Elephant watchers in Andhra Pradesh are born survivors, living on the edge of subsistence Premium

For 20 yrs, Chella and 25 other base camp watchers in Chittoor district have kept wild elephants away from fields, habitations & transformers. Despite the risks, they continue to work for food, clothes & status. They lack basic safety gear & are not entitled to special care if injured. They hope for more jobs & better benefits.

In a few minutes, the sun will go down over the hills around, its reflection in the water receding. Chella (name changed to protect privacy), 54, watches the horizon as he sits on a rock in the forests of Naniyala of Ramakuppam mandal in Chittoor district. There are swashes of red across the now yellow-orange sky. The forest watcher looks in the direction of Tamil Nadu, at the trees silhouetted against the landscape, the dry deciduous forest now green after the rains. It’s been 20 years of work, without a holiday — no weekend, no Deepavali. At any time now, he hopes he’ll get a call, saying he can go home.

Hit by malnutrition after years of toil in the Koundinya Wildlife Sanctuary that is spread over about 360 sq km, coupled with the adverse effects of alcohol, he believes he is fit enough to work a few more years in the dangerous job of chasing away herds of wild elephants back into the wilderness of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

Employed by the State Forest Department, he and 25 other base camp watchers or trackers in the Ramakuppam mandal of the Kuppam forest range, drive away elephants that often pillage fields or attack habitations for food. They also keep the pachyderms away from ground-level transformers and low-slung overhead exposed cables installed by the Southern Power Distribution Company Limited (SPDCL), the government electricity department.

The men, in their late 40s, belong predominantly to the Scheduled Tribe communities of Yenadis and Yerukulas, originally forest dwellers. Together, they cover the vast area of the sanctuary.

The previous night, Chella’s wife had repeated her week-long request: “Don’t forget to bring money to buy provisions.” The image of a 10-year-old grandson with torn shoes flashes across his mind. The one-year-old promise to replace them with a new pair comes next. Then the guilt. And the helplessness.

He also remembers an old dream of his youth to go to Delhi. Now, that is “impossible”, on second thoughts, “not even necessary”. Suddenly he gets a call on the mobile from his boss, a senior forest watcher, also a temporary worker. “You can’t go home yet. We have to finish the job of driving back a new herd of elephants tonight.”

Chella feels like quitting right there, but he has mouths and an addiction to feed. His tired body prepares for an extra 10 hours of a high-risk assignment. He has already been up and on duty since 6 a.m.