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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
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MONTH: March 2007
What will be the future of cow shelters in computer-age India?
What is to become of Indian cow shelters?
Enduring frequent spasms of reform and
reinvention ever since automobiles began to replace ox carts, cow shelters
are among the most distinctive Indian traditions, and are the oldest form
of organized humane work.
Perhaps more ubiquitous in India than
either schools or firehouses, often endowed with substantial inherited
assets, cow shelters appear certain to survive in some form, but their
future role and relevance is a matter of intensifying debate.
Among the issues are whether cow shelters
should be religious or secular institutions, whether they should be supported
by taxation or strictly by charity and the sale of milk and byproducts,
and whether they should lead cultural reform, becoming actively involved
in politics, as many do, or merely endure as quaint cultural symbols.
Few objections are raised when cow shelters
promote traditional Indian values, but controversy explodes whenever the
directors point out that their work alone is not enough to prevent cattle
from being sold to slaughter, and that prominent politicians and their
families are involved in the illegal slaughter traffic.
The terms "gaushala," "gosadan,"
and "pinjarapole" are often applied interchangeably to cow shelters,
and often refer to the same facility, but under national regulations published
in 1947 and 1954, they have somewhat different legal definitions.
"Gaushalas" have an awkward
dual mandate, being officially considered agricultural institutions, as
well as having an animal welfare role. Gaushalas often breed cattle, ostensibly
to conserve native genetic traits. Many have become commercial dairies.
"Gosadans" are hospices for
dying cattle. "Pinjarapole" seems to be the most inclusive term
for cow shelters of any type.
All, in concept, are places where cattle
found wandering at large are confined. All honor the mythic role of the
cow as "Mother of India." Historically, most were projects of
specific Hindu, Jain, or Buddhist temples and religious charities, but
many today are non-sectarian.
Vedic references are said to mention cow
shelters existing as long as 5,000 years ago. By 2,500 years ago they
already operated in most major cities.
Moguls, when India was under Muslim rule,
often bought public favor by helping to support cow shelters, even though
the moguls ate beef. The British governors who succeeded the moguls found
cow sheltering somewhat incomprehensible, but did not interfere. Some
British officers who studied the concept eventually adapted it into modern
dog-and-cat sheltering.
Mohandas Gandhi and followers promoted
cow shelters as symbols of nationalism during the struggle for Indian
independence. Post-1947, the newly enfranchised Gandhians tried to reinvent
cow shelters as vehicles for rural education and economic growth. Secularizing
cow shelters, however, may have encouraged the tendency of many to operate
for profit, while the abandoned cattle they exist to rescue starve in
the streets.
Cow shelters not actively engaged in dairying
often exist today as adjuncts to municipal efforts to clear the roads
of animals whose meanderings cause accidents and impede traffic. A stereotype
has developed of city-run cow shelters as places where cattle are deliberately
starved to death so that dishonest staff can sell their hides. This has
happened, but in fairness, the cattle who starve in shelters usually come
already severely debilitated from having ingested plastic bags that block
their intestines. Emergency surgery saves some, but many are beyond help.
Cow shelters operated by animal advocates
typically take on more ambitious roles, for instance trying to rescue
cattle from the illegal slaughter traffic, rescuing surplus bull calves
who are abandoned at temples, and attempting to defend and promote the
traditional Brahmin lacto-vegetarian diet.
Much of this activity appears to be swimming
against the mainstream. India and the U.S. produce almost the same volume
of milk per year, but three times as many Indian cattle are bred to obtain
it, resulting in three times as many surplus calves and "spent"
cows for farmers to dispose of.
Export to slaughter is the only profitable
method, though it can only be done by trucking cattle huge distances over
back roads into the two states that have legal cattle slaughterhouses,
or by smuggling live cattle out of India.
Abandoning surplus calves and cattle is
less risky, and cuts farmer's losses.
Indian milk consumption is rising, along
with meat consumption, but the rise in milk use is increasing the volume
of surplus cattle, and the stress on cow shelters.
Current Indian national cow shelter policy
still centers on the Gandhian notion that the shelters should become economically
self-sufficient, a contradiction in terms if they are expected to absorb
the surplus animals from the ever-expanding milk industry.
An alternative approach would tax the
dairy industry to support cow shelters. This would encourage increasing
milk output per cow, but would contravene the goal of promoting use of
native Indian breeds.
Sperm-sorting to prevent bull calf births
could help to reduce the cattle surplus, but is prohibited because the
technology has been misused to prevent conception of human females. The
present Indian birth rate of only 93 girls per 100 boys is considered
a looming major threat to social stability.
ANIMAL PEOPLE recently visited two cow
shelters that are often mentioned as models--one of them among the oldest
and largest, the other relatively new and small."Small is beautiful"
in Visakhapatnam
VISAKHAPATNAM--The Visakha SPCA testifies by example that the approach
to revitalizing India articulated by E.F. Schumacher in his influential
Gandhian treatise Small Is Beautiful (1960) can be updated and made to
work, with sufficient inspiration and investment capital from donors.
When ANIMAL PEOPLE first visited the present
Visakha SPCA site in 2000, it was a gravel-strewn dry flood plain--which
has since flooded twice, necessitating redesign and reconstruction. The
facilities consisted of one makeshift cattle shed.
Today, more than 600 animals including
several hundred cattle occupy space that could then barely hold a few
dozen. Almost every square inch appears to be in well-planned multiple
use. Between buildings and access paths, fast-growing native trees, bushes,
and grass provide shade, a congenial atmosphere, and a surprising volume
of home-grown food treats for the resident animals: not only dogs, cats,
and cattle, but also monkeys, birds of multiple species, and star tortoises,
rare in the wild due to poaching, who have found the Visakha SPCA a safe
place to breed.
Central to the Visakha SPCA is a biogas
reactor that converts the animal waste into fertilizer and fuel to generate
electricity.
The Visakha SPCA is a model of the cow
shelter modus operandi that the Gandhians espoused as their ideal; but
it is also a hybrid with newer concepts of the role of animal welfare
institutions.
The original Visakha SPCA project was
protecting sea turtle nests, a relatively rare instance of a humane society
managing a species conservation program. The project that most built the
organization was persuading the city of Visakhapatnam to stop electrocuting
street dogs, accomplished in November 1998, followed by building one of
the leading Animal Birth Control programs in India, to reduce the dog
population without killing.
Growing with Visakhapatnam, which is among
the fastest-expanding cities in India, the Visakha SPCA now provides ABC
not only to the central city but also to a constellation of suburbs.
The pinjarapole helps the Visakha SPCA
image, founder Pradeep Kumar Nath believes. High-profile rescues of cattle
from illegal butchers, and of calves from temple abandonment, help to
deflect criticism of the emphasis on dog rescue. Some cow protection donors
are so offended by the presence of dogs on the premises, Nath says, that
he welcomes their visits at a second entrance that bypasses the kennel
area, beside the main gate.
Meanwhile, the Visakha SPCA pinjarapole facilities are full, and cattle and calves continue to be born and dumped.
5,300 animals in Ahmedabad cow shelter
AHMEDABAD-- From the
road, an American visitor might easily mistake the present location of
the 400-year-old Ahmeda-bad Dabla Pinjarapole for a massive feedlot. It
is the economic engine for the surrounding countryside, employing more
than 80 people, and supporting countless small farms by purchasing fodder.
The facilities housed about 5,300 animals
when ANIMAL PEOPLE visited, including 2,500 adult cattle, 2,000 calves,
200 buffalo, and other species including donkeys, horses, a camel, a nilgai
antelope, and a small troupe of languors.
Most of the cattle were male, abandoned
on the streets of Ahmedabad because cattle cannot legally be sold for
slaughter. Many were once working bullocks, but suffered injuries or illnesses
that rendered them unfit. Others arrived as starving calves.
Buffalo may be sold to slaughter, but
are sometimes surrendered to the pinjarapole by people who choose not
to sell retired work animals, yet cannot afford to keep them.
About 1,000 animals per month arrive,
on average. About 750 die, explained Mr. Bhyasam, the retired Indian revenue
service officer who took over the pinjarapole management as part of a
reform movement more than a decade ago. He won release of the funds to
build the present facilities in 1996.
Land rents and inheritances have made
the Ahmedabad Dabla Pinjarapole wealthier than the Animal Welfare Board
of India itself, Mr. Bhyasam asserted. Money for good management is not
a problem, Mr. Bhyasam emphasized. What the pinjarapole lacks, he said,
is knowledge about how to do a better job--and, perhaps, an understanding
of how to make the time-honored work of the pinjarapole relevant to modern
India.
Like many Indians of his place and time,
Mr. Bhyasam has only one name. He dresses traditionally. But instead of
resisting change, Mr. Bhyasam proclaimed, he welcomes the contributions
of a younger and better educated generation, and looks forward to learning
from youth.
Mr. Bhyasam brought out meticulously kept
books detailing the causes of animal deaths. Most of the dead, he said,
arrive in such poor condition that they cannot be saved. Sprawling as
widely as Houston, with about the same human population as New York, Ahmedabad
is a harsh environment for working animals. Those who remain ambulatory
when they reach the pinjarapole often become longterm residents, but those
who drop have low odds of recovery.
At the pinjarapole the animals receive
good food and clean water. Other care has been rudimentary, but Mr. Bhyasam
recently hired a new veterinary concessionaire, Animal Help Ahmedabad,
founded by Rahul Sehgal, 32, whose main project has been running the city
Animal Birth Control program.
Within days the Animal Help vets began
updating and amending much of the animal care regimen. The first change
was that the resident bullocks are no longer drafted each morning to help
haul away dead animals--a chore that apparently no one considered before
in terms of the possible psychological effect on the working animals.
There are other problems yet to deal with.
Monsoon flooding is an annual menace. Mired cattle die of exhaustion.
Parasites breed in the standing water.
The few cows among the cattle and buffalo
are housed with the males, at risk of impregnation by the occasional intact
bull. Traditionally, if calves are born at a cow shelter, their mothers'
milk is believed to convey special blessings to those who buy and drink
it, at premium prices.
Sehgal is optimistic that the necessary changes and improvements can be made. Mr. Bhyasam has pledged to cooperate.