Category: Asia

ONE WEEPING MAN

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

He sat over his dying horse, his head
buried in his hands. He had walked with his horse for
20 miles from his village. The horse was behaving
strangely, kicking and walking stiffly, so the old
man did not ride her, but walked beside her, talking
to her, stroking her, cajoling her on the long journey.
His purpose was to reach our shelter, where he knew
the best doctor was available.
The diagnosis was grim. The horse had
contracted tetanus as a result of a wound to her lower
leg. Our vet immediately sedated the horse to relax
the spasms, and our staff spent several hours on the
road trying to find a chemist who sold anti-tetanus
toxoid. This was finally located and purchased at a
very high price.

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Compassionate Crusaders conquer Calcutta dog problem

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:

CALCUTTA––Calcutta, India, human population
11 million, is as little as $10,000 away from becoming the fifth
major Indian city to achieve no-kill dog control, following
Bombay, Delhi, Madras, and Jaipur.
Just a few years ago some Calcutta leaders suggested
shipping stray dogs to other Asian nations for meat. The city
pound was overwhelmed, with a budget of just five cents per
day per dog received. But the citizenry wouldn’t hear of it.
Instead, on March 2, 1996, Calcutta turned dog control
over to seven activist groups, among them Compassionate
Crusaders Trust, founded in 1993 by Purnima Toolsidass,
Ratna Ganguli, and dog psychologist Debasis Chakrabarti.
Chakrabarti, involved in Calcutta humane work since
he gave up medical studies in 1976 to work for kindness toward
dogs, also heads the Calcutta chapter of People For Animals,
the national animal advocacy organization led by Member of
Parliament and syndicated columnist Maneka Gandhi.

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Doing it all with nothing

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

BOMBAY––An American shelter worker, used to
stainless steel cages on vinyl floors, the din of barking dogs,
and a busy killing room, could easily be misled. The Bombay
SPCA has little or nothing of stainless steel, no vinyl floor covering,
the street-wise dogs keep their peace, and though the
shelter includes a new electric crematorium, used often in traditional
Hindu ceremonies by grieving petkeepers, there is no
killing room, nor any killing of healthy or recoverable animals.
Nor is the Bombay SPCA located, like most U.S.
shelters, at the edge of town, near the dump, or crammed into
a single cinder block building.
Indeed, the Bombay SPCA at a glance looks more
like a crumbling old army post or convent than an animal shelter,
until one sees the 250-odd animals of several dozen species
who occupy the premises at any given time: here a former carriage
horse with a broken leg and his ribs showing, there a
burro with a severely scarred face, to the left a walk-in cage of
songbirds recently confiscated from street vendors, to the right
an exercise yard full of humpbacked Brahmin cattle, and dog
and cat areas both ahead and behind.

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HELP IN SUFFERING

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

JAIPUR––The Indian view of animals, Help In
Suffering director Christine Townend admits, both morally
empowers her work and at times greatly complicates it.
“Many Brahmins, as well as Jains, cannot feed their
dogs meat due to their religious belief in vegetarianism,” she
explains, and do not feed cats at all. “This means cats and
dogs are often brought to us in advanced malnutrition.”
Euthanizing the animals is also difficult, Townend
adds, as many Brahmins and Jains also believe that they “may
not take the life of a dog even if the dog is suffering acutely and
is sure to die.”
Townend works in the shadow of paradox. The Help
In Suffering shelter is at the opposite end of Jaipur from the
Amber Fort, the palace-turned-tourist-trap of Akbar the Great,
a Charlemagne-like illiterate who consolidated the Mogul
empire, encouraged learning, protected wildlife, and abolished
suttee, the ancient custom of burning widows alive.

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General Chatterjee and the Animal Welfare Board

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

CHENNAI––Named for the Buddhist emperor Ashoke,
who issued the first Indian animal protection law circa 240 B.C.,
Lieutenant General Ashoke Kumar Chatterjee trained to head the
Animal Welfare Board of India by commanding first the Indian
peacekeeping force in Sri Lanka and then the United Nations peacekeeping
force in the Maldives.
A former polo player, Chatterjee won the attention of
Indian humaitarians in 1976-1977 when he mobilized troops to relocate
horses and cattle away from severe drought in Rajasthan and
Gujarat. Retiring in 1990, after 38 years in uniform, he was
promptly drafted to revitalize the AWB.
Created in 1960, actually convened in 1962, the AWB
exists to implement the two sections of the Indian
constitution––unique in the world––which mandate animal protection.

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Something in the air

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

CHENNAI––The hub of the Indian humane
movement is not Delhi, the national capital, but Chennai,
formerly called Madras, home of the Animal Welfare Board
of India, the Madras Pinjrapole, and the Blue Cross of
India––and point of origin, 30 years ago, of the Animal
Birth Control program.
Blue Cross of India-Madras vice chair S. Chinny
Krishna is quick to acknowledge that the many Chennai
activists still have their hands full. They are currently fighting
purges of street pigs and cattle, not to keep the animals
on the street but to prevent them from suffering cruel treatment
and slaughter.

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BOOKS: Heads & Tails

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

Heads & Tails
by Maneka Gandhi
People For Animals (A4 Maharani Bagh,
New Delhi 110 065, India), 1993.
184 pages, paperback; donate $20.

“I have always detested milk,”
Maneka opined in the first line of her first
syndicated column, entitled Milk, Meat and
Animal Violence. “My son too refused to
drink cow’s milk when he was weaned, and
was given, from the age of three months, a
liquidized mixture of lentil and vegetable,
which he loved. Most children hate milk,”
she continued. “As soon as a child reaches
the age to make decisions, the first thing to
go is that nauseating glass of milk.”

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Maneka, as in “manic, eh?”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

NEW DELHI––Maneka, pronounced
“manic-eh,” is in India quite a common
first name. Yet headlines often refer just
to “Maneka,” and Indians know exactly who
they mean: Maneka Gandhi, the maniacally
energetic founder of India’s leading animal
advocacy group, People For Animals; foe of
corruption; fearless newspaper columnist; and
member of Parliament. She is lampooned
almost daily by cartoonists and fellow columnists,
but is also quoted thoroughly on subjects
that most others in public life dare not address.
“It was pyrotechnics,” the Indian
Express opened on November 1, describing a
typical Maneka speech to a local Rotary Club.
“Maneka had everyone scurrying for cover, as
she launched a loaded attack on policy makers,
parliamentarians, seminar organizers, and ‘all
those who make a big show of environmental
conservation without even understanding what
they are saying.’”

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