Chincholi Kheda, A Forgotten Tale

7/27/2019 Chincholi Kheda, A Forgotten Tale

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A Non-Fictional Tale

WHEN ELEPHANTS THRIVED CHINCHOLI FORESTSTRADITION OF ELEPHANT CAPTURE OF NIZAM OF HYDERABAD

WHEN LONG TERM KHEDA OPERATIONSOF ELEPHANT CAPTURE FOR USE IN BATTLE, WAR ANDGAMES DIMINISHED THE POPULATIONS OF ELEPHANTS IN CHINCHOLI FORESTS IN GULBARGA

A Story ofKhedda Operations (Elephant Capture) in the times ofNizam of Hyderabad at Chincholi in Gulbarga in

Karnataka, Kheddas were not only the practice of weaning away the wild elephants from their aboriginal inhabitant

populations but also it was an exciting genre of fun, amusement and entertainment. Nizam Ul Mulk the Viceroy of

Deccan Asif Jah used to give invitation to Prince of Wales, Edward III of England 1867 and the last Czar Nicholas of

Russia, Arc Duke of Austria the Franz Ferdinand 1893 the Duke of Connaught, Viceroy Lord Curzon 1905 for throwing

grand dinner party, offering majestic banquets and organizing royal hunting of wild animals like Cheetah, Tigers and

Elephants etc in his princely state of Hyderabad and Berar. NizamsArmy famous as Hyderabad Contingent also

called as Russels Brigade always maintained 400 elephants from 1794 to 1922 which mandated such elephant capture

operations during the last couple of centuries, indispensable...A K Singh

Maha Laqa Bai Chanda, Hyderabads most celebrated courtesan 1786, a famous dancer, a woman poet in Urdu,guardian of Daccani art and culture of QuliQutub Shahi of Golconda, asked Captain

John Malcom the assistant of JamesAchillies Kirckpatrick, to organize anelephant hunts at the outskirts of Hyderabadon the insistence of her cousin Khair ulNissa. Kirckpatrick a British resident ofNizam 1798 quite often used to go forhunting the black buck with his tamecheetahs in the vicinity of Hyderabad.

Elephants hunt used to be performed by theforced labour of the native lambanis &tribals, as part of the feudal service whichunder the name of raja-karma wasextorted from them. This system, writes JEmerson Tennent, in his book The WildElephant And The Method of Capturing

And Taming It In India & Ceylon, wascontinued by the Portuguese and Dutch, and

prevailed under the British Government till itsabolition by the Earl of Ripon in 1832.

Two thousands of men were ordered by JohnMalcom through their village headmen forconstructing corral, pushing the elephants towardscordon. Catchers in bulk always gathered with their

wilful assistance on such thrilling moments.Government meets the expanses for skilled labour,preparations of corals, provision of spears, ropes,arms, drums, flutes, gun powder required for theevent. Most of the time lean seasons were chosen

which dont disturb the people besides their voluntaryinvolvement in one of the unusual enjoyment of the

sport. Colossal rate of peasantry of their free own freewill occupied for weeks together in installing stockades,

Remains of Ane Pakadi the Elephant Capture Site or Kheda inDharamsagar Forest in Chincholi Range in Gulabarga Distt.

Square shape Kheda Site visible from the the sky surroundedby Trees and trench flanked by two vellyes in Dharamsagara

Forests Chincholi Gulbrbaga


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paving the ways through jungles. Wild animals beaten trek used to be mostly selected as common migratingroutes for elephants which they use routinely for search of forage, water and shelter.

British residencyat Hyderabad ( now a womens college) was busy with card playing and gambling and deorhiof Tajalli Ali Shah studded with music of mehfils and mushairas which Mir Ali just attended was joined by MahaLaqa who was coming from Arstu Jahs mansion where playing chess, flying pigeons just finished. Khair wasinformed by Rakeem Khan the cook of residency about the preparation of Elephant Pakadi being organized at

the behest of Nizams Govtunder the supervision of Capt

John Malcom for capture ofnot less than forty youngelephants required for theNizams army and a couple ofthem for Bakshi Begaum. By1798 Michael Joachim MarieRaymond ( Musa Ram ) thearmy commander of Nizamsestates were widened.

He possessed most of theluxuries and taste of his timesand became one of the mostpowerful and influential French

Army Commander andpersuaded the Nizam 1798again to increase the size of thehis force, this time to over

fourteen thousand men, withcomplete train of canons, gun

foundry, five thousand bullocks and few elephants.

Preparations for Elephant Catch were on. Sufficient force oflocals, tribes, lambanis, and decoy Kumki elephants weremade ready and deployed to build a design of corral, asshown in the figures here, in Chincholi at Kunchavaram inDharmasagara forests before the envoy of royal batteryreaches the location of Khedda. Nizam Ali Khan, Mir Alam,Bakshi Begum, Maha Laqa on the insistence of Tenut unNissa agreed to witness the scene of Kheda along withKirckpatrick where Khair ul Nissa was the last person toagree at the long last after a series of persuasion by MahaLaqa and Durdana Begum. The showbiz was going to be

not only the theatre of fun and amusement but an exercise ofplenty of pleasure, enjoyment and entertainment. The eventdid not only had a flavour of wild life hunting but also aBrits passion for venturing into the dark and deep jungles ofIndia seeing the huge wild beasts in the wild which otherwise

was not possible in England.Two months were spent in the preliminaries for making anarrangements. If we see the place now in 2013 there is asquare shape plot of one hectare at global position coordinates of N 17 30 4.8 E 77 30 56.7 in DharmasagaraForests of Chincholi Range in Gulbarga district of Karnataka on the borders of Andhra Pradesh which caneasily be discerned in google map shown above. This was a rendezvous for Khedda operations of elephant

capture for Nizams army for almost a century and half where dozens of elephants used to be captured,injured, traumatized, lacerated and killed intermittently entertaining their political bosses and amusing the galaxyof foreign diplomats to the royal gratification of Nizam. The site of Chincholi Kheda is 4 Km fromKunchavaram lambani village which is 110 Km from Chincholi town towards north east on Andhra Pradesh

Few hundreds to thousand people used to encircle to make oval peripheralformation called Elephant Corral for capturing wild elephants

Sektch of Ane Pakadi or Elephant Kheda ofChincholi surrounded by 10 feet deep trench & Gate

made of Stone Masonary with three staircases.


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border in line with Tandur from Hyderabad. The cavalcade was as oriental as the scenery through which itmoved, the British resident and the officers of his staff, household formed a long cortege, escorted by the nativeattendants, horse keepers, foot runners. The ladies were borne in palankins and the younger individuals of theparty carried in chairs raised on poles and covered with cool green awnings made of fresh leaves of palms writes

J Tennent. Gathering of royals wereseated on the pillars of the gates both

the sides.On one pillar was seated Kirkpatrick

with Khair flanked by two guards andon another pillar rest of them. Thesignal was made, and the stillness of theforest was broken by the shouts of theguards, the rolling of the drums and tomtoms and the discharge of the musketsand the elephants were hurried forwardat the rapid pace towards the entranceinto the corral. A herd of wild elephants

came trampling down the brushwoodand crushing, the leader emerged infront of the corral, paused for an instant

stared wildly round and then rushedmadly through the open gate, followed bythe rest of the herd.

Instantly, as if by magic, the entirecircuit of the corral, which upto thismoment had been kept in profounddarkness, blazed with thousands of lights,every hunter, in an instant that the

elephants entered, rushing forward to thestockade with a torch kindled at thenearest watch fire. The elephants dashedto the very extremity of the enclosureinto all the side trenches and beingbrought up by the fence, retreated toregain the gate, but found it closed.

The wild elephants fear was sublime,they hurried round the corral at a rapidpace, but saw it not lit by fire on everyside. Wild elephants attempted to force

the stockade, but were driven back by theguards with spears and flambeaux, on

whichever side they approached theywere repulsed with shouts and volleys ofmusketry. Collecting into one group, they would pause for a moment in apparent bewilderment, then burst offin another direction. It became dark with the descent of the sun in the evening. All of sudden two wild elephantin the enclosure started charging, fighting and attacking each other with torrent of high pitched trumpeting.Khair Ul Nissa who was sitting besides Kirckpatric fell down from the imbalanced chair towards side of the gateinside the enclosure. Both the wild beasts come closer to the lady who, in an instant, stalked over the pillar ofthe gate and the wild elephants remained busy in a heavy tussle. For a moment the royal chair got shocked to seethe Khair in danger. Kirckpatrick got down and rushed to the closed doors and asked the guard the help to

evacuate the lady in peril. Guard opened the gate slightly and rescued the beauty queen instantly. Then the boththe quarrelling pair of wild elephants fell down inside the deep muddy trenches towards the adjoining trench

which was full of water, mud and darkness. Another giant tusker continued in extreme excitement throughoutand attempted to break its way into the corral from the enclosure, shaking the bars with its forehead and tusks, it

Elephant Capture was an affair, full of action, thrill & excitement whichthe Kings of European nations used to admire, participate and appreciate.

Hundreds of labours, forest watchers, mahouts and British Offices used toinvolve in hunting and capture of elephants as well.


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went off in a state of frenzy into the jungle. Later on, in search of it with a female decoy elephant watching itsamiable response, sprang fairly on theinfuriated beast, with a pair of sharphooks in his hands, which he pressedinto tender parts in front of theshoulder, and thus held the elephant

firmly till the chains were pressed overits legs, and it permitted itself to be ledquietly away. Rest of the elevenelephants were allowed to remainlodged in the wet muddy trenches tillthe next two days so as to get calm,cool and acclimatize which, with thehelp of Kumki decoy elephants werechained, roped and carried away one byone to Hyderabad for further trainingand for getting adapted, accustomed to

the newer environment where thesebeasts will further be prepared forbattle and wars in the Nizams army.

Presently, now, if we visit the spot ofElephant Capture Spot in Chincholi,

we see it lying dilapidated, derelict andramshackled surrounded by the deep trench and both the pillars of the gate still standing upright built uponstone masonry. Few trees in the centre ofthe enclosure could be seen which are ofrecent origin. Water spill over galleries,broken staircases, breached walls of the

enclosure could be observed amid a valleyof Dharmasagara forests which becomelush green and blossom during the autumnseason every year. The Khedda was amethod of capturing wild elephants that

was evolved in the North - Eastern statesof India. Unlike other methods like MelaShikar and the Pit method , whole herdscould be captured by khedda. In Melashikar individual elephants were isolatedfrom the herd and lassoed with the help of

trained domestic elephants called Kumkis.A mahout needed an extraordinary degreeof skill to lasso a wild elephant and suchmen were called Phandes. Not all Phandes

were men. Parbati Barua the daughter of thelegendary Lalji Barua, Raja of Gaauripur , was a Phande. Lalji Barua specialised in the capture of wild elephantsand is a revered figure in the elephant lore of the north-east. The pit method widely practised in the south was asimple and straight forward method. A concealed pit with a trap door was dug and a wild elephant was trappedin it. But it was cruel and more dangererous practice which used to fracture their bones and kill the elephants

were later abondoned.This was not a very desirable method as more often than not the trapped animal wouldsustain a lot of injuries. With the khedda whole herds were driven into a stockade with the help of human

beaters and trained elephants. At first a herd of elephants would be located and its habits studied. A suitable site

Decoy elephants in an encircle for elephant capture in Kabini River Backwater Karapore near Mysore in Kheda held around 1970.

Wild elephants, tuckers, calves are being thrusted into the barricadeprepared for the purpose of capturing the wild elephants.


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Wild elephants being cordoned off towards barricade

many miles away would be located and a large stockade built. Human beater would then surround the herd fromfar away and slowly tighten their noose around the herd without alarming them. The herd would be slowlydriven unknowingly towards the stockade. And then with a final push would be driven into the stockade. All this

could take weeks or sometimes months but thesheer numbers of elephants captured made it verycost effective. Once in the stockade the elephants

would be isolated and domesticated. Once theelephants were in the stockade mahouts on trainedelephants would enter the stockade to isolateindividuals. This was an extremely dangerous partof the entire operation and usually involvedexcessively brutal methods. A British ForestOfficer in Assam called A.J.T.Milroy wasinstrumental in stopping the mahouts from usingbrutal tactics. He laid down certain methods to beused and his works are became a standard forhandling and maintenance of domestic elephants.

G.P.Sanderson another Englishman introduced thekhedda to the Mysore State and carried out severalsuccessful operations after a few initial setbacks. Infact the khedda came to be identified with theMysore State. The Mysore Khedda was a spectacle

witnessed by various dignitaries of the Raj with special grandstands being erected for them to sit. The lastMysore Khedda was conducted in the 1970s at the Kakankote State Forest, now part of the Nagarhole NationalPark. Special poojas would beoffered at the Mastigudi templebefore the start. The temple andthe site are now submerged by the

Kabini dam and are only exposedwhen the waters recede during thesummer. The Mysore Khedda alsothrew up the first indian star inHollywood. A hollywood film unit

was invited to film a specialkhedda.A young orphan who hadbeen bought up by the mahouts atKarapura village stared in the film.He travelled with the unit to theUS and went on to act in various

hollywood films before returning.He was known as Saboo theelephant boy. The photographs

below were taken during the lastkhedda in Kakankote. The practiseof khedda has now stopped andthe old site is now part of the famous Kabini backwaters where wild elephants now find a sanctuary. In anotherincident in Chincholi, Arc Duke of Austria Ferdinand Franz 1893 illustrates in his memoirs, as we moveforward, bound for some knolls and rocks which command an uninterrupted view of the whole plain. Herds ofdeer are scattered about, lazily couching under the trees, or feeding upon the finer herbage on the margin of thepools. Two cradle-like native carts made of stick sand rope each drawn by a small bullock, are hovering about in

the distance, and each has lying down on its floor a hunting cheetah, hooded, fastened, and dinnerless. Thechase begins. From our vantage ground we see one cart slowly and cautiously driven towards a herd of

Arc Duke of Austria the Franz Ferdinand 1893 with Cheetah and thehunts of Black bucks flanked by his companion and shikaris


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antelopes, and approaching them unseen and unnoticed. When within some forty or fifty yards the cart stops, akeeper jumps into it and slips and unhoods the cheetah, who is down on the turf in the twinkling of an eye. He

sees the grazing animals, and forthwith he begins to work to wardsthem. Step by step stealthily he advances, stalking every inch

with measured, cat-like footfall, and taking advantage of everyinequality of the ground, every tuft of grass, and every little boulder

of rock, to cover his approach. Pace by pace onwards-now a deadstop-down for a moment he crouches. Inch by inch, hecreeps nearer and nearer, behind a granite boulder he lays crouchedfor an instant, then on to its crest he crawls, and now with anoverwhelming leap, a tremendous bound, and he is flying, feetthrough the air, into the very midst of the herd. A large fat buck-theconsort of many does, the paterfamilias of numerous fawns, and

who has been browsing a little apart from his household, hasattracted the cheetah's attention. But the buck has seen his dreadenemy just in time, and flies for dear life over the scrub, over theturf, among the palms. The cheetah follows close, now

gaining, now losing ground. The chase is most exciting, and fromour elephants' backs we see every yard of it. From the chronicle ofLord Curzon as he writes 1903, Now it seems certain the deer,fleeter of foot, will escape; his springs and bounds are telling on theheavier and slower cheetah. But, no, the "stay" of that animal isgreater, and his thirst for blood insatiable. For some minutes morethe hunt continues; the deer doubles back from a top of trees, andcomes into the open;-a fall in the lay of the land gives the cheetah a

momentary advantage; he sees it-one, two leaps, and he is on the deer's back and pins him fastly down. There isa cry, a struggle, an endeavour to bring the sharp horns into action, but the weight and strength of Jubata isoverpowering. And it is all up with the lord of that herd-the hinds are widows, and the fawns fatherless. The

keepers come up; they cut the throat of the dying stag, they feed with his life's blood Jubata aforesaid, who nowre leases his hold, and suffers himselfto be detached from his quarry.Wildlife wings have been criticallyimportant roles to play in policing illegalcapture and conducting or supervisingthe capture of wild elephants for wildlifemanagement purposes. State forestdepartments have a limited buttremendously important role as theowner and caretaker of perhaps 5% of

Indias domesticated elephants which,while legally clearly the property ofindividual states, are spiritually or morallythe heritage of the entire nation. Forestdepartment elephants are importantbecause they are the only elephants inIndia which can be systematicallymanaged, studied, bred, used inresearches etc.

The elephant operations of stateforest departments are living artefacts of the massive logging brought about by colonization. Krishnamurthy

and Wemmer (1995a) state that, It should be emphasized that the British contribution was mainly in organizingthe elephant workforce and existing practices, and introducing westernized veterinary methods. In light of apenchant for voluminous record keeping, surprisingly little has been written about the larger managerial aspectsof elephant operations in forests. Beyond possessing elephants, many state forest departments employ highly

Lady Curzon with Lord Curzon after a tigerhunt in Tandur near Hyderabad 1903 AD

G P Sanderson, the then Superintendent of Kheddas for Maharaja of Mysore onTiger shooting accompanying Mabel Trotter, hatted, corseted and gloved.


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experienced elephant managers whose wisdom would be essential in any attempt to better manage privately-owned elephants..The capture of elephants in India has produced much fascinating reading. The first book wasG.P. SandersonsThirteen Years among the Wild Beasts of India (1879), which describes hisearly kheddah captures in Bengal and also his 1874 capture of 53 elephants by kheddah in the B R hills of southIndia. This kheddah was accomplished in the face of a malediction by Hyder Ali, who after failing about ahundred years earlier, laid a curse on any man who should later attempt the task. Milroy (1927) wrote briefly but

powerfully about catching elephants in Assam. Like many other Asian countries, as opionated by many wild lifeconservationist, if India can be said to have a de facto national animal, it must be the elephant. The tiger, the onlyother likely candidate, is too fierce and lacks the elephants myriad and mostly beneficent cultural and religiousassociations but the reality is otherwise.

India had been a country much coveted, sought after and popular during the British Raj, for its unmatchablesplendor of wild life, for majesty of dense forests, for grandeur of mystical supernatural experience andunbelievable mythological folklores. India being rich in bio-diversity, wild life, flora and fauna, opulently gifted

with enormously prosperous natural ecosystems with magnificent tigers and elephants shall always be thedestination for the world.

Acknowledgment:Article is the outcome of visit to Kunchavaram in Chincholi Forest areas in Gulbarga District adjoining Andhra

Pradesh border, where team of Forest Officers like Sh Sanjeev, Ramesh, Mohan, Sh Sanjiv K Raya andBichappa a Forest Wathcer who facilitated the passage throughout the wide and extensive tour to most of theplaces of Dharmasagara, Burugdoddi, Shadipur and Chincholi forests. But for their help and assistance the writeup would not have been possible. docudrama

Writer A K Singh is the member of Indian Forest Service serving in Working Plan &Management Wing of the Ministry of Forest, Ecology & Environment in the Governmentof Karnataka. India. The sparkling narrative is a dramatized historical non-fictionalfantasy enriched by a wealth of many first and second hand sources-published andunpublished memoirs, letters and diaries.which bring this forgotten era of British Raj andMaharajas vividly to life. Contact [email protected], 9481180956 Date 20.1.2013Gulbarga Karnataka, India.

References:1. J Emerson Tenent The Wild Elephant, Method of Taming and Capturing Elephant in India, Burma and Sri Lanka2. Thirteen Years Among Wild Beasts of India. G P Sanderson Their Haunts and habits from personal observation with an account

of the modes of capturing and taming elephants. 1879 G P Sanderson Officer Incharge3 of the Government CatchingEstablishment in Mysore.

3. Anon. 1998. Protected Areas with elephant populations. ENVIS l Wild Life and Protected Area) l: 2l-22. Anon. 2000. State offorest Eort 1999. Forest Survey of India, Dehradun, India.

4. Baskaran, N. and Desai, A.A. 200Q. Elepbant population estimation in Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park pfildhfeDiaision, Ooty) OeS-2000 - Final Report. Tamilnadu Forest Depanment and BNHS, India.

5. White Mughals. Love and Betrayal in 18th Century India. William Dalrymple.6. Bisht, S.S. 2000. Elephan! census in North Bengal - 2000: a report. Mimeo. S pp. Bist, S.S., Cheeran, J.V., Choudhury, S, Barua, P.

and Misra, M.K. 2001. Domesticated Asian elepbants in India country rEort. Ministry of Environment and Forests, Governmentof India, New Delhi, India.

7. Chandran, P.M. 1990. Population dynamics of elephants in Periyar Tiger Reserve.In: Proceedings of the symposium on ecology,behaviour and management of elephants in Kerala. Special Publication No. 1, Kerala Forest Department, Thiruvananthapuram,India.

8. Easa, P.S. 200I. Elephant population in Periyar and adjacent areas - a demograpbic study. Kerala ForestResearch Institute, Peechi, India.

9. Lotha, T. 1999. Elephant Census in Nagaland. Mimeo.3pp.10. Marak, T.T.C. 1999. The elepbant census rEort for Meghalaya - 1998.Wtldlife !7ing, Forest and Environment Department,

Meghalaya, Shillong, India.11. Menon, V., Sukumar, R. and Kumar, A. 1997. A god in distress: threats of poacbing and the ioory trade to the Asian elephant in

India. Asian Elephant Research and Conservation Centre, Bangalore, India.12. Ramakrishnan, lJ., Santhosh, J.A.., Ramakrishnan, U.and Sukumar, R. 1998. The population and conservation status of Asian

elephants in Periyar Tiger Reserve, South India. Cunent Science 74: ll0-114.13. G. M. 1973. Behavior and ecology of the Asiaticelephant in southeastern Ceylon. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology, 125: 1

113.Nozawa, K. and Shotake, T. 1990. Genetic differentiation among local populations of Asian elephant. ZeitschriftfrZoologische systematik und evolutionsforschung,28:40-47.

14. Sukumar, R. 1989. The Asian elephant: ecology and management. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
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Chincholi Kheda, A Forgotten Tale