Sometime in the middle of last month, a mail from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals landed in my inbox. It pointed out, interestingly, that while the mascot of the Indian railways is an elephant named Bholu, his brothers in the wild are killed regularly in train accidents. PeTA has thus filed a complaint with the ministry of railways demanding that immediate steps be taken to protect elephants from death on the tracks. Although the petition was ridiculous in its patness, it nevertheless set me thinking. I decided to travel to the forests of North Bengal that had witnessed a number of accidents in which elephants have been killed by speeding trains. As I soon found out, the problem involved not just elephants and trains, but was the more complex one of the conflict arising between human beings and animals when each threatens the territory of the other.

The railway tracks from Siliguri to Assam via Alipurduar pass through the thickly forested areas of the Buxa Tiger Reserve, Jaldapara, Chapramari and the Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary. As the train rushes through the verdure and the sharp green smell of the jungle suddenly overwhelms the senses, it is easy to feel that nothing can possibly be wrong in this fey space. But to look closely is to discover that at several places the forest land has disappeared to make way for houses and cultivated fields. The reports on elephant deaths suggest that these are precisely the areas where the largest number of elephants have died in the last few years. It is not difficult to guess why. The houses on either side of the tracks block the vision of the train drivers and they are taken unawares when elephants approach the lines from the forests.

The stretch from Siliguri to Assam is criss-crossed by elephant corridors, which are the routes usually taken by elephants in their journeys through the forest. Trains are required to slow down to a speed of about 20 kilometres per hour in the corridors marked by the forest department. The station master at Rajabhatkhawa, which falls within the Buxa Tiger Reserve, remarked wryly that though drivers follow the regulation, elephants are inevitably hit outside the zone. Besides, there is always the question of the feasibility of running trains slowly for the 150 kilometres of forest land between Siliguri and Assam. Trains, after all, have to reach on time.

All the railway officials I interviewed seemed eager to shift the responsibility of the deaths to the forest department. They claimed that though elephants have changed tracks over the years, the forest department has not cared to revise the corridors. But Subhankar Sengupta, the deputy director of field, Buxa Tiger Reserve (East), declared that the very concept of elephant corridors is an absurdity because as “free-ranging animals”, elephants might travel through any and every area of the forest. The ‘corridors’ shift and no amount of precaution, whether on the part of the forest department or the railways, can prevent the deaths. What had been a continuous forest area once has now been broken up by the requirements of an increasing human population. As human beings encroach on the habitat of the animals, the latter are pushed to the fringes and get killed, not only by rushing trains but also by villagers trying to protect themselves from the marauding hordes.

Villages within the forests live in the constant fear of elephant attacks, especially in the months when crops like maize or paddy ripen. Although May is not the month of harvest, I saw deep depressions in the fields in which elephants have run amok even at this time of the year. Elephants have reportedly become more aggressive in recent times. They ruthlessly flatten houses and trample men to death. The villagers try to ward off the hordes by bursting crackers, flashing searchlights or by lighting fires. When these methods fail, they throw molten tar on the elephants or strike them with heated spears. If an elephant is badly wounded but not debilitated in the fracas, it inevitably turns more violent the next time it raids.

But why do elephants, who habitually live deep within the forest, enter the villages, where they know they will be assailed? According to Sengupta, this is because the food habit of elephants has changed — now they prefer maize or paddy, which are more nutritious and more easily available, to the dry leaves of the forest. They also have a notorious fondness for alcohol, which they can get only in the villages. A poster prepared by the forest department to educate villagers on the ways of protecting themselves from elephants warns them against keeping rice beer or hariya in their homes. It is also dangerous to enter the forests in an inebriated state as elephants are attracted by the smell, and a drunken man would normally not be able to outrun an elephant coming after him.

While forest officials would ascribe the elephants’ trespasses to their changing food habit, there are conservationists who believe that elephants would not have strayed into human habitation had there been enough food within the forest. Heavy grazing in the forests prevents seedlings from reappearing and deprives the elephants. Trees that provide food for the elephants are felled illegally by timber mafias, sometimes in connivance with the poverty-stricken villagers desperate for money.

I was struck by the penury of the villagers within the forest. In a village haat, children sucked tenaciously at thin and wilting slices of watermelon as if they were enjoying a rare treat. The chickens looked sickly, as did the vegetables on sale. On a given day, a villager usually has just boiled rice for his meals. With the closure of the tea gardens, the villagers have been denied their only source of income. The need to survive has forced the traditional protectors of the forests to turn on the lands they once venerated.

On the way to Rajabhatkhawa, there is a billboard announcing, in Wordsworth’s famous words, that “nature never did betray the heart that loved her”. In the context of what I saw, I was moved by the irony of the line as I started on my way back to Calcutta. But it also caused me to ponder the significance of love and betrayal. If one is contained within the other, as it seems to be, then there is nothing much that PeTA, or for that matter, any conservationist or activist, however well-intentioned, can do to save the threatened animals. Disheartened, I sought solace in the vehemence of Wordsworth’s assertion, and in the primeval scent of foliage as I took it in for one last time. Fighting my doubts, I told myself that these rocks and stones and trees, and perhaps the elephants too, would surely be there when I return.