56-inch chests and mini-atmas: As violence against animals sweeps across India, not one leader speaks for the most voiceless
Cruelty has been an integral part of human nature. However, it seems to be touching new lows with every passing day. Of late, the cruelty seems to be targeted against animals — especially dogs.
From raping female dogs (read: puppies) and pregnant goats to burning newborn puppies alive, sawing off a puppy's paws because it scratches people, to lately, bludgeoning puppies to death. This time, reportedly by students who are studying to nurse human lives.
A viral video has been doing the rounds featuring two nursing students in the state-run NRS Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata.
In the video, two students were seen pummeling a puppy with bamboo sticks. The puppy twitched and flailed through the ordeal and finally stopped moving. This did not stop the women from pounding the corpse of the puppy with the stick.
This was not the only puppy killed in the campus.
A few days ago, bodies of 16 puppies tied in plastic bags were found near the hostel. There was agitation against the killings and the students were identified in the video and arrested.
If this did not chill you, perhaps the reason why they killed the puppy will.
According to reports, the accused claimed during interrogation that they were fed up with the puppies — which apparently did not allow them to go out of the hostel as they moved too close to their feet looking for comfort.
This is not even an isolated incident of dogs being killed or maimed by those entrusted with human lives. Remember Bhadra? The dog that was thrown off a five-storey building in Chennai? Well, the culprits were two medical students there.
If they are entrusted with our lives and those of our children, we can only dread the worst.
Such psychopaths clearly have no soul — leave alone compassion.
However, what is as much — if not more — upsetting, is that not one leader — political, religious or social — has even opened his or her mouth in support of these voiceless creatures being brutally attacked thus.
Mahatma Gandhi reportedly once said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
Now, he was a true Mahatma. We wonder if the leaders today have even a mini-atma? Or a micro-mini-atma? Or at least an atma?
From the BJP’s alpha male who claims a 56-inches chest (we don’t know if there is heart enough inside with perhaps a puppy-sized compassion), the Congress’s misogynistic crown-prince who accused Mr. 56-inch-chest to be hiding behind a woman (we are not sure if he himself is man enough to speak up against these brutal crimes of human beings against gentle souls), to all those eloquent men and women who never run out of words to disrupt the proceedings of democracy — but are bleakly silent, if not completely tongue-tied, when it comes to speaking up for the defenceless.
Silence is culpable, after all.
Out religious leaders seem very well-informed when it comes to the detrimental effects of eggplants on the hypothalamus. We wonder whether their erudition goes for a long walk when they have to speak up against animal cruelty. Not one social leader, including the last of the lot, Anna Hazare, who seems to have put in extensive thought over the financial corruption of the country, has even opened their mouths about the moral corruption and psychological sickness that some seem to be undergoing, manifest in such acts of sadism and rage against poor animals.
But, the falsehoods of our wanna-be prophets aside, the truth is, if this psychological sadism is not checked soon enough, none of us — man, woman, transgender, small child or animal — can have a safe environment.
Clearly, we have failed the Mahatma in his vision for the country’s greatness and moral progress. We are now a country of the morally regressive with a sick mindset. And at best, a pack of mini-atmas.