A rant about 'respected' RWA members (and a Cat People video)

A couple of weeks ago there was a nice online discussion about the lovely anthology Cat People (edited by Devapriya Roy), in which I have an essay about my mother and about our cats of old. The link to the video is here. As you can see, around the 30-minute mark, I briefly activate my Activist Mode and rant about people in my neighbourhood who say that we "should think of human welfare instead of animal welfare”. (As if those are mutually exclusive things, and as if we don't already live in a completely human-shaped-and-dominated world.) The most dramatic-sounding thing I said during the session — though in my view it’s still an understatement — was: This planet is almost dead because of thousands of years of “human welfare”.

 

I have written various posts about this broad subject before (this for instance), but the most recent provocation happened at a colony meeting where the agenda was for the AWBI to mediate between those who feed dogs and those who have various issues with the colony’s animals and their carers. (I’m trying to choose my words carefully: one of the things we have been encouraged to do as part of these conciliatory efforts is to not use polarising terms such as “animal lovers” and “animal haters”, which pave the way for each side to label, alienate or judge the other. That makes sense to me anyway; for reasons that I won’t get into here, I don’t instinctively think of myself as an “animal lover” or even a “dog lover”. It’s more complicated than that.)

 

Anyway, this meeting began with the amicus curiae, an Animal Welfare Board representative, spelling out the salient issues facing small, congested colonies like ours — including the need to clearly designate feeding spots — and the importance of setting up an “animal welfare committee”. At the very first mention of this dangerous-sounding term “animal welfare”, a Respected Elderly Man cleared his throat very loudly, looked around to make sure that all eyes were on him (this is usually a prelude to terrifying things; we see it all the time at literature festivals when audience questions are invited after a session), and said, in the grand, pause-laden manner of one who thinks he is delivering a scintillating insight (or witticism) that has never before been voiced: “I would like to ask a question. [Solemn pause.] We are hearing this term ‘animal welfare’ a lot. May I ask, is there also such a thing as… *human* welfare?”

 

This particular octogenarian, not surprisingly, was a former RWA president himself. Again not surprisingly, he succeeded in disrupting the flow of the amicus curiae’s measured talk and drawing chuckles from most of the people gathered there: both those who approved of what he was saying and those who wanted to indulge him or “lighten” the atmosphere. *He* wasn’t joking though: he truly, genuinely believed in the validity of what he was saying. And this despite having lived in Saket long enough to know firsthand of a time, a mere 50-55 years ago, when we homosapiens began encroaching on what was then forest land. 

 

I try not to be judgemental of people who have led almost fully anthropocentric lives: I know from firsthand experience that it isn’t easy (especially if you’ve always been in an urban environment or if you have large human families to worry about) to develop a serious interest in — to *look closely at and think about* — other species. This June will mark 10 years since my Foxie went. Before she came into my life in 2008, I barely registered the presence of dogs, even though my mother was crazy about them. (Some of the most ardent animal-carers I know have had similar life trajectories. One of them, Hemali Sodhi, has written movingly in her Introduction to The Book of Dog about a time when she was terrified of dogs.) But even so, I am sometimes stunned at the realisation that so many “honourable” senior members of our societies — people who have reached high positions in their respective fields — think of other creatures as nothing more than pests that have to be put up with (because, well, all those animal lovers make such a noise). Screenshots of yesterday’s Supreme Court order, misinterpreted by many people as saying that it is no longer permitted to feed street animals, are being used as a bludgeon by countless RWAs to bully animal-feeders even more, especially the ones who don’t have a good support system around them. The gloating messages I have been seeing about this on my colony WhatsApp groups provide a clearer sense of why things are now so bad for this planet than any politically charged Left-vs-Right arguments can. 

 

More on this soon. (I wish I could disclose details of some conversations from the meetings or almost-meetings with the RWA, but that would be unwise. Some of it should go into a book anyway.) Meanwhile, do watch the Cat People video if you feel like, and do consider picking up the book too. It's a great collection.