At the opening of the movie, a village's sacred elephant is killed because a warlord wants to demonstrate his power.
The elephant that gets "dropped" from a plane by parachute is from another village, meant to replace the sacred elephant that was killed. The whole movie is about getting this elephant from one village to another. This second elephant lives.
I would not describe it as abuse, but A) an elephant is very unhappy about being in an airplane, and B) an elephant is harmed by gunfire (It makes a full recovery, but there is a little bit of scarring.)
The elephant that gets "dropped" from a plane by parachute is from another village, meant to replace the sacred elephant that was killed. The whole movie is about getting this elephant from one village to another. This second elephant lives.