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I thought I would write today about the foreigners that I have seen work for animals in India .
I was 18 and newly married when I met Crystal Rogers, an old English woman who was migrating to Australia , stopped in India for a day, saw a horse with its eye out of its socket and decided to stay on. She had no money so she lived in the shack of a Christian graveyard in Delhi . My husband gave her 3 acres and she put up kennels and barns. She called her organisation Animals Friend. According to Indian law she had to have Indians on the board. She chose unwisely and these wretched people took away the shelter from her as soon as the land became valuable and use it till today for renting for marriages and melas. She shifted to Jaipur with no money, got in touch with the Rajmata Jaipur who gave her stables which she redid by singing in schools and collecting money. As soon as the stables looked good, the Rajmata took them back and gave them to Mother Teresa. Crystal , arthritic, almost blind, 85 years old, moved to Bangalore in 1991 , discovered 3 lovely young girls and made an organisation called CUPA ( Compassion Unlimited Plus Action) which now runs the main shelter in Karnataka and does an amazing amount of good work.
Belinda Wright was born in India where her parents ran the Calcutta Royal Turf Club. They were wildlife conservation people , far ahead of their time . Belinda's mother Anne Wright helped set up World Wide Fund for Nature(WWF) India in the late 1960s. She was a member of the Tiger Task Force that was commissioned by Mrs. Indira Gandhi to select nine tiger reserves for the launch of Project Tiger in 1973. Belinda just sent me a picture of Sanjay and me at the Palamau tiger reserve which we inaugurated in the 70s. Belinda is one of India 's leading wildlife conservationists and In 1994, she founded the Wildlife Protection Society of India to provide support and information to combat poaching and the illegal wildlife trade. She spent 3 months undercover in Tibet documenting the tigerskin trade there.
Christine and Jeremy Townend came to India in their 50s. She was the founder of the animal liberation movement in Australia and simply got fed up with a meat eating, insensitive society. In 1990 she started 'Help in Suffering' in Jaipur and was the first person to start the sterilization of dogs. It is due to her that Jaipur became the first rabies free city in India . It is now run by the Englishman Dr Jack Reece who has been here for 15 years and does incredible work. Christine and Jeremy went back to Australia two years ago.
Clementein Pauws is a Belgian who came to India with a disabled husband and son originally as a disciple of Sathya Sai Baba. She has set up an excellent animal rescue centre in Anantapur which she runs with her pension- she is in her late sixties. She is an excellent , robust no nonsense woman who rescues animals from morning to night and is always being harassed by local officials because she is the only foreigner who goes out to stop cows from going to illegal slaughter as well. At the moment she has a broken arm.
An American couple called James Myers and Erika Abrams came to India as tourists, and stayed on in 1993 in a village in Udaipur . They founded Animal Aid Unlimited, an animal care center which rescues animals. They are an enthusiastic couple who have a lovely daughter called Claire who speaks perfect Hindi and works with her parents to raise funds, recruit volunteers and deliver talks on compassion for animals at schools as a way of involving children to help street animals. They were initially gypped of all their money and ambulance by an Indian on the Board. Unfortunately this has happened in every case where foreigners have put in their money and had to nominate Indians on the board.
It happened to meet a gentle young woman Rachel Wright who sold her house in England and has moved to Pushkar to start TOLFA – Tree of Life. As soon as she made her shelter, the Indian woman on the Board tried to take the land forcibly to live there. I had to intervene. She does a lot of rescues , dog sterilization and looks after camels.
Avis Lyons , a feisty English woman started the first animal shelter in Kerala when she visited India after retirement in 2000 and decided to settle down here . She set up ARK and runs a good hospital/ rescue centre which was financed by selling her house in England . She took pictures of illegal killing by the municipality, complained to the police about them. They went after her with a vengeance, and put false criminal cases on this little old woman. She is now abroad struggling with cancer but the shelter is still being run by her daughter. Penny Shepherd is another retiree who has just started animal rescue work in Cochin Kerala by making an organisation called Mad Dogs Trust.
John Hicks was born in a very poor family. As a teenager he looked after an even poorer single woman living in a council flat in England . She died and left him millions ! He is mad about animals and made International Animal Rescue and shifted to Goa to run its best animal animal shelter. He is now in his sixties and it is because of his and his lawyer Alan’s money that we have been able to take away all the dancing bears from the Indian streets.
There are so many others: Bonny Shah was an American married to an Indian. She exported clothes to America and funded a donkey sanctuary in Sholapur . Adriana Ferranti, an Italian Buddhist nun who lives in Bihar and looks after people and animals. The fearless and outspoken Canadian Lisa Warden who has just been driven out by the Gujarat state government because she caught the Ahmedabad municipality killing animals illegally.
India owes a big debt to these selfless missionaries. I have known all of them and I admire how they put themselves to great risk and discomfort simply to save as many animals as they can. If anyone has imbibed the true nature of Hinduism, it is these foreigners.
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How serious is the problem of worms in fish? An international standard, Codex Alimentarius, allows a maximum of 5 worms of more than 1 cm in length in 1 kg of fish. Why is there no warning on fish? Would you buy fish if it had a warning on it about worms?
The most common are roundworms, tapeworms and flukes.
Roundworms are of the Anisakis family. Anisakis simplex or herring worm is found in all warm water fish like herrings, mackerels and whitings and a large number of coldwater fish as well. It is found in all nearshore fish. It grows up to 2 cm long , is almost colourless, and is found tightly coiled and encased in the guts and flesh.
Rhexanella verrucosa is a hooked worm that attaches itself to the tongue of the fish and helps itself to whatever the host fish eats.
The Phocanema worm or codworm grows up to 4 cm long and varies in colour from creamy white to dark brown. It curls up and encases itself in a sac-like membrane produced by fish tissue. Most fillets( boneless pieces) , specially mackerel fillets are infested with these skinny milky colour see-through one inch long coiled worms.
The fish eater can pull the large ones out – if you are watching out for them. But if you buy them from on ice they stay tightly coiled within the flesh of the fish so you only see the red or black pinhead on the body of the fish. Anisakis larvae are resistant to salting. So are anchor worms which are thread-like worms that attach themselves to the head of the fish. Never pull out the worms using force, since the head of the worm will stay attached to the head of the fish and grow a new body.
The fish industry does not deny that there are worms in fish. They claim that they are harmless if eaten ( after all , if you can survive the mercury and the human feces in fish , then what are a couple of worms ?) as long as the fish is cooked. But there have been many cases reported in which worms – anisakids – have been found wriggling around in fish that have been microwaved. When there are worms in the fish, it is also likely there are eggs, too. They withstand heat better than mature worms so are more likely to be ingested while still viable. Roundworms in ?sh may be found in muscle tissues, in internal organs, or in the intestinal tract. When chilled, they stay tightly coiled within the flesh of the fish. As they warm up, they come wriggling out to be seen.
Another typical fish parasite is the fish tapeworm. It can live many years in the intestines. There is a worm called giant stomach worm (Hirudinella ventricosa) which can grow to longer than a man’s hand. Freshwater fish like trout and salmon may carry tapeworm larvae. These are small, whitish, and somewhat flabby worms that can live in the human intestinal tract for several years. Symptoms can include abdominal pain, weakness, weight loss and anemia.
Flukes are among the largest groups of parasites affecting marine ?shes. Flukes are similar in shape to tapeworms, but are shorter and broader. Some ?ukes are enveloped in cysts and can be seen only through a microscope. The dark pigments that occasionally appear around these cysts can be seen with the naked eye and is referred to as “black spot disease.”
Flatworms are transparent when alive, but turn white when they die: Heavy infections cause irritability, and anorexia. Gill flukes are brown , thin flatworms that look like tiny blobs and feed on blood. Infections can cause emaciation, lethargy and anaemia. Sea-lice scuttle around on the surface of the fish and can cause irritation and anaemia in heavy infections. All these can be removed from the fish by using hydrogen peroxide but to dip your fish in that and then eat it would cause its own problems.
What are the effects on human beings. Anisakiasis is a parasitic infection of the gastrointestinal tract which causes stomach flu like symptoms and permanent allergic reactions to chemicals left by the worms in fish flesh. The symptoms of these disease are : Within hours after ingestion of infective larvae, violent abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting may occur. Occasionally the larvae are coughed up. If the larvae pass into the bowel, a severe allergic response may also occur 1 to 2 weeks following infection, causing symptoms mimicking Crohn's disease. Acute allergic manifestations such as urticaria(rash) and anaphylaxis (shortness of breath)may occur with or without gastrointestinal symptoms. Asthma, conjunctivitis, and contact dermatitis have been observed in fish processing workers who come into contact with live worms. In some cases infection can lead to small bowel obstruction, which may require surgery.
Codworms are particularly common in white fish , cod, haddock, flounder, sole, and halibut, swordfish and monkfish. If you examine tuna you will probably see wriggling, very narrow pink worms. Deep sea fish like salmon have dark coiled worms . Frozen flounder fillets have little circles on them with a small reddish string in the center of the circle which unwinds and moves out of the circle. In shrimps , the parasites are too small to see but all fish ranging from sardines to squid ,cuttlefish and sharks have them. Warmwater fish that typically harbor parasites are mackerel, sea trout, shrimp, and eel, amberjack., catfish large saltwater fish. Worms appear like thin white strings. The most common fish to be infected with tapeworm are salmon, pike, perch, lake trout, grayling, orange roughy, and turbot. If you see spots in the muscle, those are worms. German television recently did a s series on worms in supermarket fish. They showed worm larvae in the bellies and flesh, as well as live ones in jars of pickled herring in the supermarket .
If you eat lightly cooked fish – sushi or sashimi - you probably will swallow live worms. The only way to reduce the numbers of worms is to inspect the fish . Visual inspection of fillets will reveal worms embedded near the surface; these can be removed easily with a knife. Worms embedded deep in the flesh are not immediately obvious, but some can be detected by candling, that is, shining a bright light through the meat. Worms show up as dark shadows in the flesh, and can be removed with forceps or a knife.
Happy eating!
Maneka Gandhi
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She writes “In my studies of Islamic law, I have always been impressed by the extensive rules that require humans to treat animals kindly and with mercy. These rules are wide ranging, and include significant protections for work animals like horses and donkeys, requirements that slaughtering be done in as merciful way as possible, and commands to treat dogs and cats kindly. The position on animal welfare within Islamic law is an excellent example of compassion and concern for those who depend on others for their care. Islamic legal protection of animal welfare is truly a model for everyone.”
This is an important statement because very few Muslims in India treat animals well. Every bird seller, poacher, dog breeder, tangawalla and butcher of animals from chickens to cows and buffaloes turns out to be Muslim. The point is not that they do it – the Hindus are no angels either – but that they believe that their religion sanctifies cruelty to animals. They abhor dogs and even educated Muslims who visit me make a racket if one of my dogs goes near them. They beat horses and donkeys to death , run illegal animal markets from Crawford Market in Mumbai to Jama Masjid in Delhi, Hathi Bagan in Kolkata , Meerut Bird Market and Nakhas Market in Lucknow. When the Ministry of Environment tried to make pet shop rules, they received protest letters only from Muslim animal breeders and illegal pet shop associations.
Muslims should understand the amazing range of animal welfare that is required by Islamic law.
Islam is based on the principles of kindness, mercy, compassion, justice, and doing good works. These principles are seen throughout the texts of the religion–the Qur’an and the Hidith or examples of the Prophet–as well as in Islamic history.
The Prophet was kind and compassionate to all creatures. Ibn Mas’ud reported: “We were traveling with the Prophet and he stepped off to the side when we saw a small bird with her two babies, and we took them. The mother bird came over and began fluttering in the direction of the Prophet. He said, ‘who made her miserable by taking her two babies? Return them to her.” When the Prophet explained the importance of kindness they returned the baby bird.
Cruelty to animals is strongly condemned in the Qur’an and the hadith of the Prophet and punishments are provided for it.Most of the sahih hadith collections have Abdullah Ibn ‘Umar’s report: “The Prophet cursed the one who treated animals harshly.” al-‘Asqalani specified that: “The cursing indicates that the action is prohibited. Whoever treats harshly a living being and then does not repent, God will treat him just as harshly on judgment day.” Abdullah b. ‘Umar reported that the Prophet said: “A woman went to hell because of a cat that she confined and did not feed or allow to feed.”
Kindness to animals brings a reward to the kind person. According to Abu Hurayra: “The Prophet said that there was a man who was traveling and he became very thirsty. So he found a well and descended into it and drank, then exited, when he saw a dog panting and eating the ground from his thirst. The man said: ‘This dog has reached a level of thirst that I almost reached,’ and so he descended into the well and filled his shoe with water and provided the water to the dog. God thanked the man and forgave him of all his sins. The men listening to this story said: ‘Oh Prophet, will we be rewarded for assisting animals?’ The Prophet said:‘ There is the possibility for a rewarded for helping each living being.” In another Hadith even a prostitute was forgiven for her sins for her act of giving water to a thirsty dog.
Compassion for animals is a basic part of Islamic law, history, and culture. The Muslims established the first animal welfare organizations and animal shelters and Islamic history shows that animal welfare was an exalted Islamic value. A thousand years ago Cairo a flourishing city has shelters reserved for the needs of animals.
Muslims in Egypt established watering troughs for animals adjacent to schools and mosques, and endowed trusts to provide care to animals —owned and stray alike. When people died they left money for toughs to be made in their memory: such as the trough of the madrasa of Um Sultan al-Ashraf Sha’ban and the trough of the madrasa of Amir Aytmish al-Bajasi.
Historians document that Sultans, Amirs, and others established endowments to provide food for stray animals, such as cats and dogs. The English orientalist Edward William Lane reports that the Chief Judge of Egypt in 1835 told him that the Mamluk Sultan al-Zahir Baybars established an endowment to provide food for stray cats. If the endowment was not producing enough revenue, the Judge would contribute his own funds. The Ottoman Amir in Egypt Kutkhuda established a pious endowment to distribute food to stray dogs and cats each day.
Many hadiths state that humans have a duty to treat donkeys, horses and camels properly and to respect the work they perform. According to Sahil b. al-Handhala: “The Prophet passed by a camel whose stomach was taut from hunger, and he said: ‘Fear God regarding your treatment of these animals, who cannot speak from themselves. Ride them properly, and feed them properly.”
Other hadith express how personally angered the Prophet was by neglect of animals. According to Abdullah b. Ja’fir Abi Talib: “The Prophet went into a garden of a man and there was a camel. When the Prophet saw the camel he felt compassion and his eyes shed tears. The Prophet went up to the camel and stroked him between his ears, and the camel calmed down. The Prophet then said:‘Who is the owner of this camel?’ A boy from the ans?r came and said, ‘He is mine, Prophet.’ The Prophet said: ‘Don’t you fear God with regard to this animal, whom God has given to you? For the camel complained to me that you starve him and work him endlessly.”
The Prophet even chastised his wife Aisha for her treatment of a camel she was riding: “Aisha rode a camel and she began to struggle with him. The Prophet said: ‘you are obligated to be kind.’ Many hadith explain how to treat animals who are carrying you or your goods: “God is kind and loves and desires kindness. If you ride an animal, descend and allow it to rest at an appropriate site. You should provide the animal rest at night, because the animal is the one covering the trail, and needs a resting place for living beings.”
The muhtasib in medieval texts was the official responsible for public laws and overburdening or mistreating pack animals was treated as a violation of Islamic law. The muhtasib’s powers were to punish abusers such as the transporters who stop with goods in the market without unloading the goods from the backs of the pack animals “ because if the animals stand with the goods on them it causes pain to them, and that is torture to them.” In the law manual of Ibn Bassam, “It is also necessary that the animals’ loads and burdens are proportional to their strength and ability, and they should not have put upon them a load that will injure them, and they should not be driven quickly while carrying loads, nor prodded with strong prods. The people responsible for them should have the fear of God in them when it comes to providing food for their animals and they should be fed sufficiently according to their work, and whoever violates these rules should be punished.”
Good treatment of animals can result in a reward from God. According to Abu Hurayra, the Prophet said: “Giving a horse food or water is the source of a reward.” When the Prophet was asked about the reward that can result from the kind treatment of donkeys, the Prophet referred to the Qur’anic verse 99:7-8: “’Whoever does good equivalent to the weight of an atom shall see it; whoever does evil equivalent to the weight of an atom will see it.”
Maneka Gandhi
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Men and women come from different planets – this is now accepted theory because we are so truly different in how we see the world.
But are vegetarians and non vegetarians from different planets ? There is a difference in perception. Where some see a juicy steak, we see a dead cow. While some think of how good the meat will taste, we contemplate the way the animal suffered on its path to the plate.
Why the difference in perception? It turns out it vegetarians are wired differently from meat eaters and are much more moved by suffering in any form. Daniel R. Rowes of Psychology Today has written about a recent Italian study that shows that empathy is what really separates vegetarians and omnivores. The study was "based on the observation that vegetarians and vegans tend to base their decision to avoid animal products on ethical grounds." This is backed up by a another study done in 2008 that 54 percent of American vegetarians cited animal welfare as the main reason they gave up meat. The Italian researchers wanted to determine if the empathy vegetarians and vegans extend towards animals applied to humans as well. In short was awareness and kindness part of the person’s genetic structure or was it simply an interest.
To test this, 20 meateaters, 19 vegetarians and 21 vegans were placed "in a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) machine" while researchers looked "at the 'activation' of different brain areas as subjects view a randomized series of pictures." Some of the pictures were of natural landscapes, while others showed scenes of torture, mutilation, death, and so on involving both animals and humans. Researchers monitored the neurological reactions to the pictures.
What did the study find?
The main finding of this study is that, compared to meateaters, vegans and vegetarians show higher activation of empathy related brain areas (e.g. Anterior Cingular Cortex and left Inferior Frontal Gyrus) when observing scenes of suffering; whether it be animal or human suffering.
Other studies have come to similar conclusions. According to the journal Anthrozoos, "Past research found that positive attitudes toward animals are positively correlated with human-directed empathy."
According to psychologists , the empathy that children feel is gradually abandoned because there is "cultural pressure to abandon our fascination with animals" as we get older. Learning to be less empathic towards animals is considered a step towards maturity in our society. And that results in the reduction of empathy towards fellow humans as well. Scientific American recently wrote about a study of college students showing that "today’s young people are 40 percent less empathetic than college kids from 30 years ago." The sharpest drop in empathy has occurred in the last nine years. According to the study, today’s students are less likely to agree with statements such as “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective" and "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me." Imagine a whole generation with diminished empathy. No wonder the Iraq and Afghanistan massacres go on and on and have simply become television shows.
Fortunately, vegetarians cannot, because of their different brain wiring, learn to drop compassion from their minds. It's important to highlight that the Italian study shows vegetarians and vegans to be more empathic to both animals and humans because many of us in the animal welfare community have been accused of "caring more about animals than people" The link between empathy for animals and empathy for humans should come as no surprise. All of us who care for animals also do a lot of human rights/welfare work. Logically , once you become aware of one form of oppression, you're more likely to recognize it in other forms.
But that is not the only way in which vegetarians and meateaters are different. The Daily Telegraph reports that Mensa which is a worldwide elite society for people with high IQ has more than its share of vegetarians. While Australia only has 4 lakh vegetarians , the Australian Mensa has so many that it has started a fortnightly magazine called Vegetarian Life for their members.
According to The British Medical Journal a study tested the IQ of a group of 8,000 10-year-old children and followed their diets till they were 30 years old. The found that those who became vegetarian by 30 had an IQ five points above the average. Male vegetarians had an IQ score of 106, compared with 101 for non-vegetarians, while female vegetarians averaged 104, compared with 99 for their meat-eating peers. The study also said that children with higher IQs are 20 % more likely to grow up to be vegetarians.
This fits in with another statistic : College students are the most rapidly growing group of vegetarians. Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Eating Animals, estimates that 18% of U.S. college students are vegetarian. This is when only 3% of the American population is vegetarian.
The 18th century scientist Benjamin Franklin said a vegetarian diet brought a "greater clearness of head and quicker comprehension''. Nutrition can be a solid reason. If the cerebellum is not receiving the required nutrients, the whole concept of balance becomes difficult. If the Medulla is not treated right, you will feel too hot or too cold. The thalamus is a base camp for information. Just as a car does not run on lollipops , the human body needs the right fuel to run its machine well. Meat clogs arteries and veins more than vegetables would, so that means less oxygen getting to the brain "It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind!." said Albert Einstein
Here is the third difference:
A major study called the The seventh Day Adventists Study done by Bonnie Beezhold /Carol Johnston/Deanna Daigle and printed in Nutrition Journal 2010, 9:26 shows the mental health status of vegetarians as opposed to non vegetarians , particularly with regard to mood. This is an important study because the physical health status of vegetarians has been extensively reported, but there is limited research regarding the mental health status of vegetarians
The researchers examined associations between mood state and polyunsaturated fatty acid intake as a result of adherence to a vegetarian or meat based diet in a study of 138 healthy men and women. Participants completed a quantitative food frequency questionnaire, Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS), and Profile of Mood States (POMS) questionnaires.
Results: Vegetarians (VEG:n=60) reported significantly less negative emotion than omnivores (OMN:n=78) as measured by both mean total DASS and POMS scores (8.32+/-0.88 vs 17.51+/-1.88, p=.000 and 0.10+/-1.99 vs 15.33+/-3.10, p=.007, respectively).
In English that means : Vegetarians diets are lower in omega-3 fatty acids that come from eating fish which studies claim are a key factor in improving both physical and mental health. So the researchers expected to find vegetarians with higher depression, anxiety, and mood problems. Instead, they found the opposite. Vegetarians scored lower on depression tests and had better mood profiles than their fish- and meat-eating peers. “While dietary intake of EPA and DHA has an important role in brain function, we found no evidence that the absence of direct intake of these fatty acids in vegetarians adversely affects mood state,” the study reports. “These results challenge what is known about the link between dietary fats and brain function and suggest an unrecognized benefit of vegetarian diets.” If you still eat a lot of meat, you might want to reconsider your diet and get happier.
Just as scientists have seen that meditation lights up parts of the brain that have been dark before , becoming vegetarian would open up pathways of thought that have been unused before. As the body becomes cleaner and more in tune with its real nature, the brain becomes sharper and is easier to use. The world becomes simpler to negotiate when you empathise with everyone on it so your judgements become clearer.
I thought it was my search for something bigger than myself that kept me happy inspite of the turbulence of my life but it now seems it was my vegetarian diet !
Maneka Gandhi
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