Nehru’s Elephant Envoys: Animal Modernity, Orientalist Gaze and India’s Soft Power

Abstract

The colonial masters classified Indian subjects according to animalistic iconographies of rebel tiger or docile elephant. Even prior to the colonial imaginings, orientalist gaze associated elephant with the Indian geographical imagery. After decolonization, due to circumstantial necessities India, one of the biggest elephant suppliers to Europe, started to gift elephants to war-stricken zoos not as merchandize but as envoys of peace and goodwill. This subverted the long tradition of environmental domination. This article argues that Nehru’s elephant gift diplomacy utilized the long-standing orientalist iconography to practise India’s soft power. Apart from that he successfully incorporated a colonial icon and rebranded it as nation’s diplomatic emblem.