In this week’s South Central, hosts Pooja Prasanna and Anisha Sheth first discuss the problem of exotic animals across the world being taken into private custody. They are joined by independent journalists Siddharth Prabhakar and M Rajshekhar.
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Pooja starts the discussion with actor Vikram’s video cuddling of a Lar Gibbon, an endangered wild animal. Siddharth explains that Vikram’s video triggered questions about the ownership and chain of custody.
“It is not a primate native to India, so it is obviously exotic, and it originates from an ecological hotspot. So it has to be trafficked. The documents show that the animal was traded by a person in Manipur to a breeder in Erode, who then sold it to Vikram’s daughter’s in-laws. We need to understand that a Gibbon is not like a reptile, and if it has to be plucked from the wild and taken to humans, the parents have to be poached because they are very attached to the mother as a species. So there is the aspect of animal cruelty and the trafficking aspect, as well as documentation discrepancies,” he says.
Rajshekhar says that we must pull back a little to a couple of years.
“I was speaking to a wildlife official, and he was telling me that illegal wildlife trade is one of the world’s biggest organised crime networks. Even as the biodiversity crisis has accelerated, illegal wildlife trade has continued, and it only gets bigger. Supply chains extend across the world. Where each discrete order starts is one question, spanning suppliers and intermediaries. It is a very violent trade because, for species like Gibbons, who live in family units, you have to kill the parents. The mortality numbers, therefore, are generally pretty high. The rarer the species, the greater the demand, and this chain builds. It also involves questions of captive breeding and so on,” he adds.
Siddharth says that the uber-rich who feel the need to have exotic animals in their custody after taking foreign trips is increasing. “The American Caiman is among the most trafficked to India, especially to Chennai. I have seen wildlife activists in WhatsApp groups with pet traders from across the country, including small towns,” he says.
Pooja says that though this is not a Chennai problem, Chennai has been flagged as an entry point of animal trade in the country.
“The state that does the most for wildlife trafficking will end up as the hotspot. Chennai customs have been catching a lot of such activities, and journalists have also been staying on the beat. The rest of the country has fewer airports interested in this matter. As the number of animal shipments being caught in Chennai increased, shipments started landing in smaller airports,” says Rajshekhar.
“Once they get past customs, their handlers will meet them outside the airport and take the animals to a godown where they are given some food and water. Then they are advertised through Instagram. If you just search ‘exotic animals’ on Instagram, you see several pages that officials must clamp down on. Another nuance here is that cartoons always feature animals, which attracts children to ask their parents for some. Another thing is also that even in the wildlife trade, there is evidence of cryptocurrency being used. So this organised crime syndicate must be investigated by national agencies,” says Siddharth.
The panel further discusses documentation, how wild animal behaviour in captivity is negotiated, the zoonotic risks of petting wild animals, and how the uber-rich go unaccountable.
In the second session, the hosts discuss the Tamil Nadu Speaker JCD Prabhakar attending and leading an anti-abortion rally in Chennai. He made an anti-abortion speech and also said he would take this up with CM Vijay.
To discuss the question of law and morality clashing when it comes to abortion, and how it affects women’s rights, the hosts are joined by Dr Alka Barua, a senior rights activist and TNM’s senior reporter Bharathy Singaravel.
“The Speaker’s statement gives more leverage to the anti-abortion lobby. The organisation I work with is a coalition of individuals and civil society organisations. We are concerned about whether such statements impact health services, leading to more unsafe abortions and adversely affecting reproductive health indicators,” says Dr Alka.
Bharathy says such a statement is not opinion but indoctrination and an attack on the fundamental rights of women. “When the state Speaker says abortions must not happen and that he will bring it up with Vijay, the CM, the stage is being set for something undemocratic to happen,” she adds.
Pooja gives a recap of the Indian abortion law, saying it is legal, with certain upper limits.
“Abortion in India is not a right yet. It is a conditional right, and if you do not meet the said conditions, you are penalised. What we see at the ground level is that the law is largely dependent on the service provider’s attitude. It is also not a law that came out of concerns for women’s rights but for population control and mortality management. It is close to five and a half decades since the law, but so many abortions happen in unsafe places because the service providers refuse to be helpful,” explains Dr Alka.
Bharathy, who earlier did an investigative series on the availability of abortion pills across hospitals in Tamil Nadu, says that the anti-abortion rhetoric on the ground is strong. “When we did the series on the shadow ban on abortion pills, a woman was lied to in a government hospital about why she could not be given an abortion. They shamed her and almost cornered her into deciding against an abortion; we witnessed this. Data also shows that it is not easy for women to access abortion,” she says.
Dr Alka speaks about how at the field level, the mental health of the woman asking for an abortion is not taken seriously. She says that though on paper it is stated that the woman must be counselled before and after the procedure, it rarely happens that way.
The panel further discusses the global swell from conservative groups against abortion and how morality largely governs the law.
Tune in to this episode here.
Audio timecodes:
00:00:00 - Introduction
00:02:32 - Headlines
00:11:33 - Exotic animal smuggling
00:47:36 - Abortion rights in India
01:12:34 - Recommendations
References
Why Tamil Thai Vazhthu Is More Than Just a Song in Tamil Nadu
Iguanas, macaws, marmosets: Exotic animal craze turns Chennai into trafficking hub
TN Speaker’s anti-abortion rhetoric is more than a personal opinion
Recommendations:
Pooja Prasanna
The rise of the ‘teen wife’: When young marriage becomes social media content
Anisha Sheth
The Truth of Fiction by Chinua Achebe
Siddharth Prabhakar
M Rajshekhar
Rajkamal Prakashan Rag Darbari
Dr Alka Barua
Bharathy Singaravel
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life
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Producer - Akshay Lal, Editor - Jaseem Ali, Vignesh Manickam, Camera - Ajay R, Social Media - Sukanya Shaji, Riya T T, Anakha C J