British VIPs never missed Khedda operations
MYSORE: When British administrators came to the Royal City, they never missed a visit to jungles to witness kheddah operations to capture wild elephants.
That many VIPs, including UK King Edward VIII, were interested to see the kheddah operations mirrors its charm on foreigners, particularly the British. While the association of elephants with Mysore is age old, their capture in the wild with the assistance of domesticated jumbos got the city a distinct identity. After the two wild elephants were captured this week in the city, its history with the past on nabbing the pachyderms is revived.
A Khedda Operation in Progress
Starting from Prince Albert Victor in 1889, the record suggest that many visiting dignitaries, including the viceroys, went to the woods to witness the kheddah operation. The Yelwal Residency on the outskirts of the city serves as a reminder to the history of Mysore rulers while the ethereal vintage of kheddah operations can be mapped in photographs.
When Albert Victor was visiting Mysore in 1889, he derived great pleasure from elephant keddahs.
Elephants in a Khedda Captivity
The Prince and Princess of Wales paid a visit to the Mysore state for two months starting January, 1906. Mysore Maharaja Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar organized an industrial and agricultural exhibition to display the arts of the land and industrial growth of the state. The visit laid the foundation for the Chamarajendra Technical Institute building. The royal guests visited Kakanakote forests before leaving Mysore state.
Next on the list of VIPs who saw kheddah operations was Lord Minto, the viceroy and governor-general of India. Accompanied by his wife, the viceroy visited the state in November and December, 1909. During their stay that stretched over a fortnight, they visited the celebrated Jog Falls, Srirangapatna, the Kunigal stud farm and the KGF. Not to mention the kheddah operations at Kakanakote. In November, 1913, Lord Hardinge, the viceroy and governor-general of India, included kheddah operations in his itinerary. Though he was here for three weeks from November 3 and his tour programme was packed (he visited Gersoppa Falls, Mysore, Srirangapatna, Bangalore and the KGF) Hardinge didn't miss the visit to jungles.
Edward VIII, when he was the prince of Wales, went to Karapura camp to see kheddah operations. Edward VIII, who was the king and emperor of India for 326 days in 1936, was here in January, 1922. During his stay, he visited Bangalore, Mysore, Srirangapatna, Krishnarajsagar dam and Karapur camp. The Mysore rulers hunted in Nagarhole and Bandipur forests.
Khedda Operation
The kheddah operation was a method employed for capturing elephants when domestic elephants were used to drive their wild jumbos into stockades and pits. These operations were banned in 1970s.
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Surrounded by the pristine forests of the Kakanakote range, Kabini has its own heritage tag, as it was once the hunting ground of the Mysore Maharaja. Later in the evening, as the wood cracked, the smoke curled up, and dialogues lingered over conservation, I asked Naturalist Vikram Nanjappa to tell me more about the Kabini of yesteryears. And that is when I heard about the Khedda operation, a spectacle that had been in vogue since the Wodeyar dynasty in the 19th century.
A Visual Treat
“Khedda essentially is a process where elephants were captured and then trained for war or for domestic use,” explains the Naturalist. He adds that the Mysore Khedda was largely borrowed from practices followed in the Eastern and Northern regions of India. “Drummers and beaters would drive an entire herd of wild elephants into a wooded enclosure where domestic elephants called Kumkis were used as decoys to calm them,” adds the Naturalist. The trapped wounded elephants were then lassoed, tied to a tree, and sometimes, even starved until they became weak enough to be trained.
History and art have shown evidences of this practice from Chandragupta Maurya’s period in the records of the Greek Ambassador, Megasthenes. He writes about how female elephants were used as decoys to lure male elephants into enclosures or deep trenches.
The Mysore Khedda, however, enjoyed royal patronage, and had the attraction of a river drive as well. “About 36 kheddas were done in the Kakanakote forest and the river drive was started by a Briton, GP Sanderson, in honour of the visit of the Duke of Russia in the 19th century,” according to the Naturalist. The Kheddas, which lasted for an entire century, ended in 1971, and were a visual fest like the earlier operations.
“I had tears in my eyes,” says Kamakshi Ananthakrishna, wife of the former Additional Chief Secretary of the Karnataka Government who saw the last Khedda. The drummers drove all the wild elephants into the water as the domestic elephants surrounded them. They were subsequently driven into an enclosure, and were caught using ropes. It was distressing to hear the cries of the elephants that fell into the pits. Today, the Khedda site, interestingly, is submerged under water after the construction of the Kabini dam. The elephants now enjoy a clear path to travel from the Nagarhole forest to the Bandipur stretch. Their only intruders are ‘shutterbugs’ like us who will simply not let them be.
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| Roping Operation - Kabini Khedda. |
| This is a photograph taken during the last Khedda in Kabini. It shows the roping operation wherein trained elephants with mahouts would enter the stockade and separate the captured elephants and rope them.This was an extremely dangerous task and used to be carried out with extreme brutality. As you can see the roped wild animal has a large wound on its trunk. |
 | Chittagong Hill Tracts Elephant Khedda Bangladesh 60s |
© Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS
Men Taming a Wild Elephant
© Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS
A Khedda Operation in Progress
© Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS
Elephants in a Khedda Captivity
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