “ the world’s loneliest elephant ” from thre...
Towards the end of 2020, a world desperate for feel-good stories celebrated the deliverance of “the world’s loneliest elephant” from three decades of captivity in Pakistan. Born in Sri Lanka in 1985 Kaavan was gifted to Pakistan as a young, frightened and lonely calf. His sole companion, another elephant from Bangladesh, died in 2012.
After years of campaigning and court cases, Kaavan was freed by a judgement from the Islamabad High Court, which notably built on the principle laid down by the Indian Supreme Court that animals also have an equal constitutional claim to a right to a dignified life. After boarding a Russian plane that stopped to refuel in Delhi, he finally reached a sanctuary in Cambodia where the singer Cher, who spearheaded the Kaavan campaign, serenaded him with the famous Cinderella song “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes”.
Around the same time, another elephant died in Goa, unnoticed by the media or even the government department meant to look after her interests. She was much older than Kaavan and from another corner of this warring subcontinent. Lakshmi Kumari was born in 1950, also the birth year of the Indian Constitution, faraway in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
The Andaman years
The first documented proof of Lakshmi Kumari’s life is a 1999...
