[Reader-list] Rethinking animal activism in an urban context - Sarai fellowship posting

[Santana Issar]

 <reader-list at sarai.net>


If there's one case study that appears to defy outright modern categories of
animal "rights" and "welfare", it is the charity Jain Bird Hospital nestled
in the brick red compound of the Digambar Jain temple in Chandni Chowk. Its
establishment itself is borne out of a particular religious worldview. It
features prominently on several tourist websites and is famous as the only
veterinary service catering specifically to the avian species – although
there is a special sort of in-species discrimination, if you will, as is
revealed in the course of this post.

The genesis of the hospital is popularly attributed to the much vaunted
principle of 'ahimsa' and its corollary - compassion for all living things –
practiced by the Jains. According to Jain philosophy, the gravest karmic
debasement of the soul occurs in causing hurt or harm to any living
creature. A serious practitioner would tell you how a visitor to any Jain
temple would find amongst the many donation boxes one marked for 'pashu
daan' for the welfare of animals. This principle is also the motivation
behind some of the practices that appear strange and eccentric to non-Jains
– strict vegetarianism to the extent of abjuring vegetables and tubers that
grow underground, abstinence from food and water after dark, the covering of
the mouth with a strip of cloth to avoid ingesting micro-organisms while
breathing are all ways devised to avoid unintentional harm to living beings.

With religious philosophy interceding in such a big way into notions and
functions of treatment and care of non-human species (the term 'welfare',
with its conventional connotations, does not quite seem appropriate here),
the Jain Bird Hospital occupies an ambiguous position amongst AWO's in
Delhi. Many AW activists were quick to dismiss it on the ground that it does
not treat "non-vegetarian" birds. Yet, though some of its policies evoked
contempt and dismissal, one cannot dispute its significance as a
widely-recognized, specialized institution for birds. We found ourselves
there one morning to see for ourselves the validity of these competing
claims.

The Jain Bird Hospital was established in 1929 by the Prachin Sri Aggarwal
Digambar Jain Panchayat Trust committee, and currently houses about 4,500
patients in its cages. All treatment is provided free of cost, though
donations are welcome. The hospital receives no financial aid from the
government, in fact - it avails of no government schemes, all expenses being
met by funds from the committee board. The infrastructure at JBH is quite
impressive. In addition to the mostly clean and well-maintained wards, the
three-storey building also houses a research lab and an ICU. The team is led
by the veterinary surgeon, Dr. Vijay Kumar, who has been with the hospital
for 10 years, includes two compounders, one supervisor and six ward boys. We
spent the first half-hour just looking around the place. The bigger 'wards'
(cages) are inhabited by peacocks, cockerels and domestic fowl. Inoffensive
smaller animals like rabbits and squirrels are allowed to share this space.
Budgerigars, parakeets, sparrows and other colourful species shared smaller
rooms – mostly rescued from bird sellers and brought to the hospital to
recover until fit for release. This is hospital policy – recovered birds are
not returned to their owners but set free. This flight to freedom is a
spectacular weekend ritual (which, unfortunately, we missed) that takes
place on the terrace of the hospital.

Pigeons form the vast majority of the patients here at the hospital, and the
top floor is occupied solely by them. Their strength in numbers may partly
be attributed to their abundance in the walled city; 'kabootarbaazi' or
pigeon flying being a popular pastime for numerous families. Single cages
are reserved for the more seriously injured patients, as well as the
hospital's most controversial wards – the birds of prey. Contrary to
allegations, we found that the hospital does indeed treat "non-vegetarian"
species as well, but seemingly only as an afterthought judging from the
cramped conditions in which the few eagles and kites find themselves in. The
uniformly-sized cages are clearly meant for smaller birds, and not the
substantially larger birds of prey. Of all the patients, their conditions
appeared to be the most wretched.

 "No flesh eating, no postmortem, no euthanasia..."

The policy towards carnivorous birds was predictably the first topic we
touched upon in conversation with Dr. Vijay Kumar. Dr. Kumar clarified that
the chairperson of the hospital's trust had allowed their admission, but
only when severely injured. Birds of prey may only be admitted on a
temporary basis; those requiring long-term care are sent to another AWO -
Wildlife SOS. During their stay at JBH, these carnivorous birds are kept on
a diet of vegetarian food – largely bread and milk. But do they eat it? We
don't know. "They just have to get used to it…" is all Dr. Kumar will say.

The adherence to Jain philosophy also implies the removal of two other
medical procedures common to many AWOs – postmortem and euthanasia. When we
question the ban on postmortems with respect to the effect on research at
JBH's lab, and enquire about the wastage of resources involved in palliative
care that could otherwise be used to treat birds with a chance at survival,
Dr. Kumar simply repeats that the committee does not allow the procedures.

Point taken, we move on to other issues.

About 20 to 30 birds are brought into the hospital daily by people from all
walks of life, and treated free of charge. They suffer from a variety of
ailments – injuries from ceiling fans and kites, vitamin D deficiency,
worms, viral disease, dehydration. With the urban environment becoming
increasingly inhospitable for birds, the hospital reports new kinds of
injuries, for instance as obtained from pecking at/flying into the glass
walls of high-rise buildings. The most frequent offenders are fans and kites
(the latter of the inanimate variety). The hospital sets an example by
covering their ceiling fans with a wire mesh to prevent accidents, and
exhorts bird lovers to do the same. Admissions treble during the kite-flying
season in August, caused mainly by the use of 'maanja' – the glass coated
string used to fly kites. The hospital makes public appeals every year to
discourage people from using maanja. Dr. Kumar tells us Pakistan has banned
the use of maanja, and that it would save the lives of many thousands of
birds if India did likewise.

Are there any specialized institutes/courses concentrating on avian
veterinary science? None outside the traditional poultry science courses,
according to Dr. Kumar. His own expertise comes from ten years of learning
on the job, and he says the Bird Hospital is the best place to provide it.

Perhaps birds are the most fragile victims of rapid urban growth, as well as
its first casualty. The last 10 years have seen an alarming drop in bird
populations, with hitherto common species like sparrows and vultures
vanishing at an unprecedented rate in our own (rather short) lifetimes.
Shrinking of urban wetlands and changes in the environment have caused
habitats and breeding spaces to become not just inhospitable but
increasingly hostile. Windowsills, parapets and crevices, rooftops,
balconies, parks hedges, grooves between buildings are getting increasingly
difficult to find – these kinds of spaces now play host to coolers and air
conditioners. In addition, features like exposed rafters, lofts in car
parks, ledges over rolling shutters and open eaves prove to be "death traps"
as they leave their nests more vulnerable to destruction as well as attacks
by natural predators like dogs, cats and predatory birds like crows and
kites. Increased chemicals and plastics in garbage, persistent use of
chemicals to combat pests in urban spaces (including the banned DDT) and
shrinking of feeding spaces have cause death by starvation and poisoning.
Some species, however, like crows and kites have adapted rapidly to the new
environment and continue to thrive, often at the expense of more vulnerable
species like sparrows. Bird watchers call this process synurbisation.

Coming back to the Jain Bird Hospital - an animal welfare organisation such
as this one forces us to view notions of animal rights, animal welfare and
speciesism from a different prism. While it is strongly "welfare" oriented
in terms of prevention of hurt, pain and injury to another species, the
hospital goes beyond that in the organic linking of human and non-human
species based on the notions of what constitutes sin and salvation in
Jainism. At times, the link is so strong that the same religious strictures
- for instance, the imperative of vegetarianism – are applied to human and
non- human species alike.

The Jain Bird Hospital is an example of how the space provided by religion
offers alternative spaces for rethinking and refashioning human-animal
relationships from those offered by official discourses of western science.
But then again, is this concern for non-human species motivated by 'faith'
and 'religious duty', or 'genuine compassion'? This is the most unfair
question, the unkindest cut of them all. Perhaps the biggest lesson to be
learnt from the Jain Bird Hospital is that different discourses produce
different notions of animal rights, welfare and interspecies relationships.
And though they may seem 'irrational' and 'eccentric' to us, they inform the
everyday life of people who live them.



  * For those with a taste for poetry: Aditi has managed to find an ode to
the Jain Bird Hospital. Read it at -
<http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/%7Ejrieffel/poetry/meredith/Jain_Bird.html>

http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/~jrieffel/poetry/meredith/Jain_Bird.html<http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/%7Ejrieffel/poetry/meredith/Jain_Bird.html>
** References : Gobartimes cover story on disappearing urban birds