It is always easy to preach Hindus about how to celebrate their festivals. Save water on Holi, cracker-free Diwali and whatnot. Organisations like PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) every year come up with new slogans and new posters relating to Hindu festivals and customs. Once in a lifetime, the organised tried to preach a lesson to the most peaceful community on their festival, Bakrid and the next day they had to pull down the post.
Those who missed PETA India’s Bakrid post can read this report to find details about the controversy.
Before moving ahead, it is pertinent to mention that preaching Hindu society about what should and what should not be done is easy for organisations. But as soon as they generalise other communities with tolerant Hindus they face backlash.
Recently, while Islamists observed the festival of animal sacrifice–Bakrid, on June 29, PETA India posted a video describing the cruelty meted upon these animals during Bakrid. This 8-minute video stated how killing animals is affecting society.
The explainer video featured actor Madhavan, who explained the importance of animals and their vulnerable conditions at slaughterhouses. In the video, he talked about chickens, fish, sheep, goat and cows who are being slaughtered in the name of religious sacrifices. The video mentioned humans kill as many as over 219 million land animals and countless fish every day of the year for meat.
The video continued with a single tagline, if slaughters houses would have glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian.
The video showed, how workers at slaughterhouses chop animals, they transport them wherein a number of them habitually die due to overcrowding and lack of care by the transporters. The bodies of animals who die in transit are treated with egregious insensitivity as bulldozers are used to dispose of the carcasses of dead animals.
Notably, back in 2019, PETA India visited a slaughterhouse in Deonar region of Mumbai, where reportedly more than 1.24 lakhs goats and sheep and about 2,700 buffaloes have arrived from Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and even as far away as Assam to be sold for sacrifice. A disconcerting video shared by PETA shows how animals being transported to the slaughterhouse were subjected to horrible atrocities, in contravention to the animal transport laws, as mandated by a 2017 order of the Supreme Court of India.
The website of the organisation claimed that, it has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting that Section 28 of The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act, 1960 – which allows any animal to be killed in any manner for religious purposes – be deleted. The central government is currently in the process of amending the Act, and in April 2021, we submitted our recommendations – including a ban on animal sacrifice – to the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI).
It said, PETA India has also sent out another round of letters to the directors general of police of all state governments and union territories, and the AWBI has issued another advisory to states, urging them to take precautionary measures to stop illegal practices in the transport and killing of animals in the lead-up to Eid al-Adha.
The letter read, animal sacrifice in the country involves a variety of species, including goats, buffaloes, chickens, camels, deer, and owls. The horrifying practices – depending on the community performing them – include beheading, slitting animals’ throats, attacking them with sharp instruments, tearing them apart, and other cruel means. The use of wild animals for religious sacrifice is a violation of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, and the Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act, 2022, which protects most indigenous wild species from hunting and capture.
Gujarat, Kerala, Puducherry, and Rajasthan already have laws in place prohibiting religious sacrifice of any animal in any temple or its precinct. Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Telangana prohibit it in any place of public religious worship or adoration or its precinct or in any congregation or procession connected with religious worship on a public street. Their actions demonstrate that progressive steps are needed to implement a similar prohibition throughout India, demanded the organisation.
However, even before the festival ended the video goes missing from the official Twitter handle of PETA India. The new video featured on the handle has the caption, “Here’s how our vegan and vegetarian Muslim friends will be observing Eid ul-Adha”
So far no clarification has come from the side of the organisation on why they had deleted the Tweet and the video. As said before, every community is not as accepting and tolerant as Hindus.
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