Elephants: It's Always The People

What happens when one of the largest and most intelligent animals on Earth is trained to become an executioner?

In this episode of Torture: A Dark History, Kevin Young and Dan Hourigan travel through more than two thousand years of history to explore the horrifying use of elephants in torture, punishment, and execution.

We’ll begin in India, where elephants became symbols of royal power and terrifying instruments of punishment. From the Mughal Empire to the kingdoms of South Asia, we’ll look at how condemned prisoners could be grabbed, thrown, dragged, crushed, or dismembered by animals that had been specifically trained to follow the commands of their handlers.

We’ll travel back to the ancient world and follow elephants from the battlefields of India and Persia to the armies of Alexander the Great and the great empires of the Mediterranean. Along the way, we’ll explore how these enormous animals were captured from the wild, trained for warfare, and eventually taught to perform remarkably precise acts of violence.

We’ll meet some of the people who found themselves on the wrong end of an elephant, including rebels facing Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq, prisoners described by the traveler Ibn Battuta, a man punished under the Mughal emperor Akbar, and prisoners executed under the kings of Kandy. We’ll also travel to 19th century Baroda, where the practice was still being used well into the era of British rule.

But the most disturbing part may not be the elephant itself. These animals weren’t simply turned loose on their victims. They could be trained to grab someone, throw them, hold them beneath a foot, drag them, or wait for another command before delivering the final blow.

And because this is Torture: A Dark History, Kevin and Dan bring plenty of gallows humor to a story about rulers discovering that sometimes the most terrifying weapon in the room has four legs and weighs several tons.

If you’re interested in elephant execution, elephant torture, Mughal history, Muhammad bin Tughluq, Ibn Battuta, Akbar the Great, Alexander the Great, ancient warfare, the Kingdom of Kandy, Baroda, Indian history, historical executions, and the darker side of animal warfare, this episode proves that elephants weren’t always the gentle giants we like to imagine.

Sometimes they were the executioners.

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