Question

You see some people in your neighbourhood treat stray animals with cruelty:you find it disturbing . With your partner discuss: how you could discourage them from doing so? Ways you could spread awareness about kindness towards animals .
How easy or difficult do you think it would be?Why?

Answer 1

“The greatness of a nation is judged by the way it treats its animals”, said Mahatma Gandhi once as he was leading India through the country’s fight for independence.But long before animal activism became a global movement and animal laws were enacted in India in their present form, there are pointers that India as a nation has revered nature, its flora and fauna.as early as 3rd Century B.C, Emperor Ashoka had banned killing and hunting of all animals in his kingdom. Killing or torturing humans is considered to be a crime instantaneously, many amongst us perhaps pay mute witnesses to incidences of animal cruelty happening all around us. The fact is that laws do exist in this country of ours for protection of cruelty towards animals. The main laws are The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 and the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. However few people and even fewer policemen and lawyers are aware of these laws and in the wake of human ignorance on these laws, animals are helpless and fall victims to needs and deeds of humans. Many of you would have seen an overloaded mules or an overloaded bullock/horse cart on the roads every day. Most people prefer to ignore that sight but even when the very few who are aware of animal cruelty laws objects to the ‘owner’ of the animal being ill-treated to not to inflict their animal with cruelty, generally the owner objects loudly in retaliation! The reason behind this marked indifference on part of the ‘owner’ towards the pain and suffering of their very own animal is “because humans treat animals as ‘commodities’ and ‘machines’, something that they have purchased and they now ‘own’…something that they are within their rights to both, use as well as abuse!”. Many complain of dog nuisance, how strays have bitten their children, chased them around or have attacked them. While we need to be protective of our children, the fact is that these are disturbed animals who had been tortured as babies. Animals and humans almost have the same feelings. we both have the same 5 sense organs. When we attack a dog, it follows us or bites us since they got hurt. One thing you can do is to get volunteers from various governments and non government bodies working with animal welfare and have the strays taken away to safer environments.

Hope it helped you. :)