Men Elephant Conflict on the Rise In Jorhat District
'RAGINA' - A new devise to drive the wild elephants away
---Suryya Kumar Chetia
Hundreds of wild elephants have been destroying the paddy fields in the nearby areas of River Brahmaputra in Jorhat district. Due to lack of enough forest land in this part of the state, the herd of Jumbos have come out to live on the paddy fields of the farmers. The fully ripen rice in the fields have become the favourite food for the elephants, although these animals do not hesitate to destroy the fields full of vegetables like cabbage, tomatoes, mustard oil seeds, potatoes etc. Though the government once planned to protect the villagers' property by installing solar fencing to stop the titans from entering into the villages, due to some mysterious reason, the plan failed miserably. Even the poles installed for that purpose are not found on that spot where the installation of those fencing was done.
Now the herd of wild elephants have become the source of dispute among the villagers of either side of the embankment of Meleng in West Jorhat. If the people of the villages of the eastern side of the embankment try to drive the animals away from their paddy fields, the youths from the villages of the other side of the embankment try to drive these huge animals back again by positioning with hundreds of motorbikes, lighting the headlights and making sound of the horns. So, the wild beasts do not have a way to escape from the wrath of mankind.
As a result, the elephants use to stay inside some bushes near the paddy fields in those areas during daytime. And the herd comes out in search of food at night to the nearby fields. Several young ones were also seen along with the mature elephants. The elephant-calves are very naughty. In fact these are the pioneers of large scale destruction of crops. These young ones try to play with the items used by the cultivators. A photograph attached herewith shows how a baby elephant tries to pull off the water supply machine in the field.
The poor cultivators of Meleng Brahmin Gaon and Borkhelia have prepared a kind of equipment to give direction to the sound of crackers. It is christened by a retired headmaster of the village as 'RAGINA'. A small iron pipe of almost two feet devised skilfully to send the force of the sound into one direction is indeed a good discovery to drive the jumbos away. The forest department of the state has taken the sample from the villagers and encouraged the cultivators of Janjimukh, Saragua, Panidihing etc. areas to prepare such tools of their own to drive away the elephants from their fields. Recently this 'Ragina' has gained popularity among the farmers, whose fields have been devastated by the wild elephants during this time of the year.
