Cuddling or Eating? – about the Indian and German relationship to animals

India is known for its friendly and protective attitude towards animals. According to clichés cows are holy and are neither eaten, nor overrun as well as elephants and humans live together in harmony in the temples. Estimations show that around 40% of the Indian population eat only vegetarian, in Germany it is just 10%. On an average, Indians consume 4kg meat per head per year, while German consume 15 times at much – 60kg!!!

                         

But the Western eye gets shocked, by seeing the Indian reality. Hens are alive when people knot them together at their feet and transport them on motorbikes to the butcher. Here they have to wait penned up in narrow cages to be finally killed with an axe in front the eyes of the customer. Elephants spent most of the time of their temple-lives enchained. And bullocks and camels that pull carriages, are directed by rings in their noses.

In contrast to this, horses gallop freely over the road, everywhere one can see sleeping or loudly fighting streetdogs – and only in India playing children are disturbed by a cow that crosses their playing field. On the one hand this means freedom for the animals, on the other hand it exposes them to dangers. Such dangers can be the busy traffic or the poison waste items, in which all kind of animals search for food.

We have noticed that animals are treated differently here. People are much more focused on the use or benefit they can get out of them. One is vegetarian for a religious purpose and dogs are not hold to cuddle, but as watchdogs. To further disprove the clichés mentioned above, we would like to remember the Christian and Muslim population, who eat cow like we do in Germany.

That a dog sleeps in its owner’s bed and that horse riding can be a hobby, not just a possibility to travel, is in our Indian surrounding met with a lack of understanding. Vegetarianism out of love to animals is accepted, however, we have not experienced it here until now. And even though there might be a large number of vegetarian restaurants, for special events (like when guests come) people cook with meat.

But also in India there are animal rights groups. On World-animal-day a group of young activists came to Abhaya that fight against the torturous transport of hens. In addition to that they rescue parrots out of too small cages and coddle them up. Furthermore we got to know a worker of “save our snakes” at the bus stop. This is a NGO that can be called 24/7 when people find a snake at their home and the staff will come and take the animal. The organisation aims to stop the common behaviour of just killing the snake.

And when we have a closer look on our home country, we have to say that animals are not treated in a better way, it is just hidden in a better way! The transport to the butcher happens in big, unremarkable lorries, which are only noticed by the society when they accidently wait next to one of them in a traffic jam (this often causes crises in family cars). When we compare the life of a cow in intensive mass farming with the life of the cow from our Indian neighbour, the life of the Indian animal is at least a little bit better. As it is tied to a flog in front of the house, it can still enjoy fresh air and the entertainment of the street life (once in a while our neighbour even takes a walk with it).

In Germany we eat much more meat than in India, however, we do not want to accept where the food on our plate comes from – it does not really look like an animal anymore! On a picture our Abhaya girls identified German Christmas salmon as “sweets” because here in India the fish is served as a whole – with head and thin – and the chicken is served with its bones. In this way it is clear for everybody what he or she eats.

camel with nose-piercing

using the power of a bullock

at the butcher...