Nepal’s Elephant Polo: The Beauty of the Beasts

The enormous animals appeared hesitant at first, walking slowly and majestically, as if taking a stroll instead of playing a game. The ball seemed to be lost somewhere in between the dense forest of their powerful legs. While one of the mounted players tried to swing at the ball from the top of the steady beast, most of the other elephants appeared to just stand and watch. And just when the game was about to get dull a shot threw the ball to the other side of the field. Some of the elephants suddenly sped up, and one of them raced ahead, crossing most the field to assault the nearly unguarded goal post. The shift from a slow-paced, tactical game to a one-time charge was stunning and a running elephant was a visual feast. But half of the fun was actually being there. I would have not felt the hype without standing next to the field and feeling the ground shake below my feet, realizing how powerful and heavy these animals are – and how dangerous the game can be.

This is how I discovered elephant polo. That particular game was a training routine and I chanced upon it in the flatlands of Chitwan National Park in Nepal, on a grassy bank of the river that served as the pitch. I went on to learn that elephant polo is a standardized game with its own associations and tournaments. It is played in a few countries but the official championships are held in Thailand and Nepal. It is in the latter country that the sport was born and it is there that it still has the most of its followers.

The World Elephant Polo Association sets strict rules. Teams of four elephants face each other in a given game and each elephant carries two persons: a mahout that leads the elephant and the player that strikes the ball. Both tasks are much more difficult than they seem to an ignorant spectator (like me). The elephant may be a smart and trainable animal but it has its whimsies and succumbs to fear easily. In ancient times the creatures served as dreaded war machines in the Indian and Carthaginian armies, but when frightened they would flee in various directions, trampling friend and the foe alike. One does not fortunately hear about such events during modern elephant polo games but once in Nepal an elephant did go on a rampage, injuring people and damaging a minibus. Forget about danger – just “driving” an elephant to follow a small ball or turning it around are things easier described than done.

The player does not have it easy either. As elephant height varies and is unregulated for purposes of the game, the length of the mallet varies as well and can be as long as 10 feet. Now, try to imagine how much cooperation and efficient communication is needed in the elephant-mahout-player triangle and how tough it is to hit a ball with a 10-foot-long cane while leaning out from behind an elephant's head. While one elephant from each team must always stay in the team’s own half of the field there are no proper goalkeepers. This seems a reasonable solution – imagine how hard it would be to score a point with the gigantic mammal just standing between the goalposts and blocking most of the space. Interestingly, elephant polo is one of the few sports that allow both female and male players on the same team. To balance the physical advantages of men, the elephant polo official rules allow women to hold the mallet with both hands while hitting the ball while men have to use one hand.

Though most of the Asian polo teams are found in Thailand, Nepal, and India, the presence of some European players adds an exotic flavor to the game. Some of the past official tournaments were actually won by Scottish and Swiss teams and there is reportedly a Swedish team that takes part in the games held in Thailand. At the same time the game’s official terminology has a South Asian taste to it. As mentioned above, the person driving the elephant is called a mahout (a term used for any professional rider of elephants in north India and Nepal, not only in polo), the prescribed hat is a topee (from the Hindi/Nepali topi which simply denotes a “hat”), and a half of the game is called a chukker, just like in regular polo (from chakkar, “circle, cycle”).

Elephant polo has come under criticism from animal rights groups. The ankush, a metal hook that is often used by the mahouts in India and Nepal to train elephants, is forbidden in official elephant polo championships. Still, a few years ago all records pertaining to elephant polo were reportedly erased from the Guinness Book of World Records. It has also been reported that the annual tournament in Nepal has been canceled. Some defenders of elephant polo point out that the popularity of the sport actually helps conservation efforts. The cutting down of forests decreased wild elephants’ habitat but games such as polo, some argue, may give the animals a new purpose and thus new protectors. It is also beyond a doubt that for countries such as Thailand and Nepal – both of which rely heavily on the tourism industry – elephant polo provides yet another attraction. This is particularly true for Nepal, where polo games are held next to national parks frequented by foreign tourists. The cancellation of the official tournament in Nepal, if indeed it happens, does not mean that the game will be forbidden more broadly. Some elephant polo events have already been held this year in Nepal.

Finally, the issue of animal rights and brutality toward animals should be put in the broader perspective. Elephants are used in tourism across India and Nepal to carry the travelers into national parks (and occasionally in other places, for example, in order to reach the gates of the Amber Fort near Jaipur). They are also employed for ritual purposes in some south Indian temples. While criticism might have landed elephant polo, at least partially, in troubled waters – and it is not for me to judge if the allegations were justified – the issue of brutality toward elephants probably should not particularly focus on this game alone. Or, to put it differently, the assessment should take a step back chronologically: to the training stage. The ankush can be used to hit an animal on the head or jerk them by the ears. A trained elephant can be used for a few purposes mentioned above. It does not necessarily make the purposes themselves evil – at least carrying tourists or playing the polo, if they do not overstretch the animals’ physical capabilities – but to me one of the main questions is whether the earlier training was conducted in a proper manner. Indeed, the ankush has already been banned in India but some media reports still indicate its use.