Animal Right – Myth or Reality
The father of our Nation Mahatma Gandhi once said:
A nation’s grandeur can be judged by the way they treat its animals. An animal’s life is as valuable as ours. This is our moral obligation for any human being to have compassion. Yet on the other side whether we glance at zoos and circus where we see creatures behind cages staring at us for any love. Zoos are the only place where the animals were kept behind bars without committing crimes.
They too have feelings and emotions that they belong to their natural world. No one has given us the right to keep them socially isolated behind the bars and keep them in a small artificial area away from their families and homes.
When we cannot bring humans behind bars without performing some wrongdoing, how can we place these voiceless beings behind bars in zoos and circuses without adequate food and care? Where are certain privileges bestowed on such species under the numerous articles of the constitution and granted by the separate laws such as The Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 And The Prohibition Of Cruelty To Animal? For certain parts of the zoos, we will see some creatures standing lonely and discouraged.
We don’t want to consider them as members of our culture as a community we don’t want to recognize them in our culture. They consider these voiceless abandoned animals as a danger and do not presume for a second that they also have thoughts for these voiceless beings and they do experience the same discomfort and sorrow that humans do. We have to recognize that each has an essential position to play in our environment. The entire food chain and food web will be disturbed if we remove even one creature.
Animal rights violations in different instances
Health and beauty studies
In the U.S. alone, more than 100 million animals such as rodents, rats, frogs, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, primates, sharks, and birds are slaughtered in a single year for biological courses, medical research, tests, and environmental, medication, nutritional, and beauty testing.
Many of them are compelled to inhale poisonous gases, or burned their bodies, or broke their spines, among even other inhumane acts. Within such cells, they become emotionally segregated and traumatized psychologically. In testing and development on these cosmetic and medicinal drug animals are not granted sufficient pain relievers to withstand the extreme discomfort during the procedure.
Each year, destroying millions of animals around the globe only for experimentation is neither legal nor under the rules. Can’t we consider a solution to these tests or some other manner in which these animals have to suffer less suffering at present?
Leather Making
Within this barbaric world, more than a billion livestock are killed annually by the multinational leather industry. For their skins, animals such as snake, alligators, crocodiles, kangaroos, zebras, bison, elephants, oysters, lizards, tigers and lions are killed. The rare fashion items, such as wallets, ties, watchbands, leather coats, soccer shoes, and many more are crafted from these animals’ skin and hair. When these animals are skinned they have to go through a very painful and cruel process.
Millions of kangaroos are hunted every year in Australia and their hides are also used to produce boots. Football star David Beckham stopped using these shoes after knowing the cruel killings of kangaroos for making soccer shoes and shifted to the shoes made from synthetic material in 2006. Adidas avoid using kangaroo hides to create clothes, too.
The culture hasn’t had so much electricity in ancient times and they use it to slaughter livestock and create clothing from their fur. At present we have numerous new technology and different substitutes such as cotton and synthetic oil. So why can’t we use these organic materials stuff is even better than the skin product manufactured by livestock. Each year we cannot slaughter billions of animals only for looking exotic and rich. It is particularly inhuman and selfish of destroying such voiceless helpless beings only to meet our stupid desires while there are other options at present.
Dairy Industry
Even the mulch livestock are treated in dairy farms before the milk they generate is supplemented with food as they avoid providing milk for their skin and meat they are killed for. Artificial feeds and pesticides are provided to these animals in farms so that they grow up fast and giving milk in greater amounts. Just after one day of their conception, calves are removed from their mothers so that they don’t eat their mother’s milk. It is inherently unethical to lock the calves apart from their mothers. Chemicals are injected into hens, so they can regularly produce more eggs.
Such contaminants impact animal welfare and the goods are not so safe and can have a detrimental influence on human safety. Such goods gradually continue to deteriorate the heaths of those that use it. Such cattle still aren’t held in really healthy circumstances in dairy farms.
Hunting and Poaching
There were 100,000 tigers in the 20th century but now only 3,000 tigers are remaining in India. Tiger smuggling is a multi-billion dollar industry regulated by the foreign crime organization. According to a smuggling survey, there is a prosecution rate of 4 per cent. Many tigers are shipped to China where only one fur is sold for Rs. 6.5 million. The numbers of tigers in numerous biosphere reserves and parks in India are dwindling due to relentless hunting and poaching.
The number of tigers is rising since the start of Project Tiger and the effort of numerous NGO’s.
95 per cent of the world’s only horned rhino. IUCN Red List lists Rhinos as endangered animals. Owing to the poaching and degradation of their natural environment by humans for cultivation and other uses their population is depleting.
The killing of elephants in southern Indian states such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka cause considerable concern. Much of the elephants are hunted for ivory and tusk, with a killing average of about 100 male elephants each year. Besides poacher, the loss of their natural environment is another issue. India’s forest cover is diminishing day by day and the local population are converting the forest lands into cultivable land.
Rights conferred on animals under the Indian Constitution
- Article 51(A)(G) of the Constitution stipulates that citizens must protect and improve wildlife and to show compassion for living creatures.
- Section 48 of the Constitution forbids the killing of cows and horses, as well as other mulch and draught products. This is not enforceable technically as it comes beyond Directive Guidelines because it, therefore, violates the right to privacy.
- Article 48A of the constitution states that the State must protect and improve the country ‘s wildlife and forests. It was added in 1976 through the 42nd amendment act.
- Article 243(G) under the eleventh schedule provides power and authority to gram panchayat to look into the matter of farm forestry, animal husbandry and poultry farmings.
The Fauna Conservation Act, 1972
Indian Parliament promulgated the Biodiversity Conservation Act to safeguard the habitats of animals and plants. The acts include specific lists of endangered plant and animal organisms, fishing trapping and mining are forbidden. It safeguards all the wildlife, wild animals and plants and is enforceable in India as a whole.
This has six schedules that describe multiple issues such as different degrees of safety and penalty, describing words such as killing and plant organisms that can or may not be cultivated. Until the legislation was enacted in 1972, India had just five approved national parks, which are explicitly listed as National parks as a conservation area for resident animals and plant organisms. This emphasizes preserving the flora and fauna and lays forth a plan for future generations to preserve their environment.
The Prohibition of Animal Cruelty Act 1960
- Prevention of animal cruelty was enacted by the Indian Parliament in 1960, to enact the act to prevent unnecessary pain or suffering on animals and to amend the legislation on the prevention of animal cruelty. AWBI (India’s Animal Welfare Board) was formed by the Indian government as provided for in that act. Several of the main clauses of the Act are as follows.
- Section 11(1)(a) specifies that if anyone strikes, punches, overrides, overdrives, overloads, the cruelty of an object that induces undue discomfort or distress, the object is found to have committed a crime and is entitled to a penalty.
- Section 11(1)(n) allows it a criminal crime to plan or engage in or lure some form of the object.
- Section 22 forbids the usage of wolves, chimpanzees, cats, panthers, lions ad bulls for preparation and use of street or circus entertainment
In Karnail Singh v. the State of Haryana, the court ruled that animals and birds had civil rights under the jurisprudence of animal rights, even as humans had their legal rights. The court proclaimed people as the protector of the kingdom of animals with significant responsibility to ensure health and safety there. Additional Justice Rajiv Sharma said that all the species had respect and integrity. Every species has the right to live and should be covered under Law.
Concluding
The goals of all these laws are to save our rich flora and fauna and to protect animals from poaching and abuse. Yet as we look at the evidence from the different institutions it indicates we are well behind in meeting those targets. According to a study India has endangered species identified by 172 or 2.9 per cent of IUCN. In the streets, we can see people mercilessly thrashing animals just for their entertainment, without any reason. Currently, various international crime syndicates conduct their trade without fear and earn millions of dollars by selling the skin, bones, ivory and many more parts of animals.
It’s not only a problem in India, but it’s a foreign evil because the government is carrying out cooperative operations with the other country’s official machinery. So the wildlife crime culprits will be prosecuted, so the government will deter unauthorized fishing so preserve all the animals.
The government is implementing several changes so they can easily cope with this issue. But to curb the issue we need a credible, committed and autonomous entity. We will need to make citizens conscious of the freedom of various species and the value of these species within our environment.
Author: Arvind Bhati,
Lloyd law college 3rd year student