TIME Asia News Article
By MASEEH RAHMAN, New Delhi -
India.
MAY 29, 2000 VOL. 156 NO. 21
(Edited and formatted for American
readers)
Headline News:
International animal-rights activists
expose the barbaric transport and slaughter of the country's most revered
animals and accuse India of showing uncharacteristic cruelty toward its
holy animals.
Article:
Mahatma Gandhi believed that a nation
could be judged by the way it treats its animals. If that yardstick were
applied to his own country today, India would be in the doghouse. Hindus
venerate many of God's creatures, and the cow is considered especially
sacred. But the international animal-rights group People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA) has exposed horrendous cruelty to India's cows
as they are transported illegally, to slaughter houses. Many arrive dead
or badly injured after long and torturous journeys in trains and trucks or
on foot. "It is Dante's Inferno for cows and bullocks," says PETA
president Ingrid Newkirk.
India's livestock population,
estimated at more than 500 million, is the world's largest. More than half
is cows, buffaloes, and bulls. Once they become unproductive, many of the
animals are sold by their owners, mostly subsistence farmers, and marched
off to slaughter houses.
Cow slaughter is permitted in just
two provinces, the communist-ruled states of West Bengal in the
east and Kerala in the south. Although it is illegal to transport
the animals for slaughter across state borders, traders bribe officials to
look the other way as they pack the cows into rail cars or trucks headed
for West Bengal or Kerala. The animals frequently gore one another or
break their pelvises when forced to jump from the trucks. Some suffocate
inside boxcars. Thousands of others are surreptitiously herded
overland--often without food or water. If they collapse from exhaustion,
herders break their tails or throw chili pepper and tobacco in their eyes
to make them walk again.
The campaign against the practice is
attracting support from a number of animal-activist celebrities. Paul
McCartney, Brigitte Bardot, Steven Seagal and Nina Hagen took part in an
international day of protest two weeks ago (second week of May, 2000), in
their home countries. "My heart breaks for the misery endured by the
entire mother cows and their calves ... who have become throw-away in
today's India," McCartney declared.
The $1.6 billion Indian leather
export industry is feeling the pinch. Companies such as Gap and its
subsidiaries Banana Republic and Old Navy have banned the use of Indian
leather in their garments. The British Shoe Company Clark's announced last
week that it would review the purchase of products made from Indian
leather. PETA's list also includes Florsheim, Nordstrom, Casual Corner and
other retail chains. "It's a wake-up call to India's leather industry,"
says PETA's Indian campaign coordinator Jason Baker. "If it doesn't do
something soon to stop the cruelty against cows, there will be no leather
industry left."
India's leather barons are worried
that the protests will cripple exports to the West. Nearly 4,000 tanneries
and leather-goods factories depend on the export trade. The industry
employs around 1.7 million people; nearly a third of who are women. "The
campaign is going to affect us, no doubt about it," says Mohammed Hashim,
chairman of the Council for Leather Exports. He feels his tribe is
unfairly targeted. "We are only scavengers," he says. "We take skins sold
by slaughter houses." Moreover, he adds, 90% of the hides’ use are from
buffalo, goats or sheep. His organization has appealed to exporters to use
only leather from animals that have been killed humanly.
The government, though, shows no sign
of moving against the illegal transport and slaughter. Before PETA's
campaign, Indian animal-rights groups had been trying for years to stop
the brutal cattle trail. It's a multimillion-dollar business, and the
kickbacks to politicians and officials are thought to be huge (The cows’
“death trains” are operated by the state-owned railway). Banning cow
slaughter in West Bengal and Kerala probably wouldn't help, as it would
surely lead to an increase in the number of illegal, back street slaughter
houses. New Delhi may simply find it easier to respond to other demands by
animal lovers, like creating a national authority for protecting cows or
introducing tougher penalties for cruelty to animals (under existing law,
the fine is only about $1).
A simpler solution would be to lift
the ban on cow slaughter throughout India, to deter the deadly, illegal
herding across state lines. "Villagers can't afford to keep unproductive
cows. They're not saints," says Bangalore animal-welfare worker Suparna
Baksi-Ganguly. "Slaughter has to be made more accessible --suppressing it,
causes greater misery to the animals." But such a step would provoke the
ire of cow lovers, and no political party is likely to risk that. So in a
land that venerates them, cows will continue to pay a high price for their
holiness.
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