The Full Mahadevi (Madhuri) Story: From Chains to Rescue
For 33 long years, Mahadevi (Madhuri) stood on the same slab of concrete and walked the same path- shackled in chains, controlled with weapons like an ankush (hooked iron rod) and occasionally paraded through noisy processions with tight ropes tied around her stomach.
While we went to school, college, marked milestones, perhaps even got married and had children, while moving freely through our lives, she was kept in solitary confinement at Swastishree Jinsen Bhattarak Pattacharya Mahaswami Sansthan (Jain Math) at Nandani village in Kolhapur, essentially never interacting with others of her own kind.
Mahadevi is now free at Vantara’s Radhe Krishna Temple Elephant Welfare Trust – free to rediscover what it means to be an elephant – to feel the earth beneath her feet, her legs without the weight of chains, to roam, to make friends and to heal.
This is how her life unfolded:
- At just three years old, Mahadevi was separated from her mother and brought to the Jain Math in Kolhapur, reportedly from Karnataka. Since then, she was confined, all alone, to a concrete shed, far from the forests where she belonged.
2. She was controlled by an ankush weapon and used for begging in the village.
3. In 2017, after years of excruciating loneliness and frustration from her cruel and bleak living conditions, Mahadevi fatally attacked the chief priest of the same Jain Math. Such incidents are not uncommon-elephants held in cruel, unnatural conditions often lash out in frustration and from psychological distress.
4. Despite this, Mahadevi was used to roll children in her trunk in exchange for money.
5. Following the chief Swamiji’s death, temple trustees and former Member of Parliament Sh. Raju Shetti urged the forest department to take custody of Mahadevi and relocate her to a zoo!
6. In 2020, Sh. Raju Shetti met PETA India’s representatives and supported the rehabilitation of elephant Mahadevi.
Sh Raju Shetti with PETA India Director of Advocacy Khushboo Gupta.
7. Between 2012 to 2023, Mahadevi was transported illegally by the Jain Math at least 13 times across state borders to participate in processions. By this time, the Math had discovered that she could be rented and her suffering was monetised.
8. In 2022-2023, she was taken to Telangana for participation in the Muharram procession.
9. On 30 July 2023, Mahadevi was seized by the Telangana Forest Department for violation of Section 48A of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 for illegal transportation of an elephant from Maharashtra to Telangana. Mahadevi’s custody was handed over to the Maharashtra Forest Department. Ever since, Mahadevi has not been under temple’s ownership as she became ‘seized government property’.
10. On 20 June 2024, Maharashtra’s Chief Wildlife Warden wrote to the High-Powered Committee of the Honourable Supreme Court recommending elephant Mahadevi be rehabilitated.
11. Her health kept deteriorating with grade 4 arthritis, foot rot, overgrown nails and worn-out footpads from spending a lifetime in chains on concrete.
12. Jain Math appealed the order for Mahadevi’s rehabilitation in Bombay High Court and Supreme Court, but both courts upheld the decision for her rehabilitation to Vantara’s Radhe Krishna Temple Elephant Welfare Trust.
13. Despite the Supreme Court order, hooligans pelted hundreds of stones at PETA India and the sanctuary staff during Mahadevi’s rescue from the Jain math. A PETA India staff member suffered a severe rib injury after being directly hit with a stone.
14. On 30 July 2025, after 33 years living alone and parading for processions, elephant Mahadevi reached her new home—Vantara’s Radhe Krishna Temple Elephant Welfare Trust (RKTEWT) in Jamnagar. There, Mahadevi will live free from chains and weapons, and in the company of other elephants. She will also receive specialised veterinary care by world-class veterinarians, including hydrotherapy, to address her arthritic condition.
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15. PETA India and Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organizations (FIAPO) have each offered a mechanical elephant to the Jain Math, for use in the temple rituals and encourage all temples to choose humane mechanical elephants in place of living elephants for animal welfare and human wellbeing.
To help PETA India help more elephants like Mahadevi, become a PETA India member.
