Letter from Dr. Michael Tobias (5/21/99)

More Information About IPAN Animal Refuge Veterinary Services Education Animal Conditions Project Reports "Loki" the Indian Elephant and related issues How you can help

Deana L. Krantz
Dr. Michael Fox
IPAN - India Project For Animals And Nature
4912 Sherier Pl., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20016
Fax: 202-966-2079

May 21, 1999

Dear Deana and Michael,

Three months ago you were both kind enough to spare some of your very precious time with me in and around your remarkable Hill View Farm Animal Refuge at Mavanhalla in the Nilgiris. Your staff, particularly Nigel, revealed in every respect a model of devotion, compassion and expertise that should serve as a blueprint for animal sanctuaries everywhere in the world.

In India, which purports to longstanding traditions of such sanctuaries among its major religious groups, too often those ethical practices have been lost, replaced by a loathsome lip-service which masquerades as spirituality or inevitable pragmatism, a kind of fake triage born of indifference on the part of the government; an indifference that has become ingrained in the Indian way of life at all levels. Nearly 90% of all Indians eat meat, despite Jain, Hindu and Buddhist proscriptions to the contrary. That meat is the product

of Holocaust-like conditions for the animals; practices -like the illegal cattle transport in your area- which goes on in spite of brow fretting in New Delhi and Chennai; a system of bribes, corruption, and callousness which few have been willing to look at square in the face.

Despite India's own considerable corpus of anti-cruelty laws on behalf of other species, the country's track record on habitat protection and animal rights is among the worst of any nation. Few voices speak up for animals across the Indian sub-continent. Even fewer ever search for the means of harmonious reconciliation between those who depend upon habitat for their livelihoods, and the animals that also inhabit those same rural regions.

There is more wildlife to lose, and more suffering among domestic animals in India than in nearly any other country. This scenario will only intensify as India's population of a billion mostly rural people doubles over the next century.

This is the essential context, then, for examining any efforts, whatever they may be, to help ameliorate the pain and suffering everywhere endemic in India. The burden accumulates upon the poor, but it accumulates even more so upon every other species. And thus, your struggles to put the spotlight on, and halt such cruelties in the region where your sanctuary is situated, the Nilgiris, stands out in my mind as an unprecedented beacon both in and outside of India. Against unbelievably complex odds, you have not tired. You have gained strength and there are many of us greatly inspired by what you have done and are doing.

Visiting Hill View Farm will prove a deeply moving and instructive experience for anyone in the animal rights and ecological communities. I was especially impressed by the obvious fact that the animals were truly in a kind of interspecies bliss. The evident biophilia between dogs, burrows, cows, people, birds, deer, etc. indicates a total oasis, a loving environment which you have engendered, even as the forces which might try to shut you down complain and conspire around its modest peripheries.

The Nilgiris are endangered. Your many projects aimed at inhibiting the spread of cattle-born diseases, of cattle populations themselves through closely monitored spay-neuter and vaccination programs -fully supported by the local Panchayet board - are logical, well thought through agendas which in other parts of the world would be construed as basic. Tragically, to implement them in ecologically war-torn India will constitute nothing short of a dramatic breakthrough. Your visionary proposals for wildlife conservation in the region, for providing means of education on these issues, and of meaningful dialogue with the neighboring communities is absolutely what it takes to ensure a long-term sustainable commitment amongst a diverse tribal population.

I want to add that IPAN's field manager, Nigel Otter is, in my opinion, the brightest light for stopping illegal cattle transport in the whole country. We drove all night together examining the many locations where the suffering cattle had been dumped, awaiting the next leg of their journey to slaughter. We documented this to the extent possible. I have never seen such horrors. Nigel's knowledge, sensitivity, pragmatism, and compassion are rare qualities and it is essential that he, and the IPAN organization which has given birth

to Nigel and others like him, be supported fully. I see no other hope in this crucial wildlife and tribal region for any kind of ecological restoration. PETA has committed to making a difference in this arena and has absolutely every reason to do so. I sincerely hope there is a way to involve IPAN and PETA in a joint project directed at saving lives of the tens-of-thousands of precious cows and bulls who, everyday, suffocate in a sea of blatant, sustained cruelty which is ignored by most Indians. IPAN knows well the hierarchy of elusive offenders. Your past years of R&D, of experience in those trenches, are essential to properly exposing, and interceding in this illegal and treacherous trafficking.

Quite frankly, IPAN is the only reliable witness to the atrocities occurring in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. And -by inference- throughout much of South India. Because you are resolute in your ethical convictions, there will be rumor mills swirling around IPAN. Lies, innuendos, and stinging barbs, all of which stem from one very readily observed syndrome: few people have the stomach to grapple with the grassroots complexities, power mongering, corruption, and very evil that exists among some enfranchised clusters in the Nilgiris. In part, these clusters are tied to strongmen and their hordes; but the Indian government's relative disinterest in weeding out its own "bad seeds" among forest officers, mahoots, and so called veterinarians, has served to fuel a nauseating chain of bribes, payoffs, and greed that meets the unwitting tourist at every border crossing and guard station along the roads. Only the kind of experience IPAN offers can shed light on this "system" which, in the end, is summarized by a singular phrase: widespread cruelty to animals.

Millions of cows are being brutalized and slaughtered. Dogs, burrows, horses, not to mention birds of every variety, are treated like dung. In a country where, according to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization, more than 50% of the infants are malnourished; where the social net is nonexistent; where illiteracy, particularly among women is well over 50%, is it any wonder that decency to animals is not high on the list of social priorities? One, of course, wonders why any society would not feel inherent love for all creatures. It was certainly the basis for much of what Mahatma Gandhi took to be key to the health of any civilization. The Jains and later Buddhists have always reminded us that nonviolence is the first and only tenet of any true religion. Yet, in India, wild creatures are feared, too easily despised, the bane of farmers, the sport of rich hunters, "rogues" according to the Government's definition. There are bright lights at certain parks and zoos; beleaguered wardens who stand out, risk their career, assassination, to protect the disappearing tiger. But such individuals are tragically few in a country the size of India. And what about the less "charismatic" of species? How many so called good citizens have ignored the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal Act, right in your neighborhood? How many hundreds of dogs were slaughtered in Ooty on the whim of bureaucrats, after IPAN had rescued them? How many local tribal women have been raped by bureaucrats? These two dismal truths of the Nilgiris tend to go hand in hand: violence towards animals and human animals is a reciprocal promise and I believe IPAN has done much to expose this syndrome.

Your long-term commitment to revealing these and many other horrors in the area is, to be sure, not lost on those of us fighting on many fronts outside of India, despite the easy bromides offered up by others who would like to defuse the situation by stating, "Nothing can be done," or, "this is India," or "it's being taken care of."

The truth rarely falls for such preposterous claims, and this is no more so the case than with the tragedy, as yet unfolding, of the elephant known as Loki, or "messenger" at the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary. I have heard IPAN's secret audio recording of the beating of Loki -nearly 400 strikes by murderers with bone-breaking canes; I have seen the videos, read the medical reports, and visited the site of Loki's captivity and I can only say that the capture and unbelievable savagery meted out to the elephant, and to so many others of his kind in other animal camps, is enough to drive one to absolute despair. If this had happened in the United States, a "60 Minutes" would have gone public with it, and the animal camps would have been closed down, forest officers arrested, and Congressional oversight committees established to prevent it from ever happening again. India's statutes pertaining to elephants are nonexistent. The out-of-control human population explosion in India has condemned all wild creatures to the last margins of the ever shrinking subcontinent. Where can these greatest of creatures whose numbers are vanishing, wander, eat, dream at night? In Africa, the Kenya Wildlife Service has shown how it can be done; how farmers and elephants can learn to live together. Trenches and low-level electric fences and an absolute, unambiguous insistence on nonviolence has proven key to making it work, even up to the very borders of Nairobi.

But in India, thus far, there has been nothing but one show of ignorance after another parading as policy; medieval mindsets of the belief that the only good elephant is a chained elephant. There are less than 5,000 wild Asian elephants left in the world, and 70% of them are in the Nilgiris. Without a major educational campaign, launched on behalf of the farmers, and the forest service, this animal -the one Buddha claimed to be the most noble of all creatures- is doomed. So called eco-tourists will never get a whiff

of what's actually going on because they are simply passing through town with the bird binoculars for an hour here and there. What they see has been carefully masked. Those who would question the chained legs, the bruises and open wounds on the elephants are ignored or met with a fanatical police presence, as I experienced at Mudumalai when I asked to see Loki. The elephants in the camps are prisoners of war, dead, but still standing. Lobotomized, terrorized, slaves. I have never seen such evident pain. And I can not believe the hatred towards these elephants which emanates from the forest officers and mahoots. If there is a God in some higher court looking down, then I fear the whole human species will be indicted as a result of what is going on in India's elephant camps.

That you have persevered amid these stormy seas is a credit not merely to you as caring individuals, but to your idealism, a quality of the heart in rare supply these days. India needs all the idealism she can find. In the case of IPAN, it is a vision grounded in all the sordid truths and unspeakable acts taking place around you; and in your own breathtaking plans of action, and a knowledge base second to none.

Please do not give up, or give in. I know how you are struggling, and the pain you are feeling. And I know how easy it is to find oneself on the receiving end of public pressure to quit. Or to be caught in the doublebind of other people's secret agendas. But I have no doubt that what are you doing in India will make a profound difference in the end. You need money to keep those animals happy and alive, and to continue to document the endless string of cruelties being inflicted by government officials, and other locals on

wild and domestic animals in the Nilgiris. At this stage, IPAN is the only on-the-ground organization that offers any kind of hope for restoring some decency to human-animal interactions in the Nilgiris; for educating all those who need to be sensitized to the conditions that prevail in the wildlands of South India; all those local people who want to do good; and for working with government officials who can change if only they are given the appropriate means of doing so. It will require nothing less than your level of

dedication. When we needed an animal refuge in the middle of the night for three rescued buffalos, IPAN was the one and only place in South India where we could be sure they would be taken in, cared for, and loved.

Ultimately, the solutions are about the human community, a fragile dawn that acknowledges ahimsa as the basis for the future of all life on the planet. And this is why your presence in the Nilgiris has been so critical, and remains ever more so. Because you understand the essence of nonviolence.

I recognize that IPAN urgently needs outside money and support. A cash infusion this summer is critical if the organization is to survive. An alliance with other concerned groups is essential. The lives of two hundred precious animals at Hill View Farm are at stake, as well as programs for spay/neutering, for vet services, and for environmental and animal rights education in at least a dozen neighboring tribal villages. We must all do

everything in our power to see that these good works, this critical mass of transformation, these lives, are not wasted.

Deana, Michael, thank you for what you are doing.

In gratitude,

Dr. Michael Tobias
President, JMT Productions
2118 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 572
Santa Monica, CA 90403
Tel: 310-454-4518
Fax: 310-454-7248
Email: mctobias@aol.com