The first time Modi government came into power, I was glad. I had bought into their sales pitch of a new India and I really thought a new India was on the rise. A new India was surely released, but alas in the horror genre. A new India, indeed, where every minority was pushed down – and the ones who paid the highest price were the ones who never voted: the animals.
So, the government starts off with making a man who has nothing to do with the environment, the country’s environment minister. Prakash Javadekar cleared “development” projects as enthusiastically as he approved the killing of animals. Want a dedicated freight corridor passing through the Sanjay Gandhi National Park? Javadekar is your man. He turned the National Wildlife Board into a mere rubber stamp by reconstituting the supposedly highest advisory body for wildlife in India with “yes men” for the industrialists.
Eventually, he and other govt. ministers weren’t happy with the efficiency of the degradation so they start appointing mining barons right into wildlife board.
Javadekar’s strategy to avoid any human-animal conflict was to categorize the animals as “vermins” and allow reckless killing. One such species that suffered as a result was the Nilgai or the Blue Bulls. Because, of course, how dare they wander into our settlements and eat our crops when we had already declared that we are stronger than them by destroying their forests to make farmlands? So what do we do when an animal out of sheer hunger enters our farmland? We shoot them.
Now people keep saying monkeys are a menace. It’s interesting because a large number of Indians consider monkeys divine and see them as a representation of Hanuman, the Monkey God. Let’s look at it practically – are monkeys hostile to humans? To be honest, yes. Because they are WILD animals. They are supposed to live in the wild and forested lands which we are so willingly wiping out in the name of development. So when a monkey enters an urban or a human settlement, we humans tend to find a wild solution: bullets. Because if the government says the Nilgai, wild boars and monkeys are “vermins”, then they must be.
Of course, we are to believe anything the government says. I remember getting a VSNL 28.8K connection and a modem in 1999 (four years after it first became publicly available in India) that cost me about Rs 1500 for a 100-hour pack and would disconnect more than connect, but hey, if someone says they emailed someone back in the India of 1988, then it must be true.
Let’s look at the environment at large. What is one of the biggest threats to the environment today? Forests being wiped out for demand of farmland. Read “The fires in the Amazon were likely set intentionally”.
So what other things happen with an increase in the global temperature?
This.
This.
This.
And this.
Oh, you would think at least after facing such raging fires, the Australians would behave more rationally than us “third world people”? That’s where you’re wrong. It turns out, it’s in the human genome to be idiotic and selfish. Read this: More than 10,000 camels to be shot because they drink too much water.
When I, like Agent Smith, tried to define environment-loving humans and “Andh Bhakts” alike I realised that one is probably Lactobacillus and the other E.coli H30-Rx.
Anyway, back to how the government is ensuring that every natural resource is used only to profit a few while the rest of the country can go down the drain. Read this.
Now let’s make a business out of our cow-mata. They are sentient living beings, but that’s not our concern. After all, they can’t vote. But we can surely milk some money out of them. Read this.
If you think what is happening in the photo above is acceptable, then you would be okay with what is happening in the photo below.
You would also be interested to know that India’s beef exports have significantly risen under the current government. Don’t believe me? Read this and this.
So what’s with all this cow vigilantism? Some of them actually catch cow smugglers while the majority are there just to drum up the hype in the name of religion during elections. The government has virtually stopped funding to almost all animal NGOs (except few questionable gau rakshak dal organisations). Particularly, the NGOs that were doing good work with dog sterilisation and protection have suffered the brunt.
While some responsible citizens have been spending their own hard-earned money to sterilise the dogs to keep the population in check, thus ensuring no human-animal conflict rises (places like Khan market, C.R Park, Greater Kailash, East of Kailash, and Connaught Place are fine examples in the capital), many others continue to complain about what a “menace” the dogs are. Some even go as far as taking out marches against the innocent animals, such as the one in Indirapuram in Ghaziabad.
This is exactly what the government wants – a mass hysteria. Instead of controlling the dog population by a simple and clean sterilisation process, the government wants cases of human-dog conflict to rise so that a huge number of anti-rabies injections can be sold benefitting the pharmaceutical industry.
Still not convinced?
Prakash Javadekar was removed as the environment minister after some citizens protested against the environmental devastation in the name of industrial growth in his tenure. Some even terming him the worst environment minister in a long while.
However, as soon as “Andh Bhakts” bought BJP back into power for a second term, Prakash Javadekar was made the environment minister for the second time. The onslaught on animals and the environment continues. Thank you, India.
All this somehow hits me personally. People who worship the cow have never rescued a single cow off the street. I have, several times, and I am an atheist.
My last cow rescue was that of a pregnant one who got hit by a bus and was dying in the middle of a South Delhi road. It took me eight hours to get truck (not free of cost) to send the cow to an NGO (not free of cost). In the meantime, few goons who dropped in wanting to take the cow to a slaughterhouse started picking a fight with me. The police intervened and the goons had to back off. Eventually, the cow died at the NGO due to a broken spine.
Funny, how a government that calls itself gau-rakshak doesn’t have a single NGO for cows in the capital where injured cows can be sent for free. Instead, it is busy systemically shutting down any NGOs that do good work.
The incident I mentioned above happened in the middle of South Delhi – supposedly one of the more developed places in India. I wonder what happens in the rest of the country. Clearly, the Andh Bhakts have brought this country to its knees while being armchair activists.
If you really want to change this, come out to the streets, and use your time, money and voice.
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Hiranmay Karlekar