Chat with Gauri Maulekhi - The Nuts & Bolts of AW

Transcript of Gauri Maulekhi's chat with host Priya Chetty-Rajagopal:

Gauri welcome thank you welcome yeah to to this we really are super excited about having you here and i know that it's been months since we've been in touch and i know i've been giving you hell about trying to get you to

to you know sort of give a little bit of your your thoughts on your gyan on this very very critical issue. to more of us who seem to be more on the uh you know the outside looking in than anything els so thanks very much for that and i'm going to tell them a little story about that but having um got you firmly on the line and um hopefully have the ability to share some of your thoughts with so many who need to know um i'm going to do the um no need to introduce gauri but we still need to talk about what i think what who and what Gauri is. so gauri we've interacted so many times .. welcome dr umapati um the member secretary of the spca uh in bangalore thank you good to see you dr umarpati here very very nice to see you so we have i mean from just to give you a quick overview of my conversation i've really not been in the animal welfare space for very long it's been four or five years but like everything you jump into you think you know what you're doing and you actually have no clue and you really have to make sure that you get a sense of proper grip and then you can proceed make any difference that you possibly um think that you can and you will um i mean i just asked everyone if they could to mute their microphones i'd be very grateful we'll throw it open for a conversation a little later

so in the in the time that the last few years there have been many reach outs uh i have uh personally come across you gary when um you know when i ran into issues with the carnatic animal welfare board and trying to figure out what to do so for all who are here uh i know that you know who gauri is uh gauri is a very strong voice of animals in the country she is a trustee of pfa most importantly she has been a person who has shown both the power of one and the power of a community and the power of governance and collaboration in everything that she has done and she's also been awarded the nari shakti polish which has been a very very prestigious award for the work that she has done in animal welfare but for very specific and very wonderful things the power of one is what i think gauri brings to the table which is you can you will and we will you know that's i think has been her mantra for a long time but she has made a tremendous changes in the way say abc is is functional across the country she has made huge impact in terms of trying to get a more uh advocacy focus on animal welfare trying to do things more at 30 000 feet as well as making sure the execution abilities down the line uh third the work that she's done on the dog breeding and marketing rules pet shop roles and so many others her focus right now has been on uh no more 50 which is the the the uh increase in penalty and fines for the prevention of cruelty to animals act so that's been a huge focus of hers uh i like the fact that gauri thinks very differently uh is hugely collaborative despite being in a space that is so full filled with you know confrontation and and issues that seem to come up all the time you can't help it it's just the uh it's just the nature of the beast so kaori brings in all of these wonderful things and she was mortified of course when i sent out a mail saying legend in animal welfare i could make her could make out she was just cringing and probably twirling her toes and saying oh god you know priya's going at it but she's the one person i think who brings for me which i really appreciate i do not discount any emotion in gary but i will definitely not discount the intellect that she brings in to make sure that things are done in the way that it should be and you know very very clear-minded very strong in in how it can be executed and that i think is an absolute hallmark of what gowdy does so some of her achievements in uttarakhand and specifically with the uh you know partnering with different organizations with the hsi her current various pils on animal welfare issues are legendary and i if she has some time i hope she can walk us through this but the reason uh why i was very keen to reach gauri in addition to the many wonderful things that she brings in is the fact that um the first time i spoke to gary when i said listen i need some help and could you just walk me through this i was really struggling on a couple of issues regarding the spca and what to do in karnataka we were really with our backs to the wall and uh she sounded extremely irritable obviously that my mind must have been the 400th call that week and another blabbering woman with another blabbering request you know the usual so she said okay can you take out a pencil and paper and write down it's been about 20 years since somebody's ever told me that but i took out a pencil and a paper and i started writing down and that was one of the best things i did and it impelled me so much in two years to understand in the last two years to understand what needed to be done and at least understand the landscape so gauri for that that teacher's pencil and paper great gratitude and i really hope that for all of us here i can promise you i have my i have a pen if you don't mind not a pencil and i am going to be all set to uh you know take down a couple of things about what we need to do we are all super excited about wanting to help animals we want to do the right thing we don't know how which is why this talk which is nuts and bolts of animal welfare could be done by nobody other than gauri maleki so if you forgive the fan girling that i'm doing right now which is embarrassing yeah over to you thank you for the lovely introduction it's a very very um charitable of you to have used such amazing words but uh i'd say that uh you know the energy in you and the enthusiasm in you for actually grasping everything and uh in such a short time span that you've achieved whatever you have in karnataka is amazing and we this is how we set standards you know because animal welfare as you know is basically to be done in in one state at a time it's a state subject mostly yes um the center just makes some law and then forgets about it enforcement is all on districts and states so if we have strong people like you in in all our states we'd be sorted so um i'm extremely happy to talk to this group here and thank you for organizing it it's always great to interact because we learn from each other and you know it's it's completely a learning process even though we may have done a few things in our past but there's so much more to do so we cannot ever rest on our laurels and say okay it's done there's so much more that that has to be done uh they're suffering almost in every nook and corner of our country so one cannot really say that we've achieved a lot and done great things they might be on paper enforcement is still lacking and we have so many miles to go before we sleep and uh that's why uh such interactions i always appreciate and you know no matter what happens it's this time is worth it because there would be 30 people probably absorbing uh something and getting a little motivated and i'd be happy to share thoughts and wherever we can collaborate and uh do things together that's that's the only way to move forward in this field absolutely no Gauri i'm picking up on that word collaboration and uh you know all of us uh we can pick up information but it's how we connect the dots and we how how we we uh collaborate understand some of our limitations know who we have to work with and be a little bit more realistic uh you know that's what makes a difference and you of course right now in this preamble have made it so probably easy that you know this is we are very mature vaccine center does its own stuff it really is a state subject you need to be able to do stuff all of us let's take karnataka as an example karnataka is certainly a very i mean i i'm not saying because i'm from here or because i live here uh very forward-thinking extremely um you know good people gentle uh generally very compassionate uh there's some good stuff going on in this in this space and you know literacy is good so i think in terms of being a model state i think we could get there very quickly unfortunately uh some of the structural issues that have uh that have taken time to come into karnataka have delayed the process and therefore uh the lack of information the lack of uh enforceable structures have created a lot of problems and now we suddenly with a lot of things trying to figure out what next to do so i'm going to ask you the first question which is uh the first uh question which i would like to just you know put across do you have only i promise you just five questions and i'll let it uh be with the audience but

in the last five years what do you think has changed completely for animals and animal lovers in the last say three to five years um five years ago you know the things we could not we could not feed in public it was always a problem we couldn't do this there was nobody who would take a complaint from us and there was cruelty um there was definitely a kind of a feeling of being second class citizen many things have changed and sometimes i'm feeling extraordinarily grateful for what has changed but sometimes very cheated in terms of the lack of implementation but i think i'll take gratitude first so your thoughts gary on what has changed yeah so um i'd say in the last three to five years uh there's been one shift in the style of animal welfare um and i'll i'll go a little backwards and dial it back and compare it uh when probably in 1960 the act was made hardly anybody even recognized it for the next 20 years and then focus was more in the 80s and 90s focus was more on sheltering on picking up street animals you know injured disease dying animals from the road and collecting them in shelters and you know animal welfare all meant you know sheltering and rescuing uh that's that's the time i entered into the movement by the way and uh after that it's uh you know through the last decade we've seen a lot of courts actually giving very progressive orders we've seen a lot of animal welfare people getting um edgy about a policy reform which was not there earlier in 2001 when mrs gandhi was minister she of environment she came up with a a slew of lots of new regulations new rules undertook under under the prevention of purity to animals act we know the slaughterhouse rules animal birth control rules transport of animals on foot rules et cetera et cetera uh even the essencia rules by the way and it's but again enforcement was completely lacking because nobody was doing any capacity building nobody uh was putting anything

it's only in the last three to five years i'd say that a lot of uh focus on advocacy can be seen in animal advocates and animal activists now who are willing to collaborate with governments who are willing to learn the law and mind you only these are the ones who actually get anywhere who learn the law collaborate with the government and move forward you cannot you know go to

okay i suddenly got muted go ahead quite sorry huh so uh you cannot you need to point out some illegality you need to know what uh under which section under which lawyer pointing out illegality and we see more and more of uh animal welfare people actually getting aware themselves because unless you know it yourself you cannot uh correct or check anybody else um so this is you know snowballing into bigger results and we can see that now um probably it's uh some bit of uh credit goes to the animal welfare board of india in the three to five years i'd say they've done a lot of uh outreach little hour workshops and this and that and and probably it's just the only way left to go because when you're pushed against a wall there's nothing happening um and there are more and more people who are compassionate who want to do something they will get down to the book and understand what the legal provisions are and then the ideas and the strategies would come on its own you know this needs to be changed this needs to be implemented so awareness at that level at a deeper level it is much more now also one one negative that we've observed in the past three i'd say five years it started uh in 2016 i distinctly remember where animal welfare groups started talking against other animal welfare groups that was a one of a kind i remember on facebook when i saw that and i i was just so surprised that you run out of enemies had you fighting with each other it was very surprising and and uh i i thought it's just a bubble it'll go away in a while but um strangely we still see groups quibbling with each other when there's so much more work to do uh i i see that trend as as something very very it's like a termite it's going to disrupt everything so that's that's something that needs to be controlled thanks agave you know um you well of course we all smiled at the last comment that you made because we are seeing this and we will probably continue to see it uh but the points that you've made earlier in terms of the changes that have happened over the last few years and you look at the structural issues that have really you know if you were to just illumi you know look at the laws uh the supreme court order which has protected our street uh and street dogs so much and if you look at the um you know the sops for abc if you look at the stuff that what you have been so strongly supporting which is setting up of state animal welfare boards basically many awbis all across the country those are the structural interventions that have allowed things to happen uh having said that you know the last three five years though you've been extremely modest about your own efforts in that area i know what you've done but yes there has been um sometimes not as as amusing slightly more uh toxic we have seen a lot of uh issues that come up with other you know with people in groups and things like that and it's sometimes not very funny it's really really painful and heartbreaking but i attribute that also to the fact that there's so much emotion that we feel the need to be able to you know out emotion each other in terms of you know i'm kinder than you are and i'm even more bleeding hearts than you are and so on whereas really in this time and that's why somebody like you is so critical to the movement and to taking this forward is the clarity of mind that overrides the softness of heart you know because that is why i agree with you it's just that moral high ground that we take and you know animal welfare people you and me we're all emotional people we just need to reign in our hearts and let our heads work uh that's really very important because sometimes we just uh do not think five steps ahead and we don't think of consequences of what we are doing or saying on social media especially and we throw out barbs at each other without even uh looking at uh you know how it would disrupt the movement how it would discourage others and what kind of uh you know movement building would it be that you know friendly fire is killing everybody so uh so that's uh that's that's very very important unless we strategize we think five steps ahead uh and we plan where we want to go if we are here today we need to know what stage we want to be at in a year's time and then strategize you know

what do we have to do in a month in a year then you'd know where to network who to be good to who to you know probably target and not uh randomly uh you know yeah you need to uh even with government departments with fellow animal welfare people with organizations uh unless networking uh is in place one would rarely succeed that's true you might want whatever but you need to plan and strategize and networking is probably the single most important thing in your strategy to win even in something as as a you know focused as making one spca you need to get the people of your uh cities organizations together you need to get the dm uh you know know who the dm is you need to know the animal husbandry people you need to then collaborate push explain write representations file rti's do what but you know it's it's a collective exercise otherwise there's nobody who really won any war alone correct so friendly fires one thing collaboration is the other no ak-47s as well uh and no moral high ground because all of us want the same thing uh very interesting point you've made about the spca and i just quickly like to intervene on that to tell you that dr mumpati who's here he's the member secretary of the spca and has been a great friend to support the movement he also has come from the animal husbandry department so he's had his transition in trying to understand what are these crazies you know like like me who are giving him so much of grief but in the last meeting we had gauri and this is something i'd like to place on record uh we had our district magistrate mr manjunath who had who has taken over recently and the statement that he made dr mahapati with with with your permission i'd like to just state that he said i'd like this to be the model spca not for the state but for the country so we hope we can build on that you know these are the kind of things even if it is a statement it means a lot that somebody has has has shown a desire to invest yeah so dr marpati is is you know typically thanked for that

you can go ahead you know yeah good thank you so much the next question is so here we are uh we we are going to admit there's a little bit of the ak-47 there's a little bit of a muddled approach because we're all trying you know some of the initiatives that we've done in bangalore which has been uh setting up the squads uh we've got more than 35 squads in different cities different parts of the city trying to hold a hyper local kind of a focus so that we can move both cruelty abc etc on a slightly more manageable ward level kind of zone level basis so radha for example who's here was by the way one of the most incredible jazz singers in india she is a part of the fraser town squad and right now is doing a fundraiser for a calendar uh so that we uh we can raise some funds for the squad there so each squad has got its own adoption drives its abc drives and so on and it's been a wonderful experience cabc is something where we put together a group of people who just focus on abc on the facebook group so any problems issues get escalated in today's times gary which is what are the what are the increased rights and responsibilities for animal lovers like us okay i'd i'd say it's the responsibilities which are far greater than the rights as citizens of india we enjoy as many rights as any other citizen so we can report crime uh we can you know hold authority to uh you know do some accountability uh we have the right to information etc but as responsibilities far outweigh these rights we need to be aware that's our first responsibility you cannot just be a wet hen fluttering around saying

you need to know exactly what is the law and do not uh and also our big responsibility in this day and age of awareness is to not only identify the problem but to actually devise a solution yes before you open your mouth

what everybody knows but if not this then what yes so you need to devise a solution be a solution provider and pro i mean provide the alternative even to authorities or even if it's an rwa if they if they're asking for a dog to be removed and it's a biting dog then go with a solution say okay i'm gonna try and give it give this dog one hour a day to train it so that he doesn't chase whatever whatever solution yes yes you know but provide a solution rather than just being a complaint register you know and that to a shabby one at that because you know most people um the calls that we get you know this is illegal and then i asked them you know okay illegal under what and then no what it's just illegal so uh we need to now be a little specific that's our responsibility we also need to obviously collaborate with each other and escalate wherever there is requirement so that whatever goals we set for each other or for ourselves uh in the animal welfare movement are met so i'd say uh it does it doesn't just end there that you've rescued one dog it goes much farther now it doesn't end there that you registered one fire you need to you know be a little aware and responsible to go a little further see whether the charge sheet is filed or not see whether the animal has been you know dealt with as per the case property animals rules 2017 or not see whether the health checkup or the medical requirements or veterinary check assistance is given to the animal or not etc so following up following through with everything rather than just you know suddenly waking up shooting a couple of emails and forgetting about it for one month uh those those times and those uh things do not work anymore uh we need to just be a little more serious in what we do and follow through with everything be aware follow through uh don't leave anything half done i think uh that's how when when your movement is like half bedroom you're pulling a big weight you know through the well or maybe a bucket of water if you leave it a half mill

so you've come you pulled the bucket half through the well so don't give up just follow through and pull it all out yes you know uh this was in connection with what you're saying i remember when the uh dog breeding and marketing rules were being discussed or even uh in in terms of prevention of cruelty to animals and you made a very cogent point to me you said uh it's all very well so you want to go and confiscate an animal you're so outraged that something is being done have you thought about where you're going to keep the animal so you know the follow through is a brilliant and sim an important point saying we can't be reactive or ad hoc in our approach because that actually affects the animal much more than perhaps even the cruelty does the lack you know the muddled approach that we have saying how telling you about hanging kind of thing it doesn't work so you know working then and this is what i remember you telling me saying work ahead try and work with the spca and some saying where is the pound that you're going to keep the animals that are going to be uh and the right word is seized not confiscated because confiscated has a you know ownership issue so i remember that as well that you mentioned so all of these things that i think is what has also changed and i have to add a little bit to you what you're saying gary is i mean i completely agree that it's more responsibilities than rights but i want to take you back to three to five years ago when as a feeder you could do nothing you know as a person who's experienced or seeing cruelty you could do nothing you know you were working in silos and you were working with nothing so it was very very traumatic i think to be an animal lover in that time today whether you look at the circulars for keep allowing you to keep apartment by your apartment whether it is feeding uh you know support whether it is the way uh the civic authorities i mean look at civic authorities like us bbmp actually supports us in uh if there's cruelty or there's a issue of a stray dog being poisoned or bludgeoned or whatever they actually help us file an fire so things are there so i'm grateful i'm really grateful and i want to go on to the next question gary if i may um as individuals and groups because we work in both capacities and you are very strong on the issue of being practical collaborative working with stakeholders you know not being the i'm gonna just be that person who will shoot everybody and then tell them that i'm the you know i'm the gorilla that does all these fancy stuff so as individuals and as groups that have the advantage of social media reach what is it that we should do now to leverage the system

well first of all uh you need to know i mean you know what we've just started a fellowship program called ahimsa fellowship and that's where we're training uh 20 or so young individuals on um on basically how to uh reach out to and work with state governments and district administration and the one of the first assignments that we gave them is to make an excel sheet of all the officers um and public representatives of their cities and states um and have their email ids phone numbers know them you know as much as possible um because you cannot i mean these are peacetime activities these are not activities which you do when there is already an emergency sitting on your head you know so when you have a day off and you have nothing to do figure out who your district magistrate is who the district judge is who the prosecution officer is who the uh animal husbandry dho whatever you call it the district animal husbandry officer and the secretaries of all these departments the municipal commissioner the mp of your area the mla of your area um probably work out some friendly mps mlas um of of the state uh who you can run to or ask for a call to be made or something like that or work out which is officers or other officers that you can find connections with so making all of these connections and having them and then strategizing that okay if i write a letter to this person i'll mark a copy to three others and then i'm going to file an rti and ask what they've done about my letter and probably i'll be a visit to this guy and maybe the next week i meet the other person so you know planning everything is just so so important in leveraging because otherwise it's it's all in your heart in your head and you want something to happen but you've not planned for it and people are the key you need to uh be you know be there in terms of your letters your representations your uh your your personal presence for your things to you for your file to really move um so uh for instance there's some lady who called me from gujarat oh my spca does not hold meetings so i said how many times have you written to your district magistrate two world meetings have you gone and met him to ask him have you submitted a you know proposed agenda uh for the meeting i mean are you going to just wait and look up at the sky kisses you know you got to make the cloud and make it rain yeah so uh you can't just wait for things to happen you have to be the mover the shaker the hustler to actually for instance supreme court has given the order that every state will have a slaughterhouse monitoring committee uh headed by the urban development secretary another order supreme court gave that there is going to be an animal birth control monitoring committee again headed by the urban development secretary you go to the urban development secretary he'll he'll say what i mean are you talking greek because nobody has written to him nobody's been to him we're just all sitting happy that okay supreme courtney

we have to hustle move uh make the system work there are good people in the system that's the premise we should start with we should not start with the sarkar hamari dushman standpoint you have to start with giving the person three strikes that's my uh this thing my mantra three strikes so once you be wicked fine twice you be wicked all right it might be a mistake three tr three times i'm going to then escalate or then bypass you know because there's always a remedy with the government the point is that the government is indispensable whether you like it or you don't like it whether you like the officers you hate them whatever but you can't work without them because they are the system you cannot run something parallel to the government you have to work with them so you i mean everybody needs to learn how to work with them to know them to understand how proper representations are written how proper representations are followed up uh how protocol is to be followed i mean sometimes uh we you know go wrong with protocols and uh we can probably do another session probably today is a is a short one but we i'd be happy to uh do another session on how to attend meetings how to write representations yes how to follow protocols because those fine things really matter or priya you are good enough to actually uh do little uh capacity building of the of the activists in bangalore yourself um on basic you know principles of attending a meeting submit an agenda uh you know proposed agenda aside from the agenda that the meeting has been called for then follow up for the minutes of the meeting sometimes get involved in making the minutes of the meeting follow up on the action taken report um you know even if you're just taking an appointment and meeting a person don't forget to make the minutes of the meeting and post it to him or email it to him so that you've brought it on record whether he applies replies to it or doesn't reply it endorses it gives a dissent it's not going to do anything of the sort but you put it on record that you're serious about this that you came to meet him for and that you've taken the trouble to write it down record what three things or two things that you've agreed upon and one thing that you've not agreed upon and further uh follow up and send it to him so those are basic things that we need to uh do in order to leverage anything with the government and uh basically not just that much no i was smiling so much because i would you said strike one strike two strike three i hear you because you know i i think we are far too uh you know we're far too quick in terms of jumping the gun i will bring in poor dr mahathir here again because he's the he's been the nice guy he's tried but i think more than me i think he must have been giving me strike one strike two strike three because he was going nuts with the kind of pressure i was putting on him and telling him you know what about this you know the transition from an animated husbandry and veterinary services to a kwb stroke spca let's give it some space it's hard so if i'm not going to understand that dr marpati is going to take time to transition when it has taken me so much time to transition and understand i think that's being very unfair so but the issue is if he did not like his predecessor did did not really follow through didn't act was not interested yes probably you know we wouldn't be speaking so politely to each other but the good news is that this you know so the attitude of collaboration working through uh what you've said about you know recording minuting uh gauri i am very very hopeful that if you can give us some time a little maybe next month i know you're not you know you've had a really bad cervical spondylitis and you're taking time off but maybe next month or whenever you have a time you know this connecting the dots is what is really critical for us so i hope we can do another session on that but the good news on this and i'd like to just uh acknowledge dr umapathi and the teams you know the spca team here which is slowly coming up and people understand it's better to work from the inside rather than try and be you know detractors from the outside just pointing fingers and because now we have a chance to really participate rather than point fingers these these agencies the spca the state animal welfare board the whole idea for these agencies to be uh there is for public and government people to come on the same platform and to resolve the local issues at a district level or at a state level which is why uh you know everybody needs to whoever you know the people who can contribute towards uh you know enforcement of the prevention of cruelty to animals act uh in a in a sensible practical manner must come forward become members of the spca there are several uh you know kinds of memberships i'm sure i mean if you read the bylaws you know what kinds of memberships etc that they are and become members of the uh of the spca and see what you can do for the state animal welfare board also uh the honorable minister must be the chairperson of the state animal yes but we're trying very hard to actually have i mean with the next amendment of the pca act like you said no more 50. it's not just about the penalties or several changes that we're trying to uh incorporate within the amendment one of which is to introduce a chapter for state animal welfare board and that entire chapter would list the constitution and the functions of the state animal welfare board giving it a statutory uh you know uh position so that um allocation of posts you know creation of posts and allocation of budget can happen much more easily than it is now now i understand that you know most officers who are given to the state boards are on attachment reputation and or its additional charge so they're not able to give their entire time to it and probably with due course we'd come to a level that i mean earlier pca act was with the ministry of environment and forest yeah and they they dictate terms to the state animal husbandry department so much yes but now since it's come to the same parent ministry of the animal husbandry department better changes are uh now coming through and we'd see the amendment whenever it comes we were hoping so much that it would come this winter session but it's not uh let's see probably the monsoon or if we're very lucky in the budget session we'll have a much stronger act in place uh but um i i just um deviated from my point no i think uh this is all that these platforms are especially the spca most of our uh little issues can be resolved by the district magistrate he holds he commands uh you know um over so many uh departments in the district that it it's very easy for him to probably uh ask the animal husbandry uh officer to do something or the police to do something or the it's just a corporation that is out of his uh his radius because that's urban local body their government unto themselves yeah so that's that's probably different but so many things that the district magistrate can do himself that uh we need to be extremely active in isp series and not just as like i said complaint registers but to come up with solutions that there are chicken cookers or there's an illegal dairy in some place and this is what's causing the problem of abandoned cattle on the road and we must not have these dairies here and under the corporation act or you know there's so many the water right there act have now started uh being applicable on dairies as well so each dairy for instance is required to have uh consent to establish and consent to operate you can flag these to the dm and he will have all these dairies uh probably few by few uh pushed out or uh wrapped up uh if they are violation violating the acts so or there's a poultry farm that's that's not got registered under the like i said water act direct those are two cases we won this year by the way where uh dairy farms and poultry farms are required to obtain consent to establish and consent to operate under the water act and air act and there are environmental compensations levied on on them in case they don't obtain such permissions and they are very very heavy those penalties are very heavy but it's just that people need to learn a little more about them and then start flagging go to their you know you go to your state uh pollution control board or the regional officer whoever is in the pcb if he's not acting i mean probably just i mean those are a few things you know the district magistrate the reinforcement control board the food safety officer these are very important people who can help you stop institutional cruelty yeah as well yeah um because those you can't always run to the police station and resolve but it still can be done at the local level it has to be done at the local level the laws are all sorted at the center but you know enforcement has to be at the district level so spca is priceless absolutely i think dr mapati is feeding the heat now really i'll cut the spotlight on him but i have to also tell you

with the cooperation of you and ngos we are doing best i think without you alone we cannot specially alone cannot do anything you know we are all there with you dr mapathi but more than anything else to have at least to have the the umbrella and the support in a real um space like how you you do it with all your heart you understand that there are some structural issues but you really try i think that is the first thing after that everything else is sorted out as um

simply said and like in fact from past 15 years it was dead yes you might be knowing and uh with the cooperation you and all it has coming up very good i think as you said karnataka stands first you are telling

or spca it was not active so so after our ngos and animal uh welfare activists they've come forward and they've gone very boost to our spca now it is a running very nice manner no doubt so glad actually the mandate of the ex-official officers the dna the you know animal husbandry officer or some you know representative of the district police is very limited they have 10 000 other things to do which are departmental if we think that the dm is only doing spca work we did we'd be extremely naive and interested in thinking like that he has he's a chairperson of about 50 our you know societies and committees and what not so he's got other work that uh you know spca is somewhere very low in priority uh for the district magistrate really so we need to uh and even for for other officers they have departmental work so we need to leverage is that the position of animal welfare people the you know civil society people who are uh who become members they need to compensate for you know everybody's effort they need to follow up they need to remind the district magistrate or the ceo that you know meeting you know that this order needs to be passed that you know under section 35 part 4 uh rates need to be fixed for case property animals under pca the district manager is not going to sit with the pc act and start thinking oh you know let me do this no you have to go there with specific requirements and provide specific solutions for that so once you do that i mean like i said you have to start with the assumption that everybody is good and if you tell people uh that you know this is a statutory requirement and here or here is a violation that's happening um then of course they will do the right thing

bangalore people are now you know all enthused about the spc it's it's really good because good things when good things happen more good things happen true but gary you need to kick a bow for this because this entire push for spca and hounding poor dromopathy happened because you gave me a rough framework and a kind of a blueprint that allowed it to happen uh dr mahdi knows we dug up the bylaws we did a lot of stuff but the good thing is you need to know gauri that and i'm not uh saying this because dr mahapati is here in the last three days i've looked at times of india and bangalore mirror every single day there has been detailed coverage on animal cruelty so and with a not with the thing of saying this happened and you know something really uh you know just sensational but this happened this was filed at the police station this is what happened the member secretary of the spca has done this the animal welfare officer has done that the police has done this so now you can see a natural conclusion of things that are happening there is a there is a solution orientation to even cruelty filing i don't think we have even permeated 10 percent of what we need to do we really need to get a good escalation chart one of the fantastic things that has happened in bangalore is we've got karnataka animal welfare board um being benefited because the animal husbandry veterinary services have set up a 24 helpline 24 7 helpline for animal uh you know for animal uh well for care yeah rescue but for bangalore it's become primarily you know about cattle and about uh companion animals and uh the coming together of rescuers ngos uh the government vets hospitals has been quite extraordinary so while a lot lot needs to be done it's been an incredible intervention uh and that has been sort of uh started by the honorable animal welfare minister animal husbandry minister as well as the secretary whose major money won and was a very dynamic officer and has done a lot to make things happen so grateful for people like that gary next question and i know we've taken a little bit of your time and i hope i you'll allow us a little bit of liberty um you know you have you know apart from the sentient rights of animals there have been some amazing court cases that you have enabled some years that you have done which have created change but let's extrapolate that into what are the best practices that cities like bangalore can emulate you have uttarakhand which has done enormously good work now and there are the one who have moved forward and i think a large part of it let's not get away is because you know you come from there you've understood it you've already built so much but the change has been extensive share with us the best practices that we can learn from there so um when i was in peru my uh before 2010 really i was more in into sheltering into rescues and probably some cruelty response but uh from late 2009 i started getting into campaigns really yeah and my first campaign was animal sacrifice where i and i was totally not exposed to other parts of the country so uttarakhand was like that's the universe so that's where it began and ended so when we started doing animal sacrifice prevention or you know collaborating with the government i found that my biggest ally was the state animal welfare board uh and uh i got the minister on my side who said okay we may not you know cheese off the government a lot but we'll give you silent support so i said okay that's all that's required so we got uh silent support from them which was again something you know really useful i won't go into the details but two years uh of the campaign village to village to village uh got us this absolute ban on animal sacrifice over there it's only then that i decided okay that if if you make up your mind to do something and that if you strategize and you plan ahead you can actually achieve anything so my next goal became getting uh wildlife veterinarians in the combat and having wildlife rescue centers around the state uh which through representations did not work i went to court got an order now they're wildlife veterinarians were trained in the wildlife institute of india and there are wildlife rescue centers across the state um then i said okay so animal birth control we need to do something about that uh representations again did not work because nobody was giving budget for it an animal husbandry uh obviously was not responsible for it it was urban development and the minute they saw prevention of cruelty they said what is this this is latin for us like get out so went to court got orders finally got myself onto the monitoring committee planned the entire animal birth control program for the entire state in a phase-wise manner designed everything with them while i was challenging them i was still giving them solutions so it was both ways it was not that we are enemies it was not antagonistic it was like i have gone to court because this is a public interest matter to work together let's work together if you have confusion about the law if you don't think it's your job uh let the court decide i'm still going to be your ally i'm going to work with you in order to you know obey the orders of the court and now we've got a fantastic animal birthday program which is uh in phase two already uh then we decided okay uh the gauchos they need to be funded uh earlier they had no fund whatever so that was easy i didn't have to go to court because the chief minister was sold on it and it was easy so we've got a substantial budget for the governors which goes to them every year uh which is fine you know so i just thought that you know you can build models in a state because this has to be it's a state activity this everything you know the slaughterhouse monitoring committees this animal birth control monitoring committees your state wildlife advisory boards it these are all state activities so uh since we put our mind to it and done it in one state there's no reason why it can't be done in another state now we're doing the same in delhi for uh you know the longest time there was no wildlife rescue center here and the forest department kept saying oh you know it's not our job it's not a mandate and we've asked some people to you know take the wild animals whenever they come so we said well it's how is it not your mandate under section 39 of the wildlife protection act these are government property or all wild animals so you need to be taking them and every they just say oh for so and so ngo took it and so and so ngo took it but there's no wildlife rescue center so where did the ngo take it you can't put you know probably a meal guy in a cottage shelter so you have to have a specialized handling and uh quarantined protocols uh for uh wild animals anyway for the longest time they didn't do it now finally they've agreed to it and they've done it you know so for instance they were there were captive elephants in ontario seven of them um it took me like that was the longest it took me six years with the state to you know get them to uh understand that these captive elephants are being commercially used and they were in private hands should not have you know be commercially exploited they didn't understand it i found the right opportunity to go to court and finally they were rescued now they know not a single uh you know captive elephant in private custody uh being commercially used for rides or whatever and all of uttarakhand and we did the same thing in delhi yes here also there were there used to be like elephants on the streets of delhi and that was bizarre you know a wild animal being paraded up and down in in one marriage after the other and five stars uh it was absurd but we um got them removed one after the other uh it was like a salami thing i mean of course they were uh you know unwell and everything so we got repeated in inspections uh conducted and got after it as a strategy we went and had them removed by getting after it so you just need to plan make your mind up plan nothing happens tomorrow nothing will happen next week make a plan for two years three years and then break it down into activities dial it back so that you know your steps you know who to make friends with you know which skills to acquire in order to uh and what resources you would require you know because sometimes these things even advocacy may cost a little bit of money so where are you going to source that from how you're going to you know leverage media how you're going to leverage social media make a plan and then go of course you can course correct when you go along the way of course one year down the line you might think that okay i'm going to do something else but you have to have a plan anybody who's doing animal welfare without a plan might actually just backfire shoot themselves in the foot in the longer run or just make sorry to say idiots of themselves so we need to get after it make a plan and and then be constantly uh you know open to learning yeah because the minute you start thinking that okay i know it all and i'm the smartest and everybody else is is stupid that's that's where you know you would not succeed i think that's a mantra to succeed in anything but more so in animal welfare because there's so there's a plethora of laws we might just say it's just prevention of cruelty to animals act and uh and wildlife protection act but there's so much in the food safety and sand attack that impacts animals and how they're slaughtered and transported there's so much in the motor vehicles act there's so much in the municipal cooperation act there's so much in the drugs and cosmetics act there's so many laws that you need to understand and learn your state police act your ipc there's so much you know uh even before you go to the police station the bully swallow says oh where is my power to do anything and while you know section 11 you don't know section 32 and 34 and then you're basically unprepared so forever you have to be learning things and be like a sponge you know absorb stuff from wherever counter counter-check everything uh you know and and become a little more responsible yeah whatever you're doing i i can resonate with so many things that you said and the laws are little even now when you say this i'm a little scared when you say the food safety act this and i i'm now remembering some of the conversations where i obviously my pencil was down for a little while the food safety the transportation are a lot of uh dovetailing where you can actually help prevent cruelty and i like it at some point now there's a water right there act in the environment protection act which are applicable on dairies and poultry yeah so that's where the largest number of animals suffer yeah you know so we need to understand that and ensure that that is implemented in later in spirit while we might whine and curse the whole world for the violation of pca being just rupees 50 under the water right in iraq the penalties are much higher really really higher there's a complicated way of calculating that i can share that uh session probably with you and there's a there's an order that kind of tells you how to calculate environmental compensation but it runs into tens of thousands yeah for violators yeah so we need to uh you know at least start with the enforcement of that work with the state pollution control board if there's a slaughter problem if the chicken cookers here or their meat shop slaughtering uh goats or buffalo calves or whatever you know in places which are not licensed slaughterhouses uh then uh it's the food safety and sandwich act and the licensing regulations of 2011 that need to be agitated but you need to go to the right authority half the time we just bark up the wrong trees go to the police or we go to somebody else or the animal husbandry department and they're like no which where is the act where is my power because that's how the government people think that where is it written in law that this this is what i have to do so you need to tell them here it is written in law that this is what you have to do so you need to be very specific about your your ask and go with the solution that this is a problem and here is what you need to do here it's written over here and my representations are company so that's how it works yes and some of it has been really eye-opening uh tauri and i wanted to also use this time to be able to tell to remind everyone that we are one of the first few countries that have been so strong in terms of limiting um what is the way i'm so sorry i know that you're yeah i'm really hurting i know thank you so much for taking the time but we're one of the first few countries that have actually um uh you know we don't allow imports of pedigreed animals uh we have cosmetic testing uh laws we want i think probably the first country that's doing that so i think we forget that you know we have many firsts and very strong pro uh animal compassion uh structures or frameworks that have been set up in india and thanks to people like yourself and others like hsi and peter who've really really gone ahead and uh and fiat who have made that made that effort and made that reach out as you said it's sometimes so complex like when i'm talking to you honestly i'm both extremely enthused and say oh wow yeah oh my we can do that and i have to say that i also feel a little swamped saying oh my god but how will i ever know so i'm going to get on to my next question which is uh stakeholder management um and education whether it's the police or the civic authorities rwas or government uh i'm going to also remember what you said to me yesterday when you briefly spoke saying that you really can't expect to work in a vacuum and you certainly can't expect that uh unless you know how to navigate and how to deal with people collaboratively if you want to take a combative stance nothing is going to be moving forward so your thoughts on stakeholder management and i i promise you this is my last question i know we are running out of time and i if we if you can spare a few moments i don't have a chat window for some reason but if somebody puts up their hand maybe i can ask a question or two towards the end so this question on stakeholder management and the last one which i will ask will be on no more 50 but stakeholder management first curry yeah so basically we uh first have to like i said make a strategy don't fight all the battles everybody must choose their battles wisely this is what is priority for me this is what i'm going to do this is what hurts me most so i'm going to work on this if you start fighting all the battles you spread yourself so thin that you're not able to achieve anything finally so once whoever an advocate is or whatever if they want to work only on shelters and how shelters can be fine-tuned a little more or how spca can work or you know two or three battles you pick up and then you take them to its logical conclusion before you pick up something else and and start running for it so when you when you pick up your battle when you choose chosen your agenda then you strategize and you have to there's no other way of there's absolutely no way of winning uh anything uh solely by yourself so there have to be those changes in the system because i mean finally for instance i'll i'll tell you when i was uh uh way back in deradoon and we got one piece of land and everybody was like oh now make a shelter make a shelter i said okay i'm gonna do that but in due course of time because if i make a shelter now then i'm going to probably just spend the rest of my life

providing for the shelter while i haven't really i'm not ready for it yet uh and then somebody said it's 30 kilometers away from the city but animal birth control was a big requirement so uh i was kind of being pushed into making an animal birth control center over there and i said that'll be really strange to have an abc center 30 kilometers away from the city built by me funded by me i won't be able to cover half the city in my lifetime yeah so uh the only way to do it was to actually get the government to make the animal birth control center on their own land with their own money put me on the monitoring committee so that i can tell them that this is the technically correct way of doing it and that is where improvement is required so rather than taking everything upon yourself we have to work with the system because you cannot nobody is uh going to live forever so we have to you know put sustainable systems and and then so that they can also scale up and cover more places than just one you know lone warrior crusading in one little two two more sector or something and then that's it and basically it doesn't uh have such a far-reaching effect so uh once we have you know identified what we are going to do and how who we are going to do it with then collaborating and getting people on board is very very important and patience is required uh because people will not understand initially even if you for instance even now if i go to a police station to get an fir filed or something it is like one workshop you know it takes about half an hour to explain it to them that this is the law here it is written see this is the violation see this is what he did and here is the evidence so you know i'm giving you an fire and here's your power to register it he has your power to seize it after seizing this is what you need to do under case of the animals rules etc so it's like a class you know even in a police station so you need to be patient with people you need to forgive uh have a large heart when when people don't understand because half the time we just get so offended us they credit i is probably the biggest reason for animal welfare people to fight let somebody take credit at least the animal benefited you just have a large heart and put your head on the pillow at night thinking you've done the right thing you've been the bigger guy so be the bigger guy and let people take credit if that's what excites them next time probably they'll give you credit for the work they've done if you behave yourself this time so it's really important that we keep you know uh who is a leader a leader can only be you know even in a family setup the eldest person is the leader because he just takes everybody under their wing you know so learns to you know forgive and forget and move on you know and work together so that's how the animal welfare movement in in our little cities and states will also work uh and more and more people should come up uh becoming leaders check the little younger ones who are you know talking nonsense on facebook and and get get people to you know work like a family bond and and work together because you might not be able to do everything together we can actually do most of it so uh keeping everybody together is i think one of the very very important aspects of achieving your goal and and training everybody together it's not a one-up menship you can't uh you know i mean you'd actually be more famous and and get more credit if you you know just let others speak uh you know for your uh this thing or just let them do whatever they're doing just be the bigger guy every time yeah yeah it's an interesting example that you used about a family and about stepping back and you know as i said we may all smile about this because we've actually seen this happening but the fact is it derails a lot of the work and curry a quick input also on the stakeholders which are outside the animal welfare community as you said it's us it's a slippery slope there's so many of them and even if we don't get into the food safety and the water the ones that you were talking about just now even if we just stay with the broad ones which are the civic uh you know the police the police are so critical um you know um the the the other departments of the government which which are actually uh mandated to provide a lot of support whether it's transport or wildlife or whatever how is it what is our what is your recommendation say a state like another car you you you're seeing people you've got dr mapati how should we approach it what has been your learning your advice so sometimes uh i mean i don't know how uh

correct or incorrect it is but most of the times i've seen people just going to meet officers and uh with their grievances never taking a proper representation with them because you have to understand see being empathetic when we can actually put ourselves in the place of an animal and think that oh my god the suffering is so much so the same empathy we have to apply on the government people also that we go to meet uh think put yourself in their shoes and think they've got their departmental work to do they've got whatever else other you know things to do and this has now just been lumped on their head yeah they don't know what to do with it uh and here you are demanding that you know under some weird law and supreme court has said whereas supreme court said you know you take the damn order with you make a proper representation because that's the only way the government works if you make a representation you cite the law you tell them this is the power here is the section this is not being followed and so such an order needs to be issued and probably even draft the order that they need to issue and take it with you that will make their work easy probably it will make them a little more uh amenable to your request because you need to you know put yourself in their shoes and sometimes we are asking for very politically challenging things you know so in that case i'd say uh if it's a policy decision and we are barking up the wrong tree we are asking the officers to take the policy decision of course they will not do that you need to know which is uh you know a power which is vested with an officer and which is the power which is vested in the mantra so you need to go to the minister and ask for policies to be tweaked that way uh and i mean for for an officer one nicely written representation explaining the law will work for a minister numbers will work you know you have to take five six people together and you know of course the letter will will have to accompany but numbers matter when you go to elected representatives because those are the number i mean you have to show strength that's true numbers uh here you have to show strength in law the with the officers so understanding the differences and taking them all together and never underestimating the value of uh you know each other uh it's not that you know if if an spc has made the the minister can't do any minister can still uh step in and allocate budget for it uh probably fight for a higher budget for uh the spcas uh probably post creation you know for a separate officer to be placed there is all you know uh a policy thing so it all goes hand in hand we just need to work uh for instance animal birth control we've uh been fighting with the commissioner and fighting with the commissioner we've never been to the mayor so half the decisions actually need to be taken by the mayor so a mayor is an elected representative so you need to deal with him a little differently than the uh than the commissioner you have to understand what is the duty of each so that you're going to the correct officer or the correct person in the correct ask so uh the ppt that i shared with you priya if you can probably share it with the rest of them and if there's any questions i'd be happy to take another session probably next month where we discuss what is the role of each department uh in our separate thingies because uh we have like we generally jump to the conclusion most people do uh that uh oh animal so animal husbandry yoga oh it's not like that yeah you know there's there's so many different departments that deal with animals we need to at least know that uh you know if if such is a problem then who is my stakeholder and who do i have to work with and how uh you know that uh one thing that i would request you gary is if it's possible because you have a slightly more macro view you've had some states that have done they simply uh what do you think it's like regular good stuff but it's been extraordinary from our point of view is if we can templatize or we can create an faq version on if cruelty than this uh if it's accident if it's a poisoning if it's general cruelty these are the these are the action points you'll be happy to know i'm already working on it probably sometime next year we'd come up with a nice one and then we'd keep adding to it as yes you know that's a dynamic kind of thing because what has to happen is we are it's like a buffet you go you know this for your south and then you go this for your dosa you go there for your pasta and you know all said and done animal welfare is not a job for most people we are trying our best and we feel guilty we feel stretched and at the end of it we don't deliver and we held to account for it because the animal suffers that in the past five or six years there are now various openings where people can actually take it up as a full-time vocation as well uh so i mean which is why we had to i mean we are always looking for people to hire and we couldn't get you know uh trained proper people which is why we started the science of fellowship yeah so that we we train people and hire them after that so um now there are organizations which are looking for uh people to work full-time if you kind of are committed enough and you feel that you can leave everything else yeah and and only focus on animal welfare then there is there are full-time opportunities available for so many youngsters yeah so um that's that's also there i hope that happens but i will hold you to that the thing that you're talking about early next year which is having this templatization which is i think that's great what i would like is you know at the end of it we talked about it we said we don't want one gallery we want 500 across india we want the the information the attitude the uh the action point and the orientation to be institutionalized so at the end of it it really is a checklist and that will really benefit animals much more and as much as the laws that you've helped make no more 50 is going to be a very big change uh coming up i personally believe that it's so critical but we have forgotten that they're also imprisonment which we don't really think about as being uh also very strong in trying to prevent cruelty but it's a good hook to have your thoughts on this before i take the next take take a question from malika and if dr mapati or rather have and rather have a question so it's not just in prison although even now there's three months imprisonment yes uh for uh any cruelty and one can if the complainant is vigilant enough after the fir uh that one is uh you know probably uh following up with the police to the charge sheet stage to the summon stage to the you know and it take the trials take so long like the firs that i filed in 2011 12 i'm actually getting summons to give witness now those like trials take really really long yeah so one has to uh be vigilant when uh your dates are coming up and when it is time for sentencing which would be like five six years later uh push for uh you know for uh imprisonment instead of a 50 rupee fine or what happens is uh i i'll give you an interesting example we were doing a workshop for uh judicial magistrates in uh bihar yeah and a certain

and of course that that's what i stressed on that you know if there is uh a case in before you consider that aside from that 50 rupees there's imprisonment as well so that registered with one particular gentleman and uh later on i got uh from his court uh whatsapp order of a matter where uh this particular person was transporting animals and did not uh obviously follow the law and uh going in a gruesome condition and what he did was came to court immediately admitted the guilt and he said okay i'll just pay 50 rupees and get we don't want it to just forget in uh forgiven just go ahead with it didn't just pay 50 rupees and he was very sure that it's just 50 rupees so it's fine but the judge said okay so admission of guilt all right then one month rigorous imprisonment and that order could not be challenged and one month so i in my knowledge that's the only order where imprisonment is given uh but uh the good thing is that in normal 50 or you know the amendment that we are wishing for we're going to grade the uh degrees of crime if yeah it's just a kick or push or just you know a basic thing where there's no injury to the animal there's one level of punishment if there's an injury to the animal which is life-threatening or anyhow that there's a second degree of uh of uh punishment and and if the animal has died then there's another degree of function so uh these degrees are going to help a lot because uh currently it's just 11 1 l which uh talks about killing and rest of it is basically non-cognizable it's just mutilation 11 1 l and animal fighting which are cognizable and most of the other sections also are pretty arcade now uh for instance section 28 leaves a lot of scope for people to imagine that animal sacrifice is allowed while it's not clarity is required there section 30 section 31 cognizability has to be increased in all sections the rules have to be made cognizable um section 29 has some improvements to be made because it's so complicated and funny uh that it it has actually never been used uh second offenses are never registered nobody uh you know keeps uh italian crimes to actually uh ensure that okay this is a second offense so it's like just one after the other so lots of improvements are coming but we need to just probably keep pushing and keep putting it out on social media appeals to the prime minister saying now the amendment is ready yeah it's it's just the prime minister's not that will bring it into the parliament and uh i think if we just continuously keep at it keep at it like you know um what should you say like like those army ants no yes probably we'll get there we'll probably get there and i have hope gary because don't forget uh we never expected the dog reading and marketing rules to come into place and look what those detailed rules have done and pet shop groups as well which we have not been able to action uh thanks to the you know the structural issues on kwb or spca but there's hope because the framework is there and now comes the next step so i'm gonna you know i'm gonna say uh thanks and i want to add one point when you talked about the judicial uh example that you use interestingly and dr mapati might know this uh and i think our team from you know cupa would also know uh the cupa lawyer and i hope that we have dr muppety will take on somebody as an honorary uh legal officer for which is mandated under the kwb or scwb and the spca we need them we we must have them uh but actually has suggested a training for the judicial system in karnataka and particularly in bangalore in terms of training them on the animal laws and what exactly are the connecting points if that happens who knows uh gauri we may actually have a similar situation to what you had in your uh you know in the training you did in bihar um we've done it in several states in fact in ukraine every single magistrate uh it has now been through our workshops we've done about eight or nine of those there all the magistrates in himachal have been through our workshops we've done several workshops in bihar madhya pradesh assam uttar pradesh and uh police academies which is capacity building is such an important absolute part of what we do so there again we institutionally we collaborate with the bureau of police research and development for the judicial academies we uh we wrote to the national judicial academy first and then we've held about seven or so workshops the national judicial academy which is a supreme court's uh administered body where magistrates from all over the country come so we it's it's just that uh and it's an eye-opener for them you know yes whoever attends our workshop is like oh my god we didn't know this existed yes so it's um i can relate because i have the same reaction you know myself so gaby i'm going to also hold you to this so there are two things i'm going to catch you on one is the next session on connect the dots in terms of the actual stakeholders and you know what we need to do which is the which is that the templatization and this perhaps if pfa and your particular group can look at doing a training for us in bangalore at your you know with people here i mean i know you can't do this i would be very grateful because i could really make a big stride where it really counts i'm going to hand over the next question to malika and to radha malika you've been very patient and uh can i just ask you to keep your question short and to address uh what would you like uh gaudi to to to answer thank you so much priya for organizing this session um gauri i've heard you uh many times earlier and it's always nice to hear what you have to say and there's always a learning from these sessions in fact priya read my mind you know many a times we feel empowered or we don't feel empowered when we don't know the laws and i will admit as much as my heart says i really want to go all out to do many things many a times if not for people like priya who really orchestrate things in a place like bangalore i have lived in other cities as well so i am well aware what goes on in other cities uh i i think the template that priya spoke about that will cover uh ready rethoner on uh the guidelines because uh today it was a learning for me that there are other acts which also envisage uh you know animal cruelty all along we only knew about wildlife cruelty and pca so if that comes in handy i think you know i i don't need to be a lawyer but at least i will have resources available to me which will help me you know take it up at least and ensure that those authorities are held accountable which is somewhere where we start uh you know stammering and we are not sure of what we are speaking and of course like priya said we are all an emotional bunch of people here so i don't want the emotion bit to get better of me i want the law bit to be to to empower me correct so malika you raised a correct point in fact i'll just have say two things one that i'm also not a lawyer so uh it's just self-study that that can actually make everything very clear to you second thing is that pca act is written in baby's language if you compare it with other statutes you'd find that it's written like in child's language and it's sometimes absurd also uh certain sections are never used because they really mean nothing it's a badly drafted statute however good the intentions may have been at that time in 60 but that just about you know 40 sections to read and it's not much if only people were to just go through it so that they know what's where you know and the rest of it comes for instance they used to tell us in school when we were young that you use a word three times it becomes yours you know a new word if you wanted to learn a new word you use it three times and it becomes yours so i have felt the same applies to these uh provisions of law so you just go out in the field and you use it and you will never need a teacher you would be telling people how to implement it properly then because you would have learned it experientially uh how what's the word with experience basically so um if you want to probably there's a dairy just do half an hour's googling about it and you'll know that under the food safety and standards licensing regulations uh 2011 part three every dairy has to be registered underwater act territories have to be registered under the cattle premises registration rules theories have to be registered under the municipal corporation act theories have to be registered you have four weapons already before you've actually gone to the dairy and figured out anything but correct we are trying to put everything in a digested format so that it's easy for everybody to you know just go subject wise and and see okay these are the laws that are applicable if there is a poultry farm here is a law that that's applicable if there's a dog situation here's what i need to do if there's an fir then this is my flow chart uh what are the performers what is the duty of a veterinarian where is it written in law etc etc but also it's it's really not that difficult just read the pca act keep the bear act with you don't ever think that i'm going to google it when i come across a situation you know uh buy the bear act keep it with you underline stuff put flags in it put markers in it make notes over there you know do what you can but it's very easy seriously and the rules you can obviously i mean uh read them as in when the time goes but the sections of the act are seriously simple however there are other statutes as well which you will start picking up if you uh you know once you gain a little bit of confidence with one act then you start exploring everything else also it's the other thing rti start you know uh asking for information so even rti you will have to read the act because then would you know what is the definition of information what can i ask for then you have to see your state rules that you know are they going to take cash from me are they going to take an ipo are they going to you know uh probably ask for uh 10 rupees or 15 rupees every state has a different set of rules so read the rti act you will be so like the first time i read it and i saw that now dr walker will probably think that i'm giving ideas to all of you but i can't resist it so the first time i was going through the arctic act and i used to use the act to get information very frequently all the time and once uh with the forest department they said that oh there's a weed called lantana that used to grow in the forest areas and that lantana was like every year they would use some 20 30 crores of the kampa fund to remove lantana from the forests because that weed when it grows then it doesn't let the other elephant water actually grow uh so and i knew for a fact that they're doing nothing about lantana because i mean those inside people had only told me kushnik and they just uh you know utilize that money in weird manners so i said all right now you give me uh gps locations of uh whatever wherever you've removed lantana from and i don't want to do inspection of work so this is the idea that came to me when i was reading the act and i said okay work also can be inspected files can be inspected so for 10 rupees i'm gonna make you show me where you've removed lantana from and obviously they did not give me that information and i even went to the extent of saying i'd be happy to pay all charges you know whatever in expenses i incurred but i'm going to see where you're doing it and i took them right up to the commission where i got an order in my favor and then finally they were like oh i asked yeah once again obviously they had done nothing about it so uh they were totally exposed so when you read then you get all these ideas in your mind more ideas than anybody else can give you you know by just telling you something you understand so you can probably when the situation is right things will start falling into place pieces will stick you know if you if you've just studied yourself a little yeah that's that's something right because your unique problems will have to have unique solutions and nobody can tailor make your solutions for you so if you know what pieces you have then you can fit the right one in the correct place when the time comes

my second question very quickly role of uh you know harvo officers in every city state uh i mean i know there's a limitation and not everybody is certified uh can we

am i audible or was i breaking

and there's no difference between uh anybody walking on the road and a hover officer just nothing technically nothing

okay there's no huge power there's just no special power sometimes there are a lot of people who use these cards to say oh i can enter a premises and i can see something or the other that's absolutely illegal there's no such power given to our officers because house cards are given by central government right the awbi why the power of search and seizure is connected with law and order and that is a state subject so only the state government if you see in section 32 and 34 the police has that power and anybody else who has to be given that power has to be notified by the state government nobody else center can't give power to people to search and seize any any place or to have any special power under the pci act kwb do it depends if the kwb has been notified those powers have been notified 4kwp for instance in uttarakhand state annual board the state government has notified that such powers will west with the state annual board members but it depends from state to state since the constitution and functions of the state animal welfare board are not uh you know defined anywhere and it's you know everybody's picking up their own in the in that case you'll have to see whether those powers have been given thanks definitely spca has it because spca rules mention it but only spca authorized person so whoever's a member of spca does not have power to search and sees if the s if the dm authorizes certain people to inspect or to search and seize then only will they get the power otherwise they but there's no difference between a colony caretaker or how or any other person uh in law they're just the same it's just probably it helps you if you go to the police station and show them a card but if you talk sense that'll be enough you know i i mean there are times when i once a month i do this demonstration here in delhi where people say oh you know the police doesn't listen and you know nobody listens to us and we go and whatever so and we need why don't you make a pressure call just tell them that you're calling from mrs gandhi's office and then they'll whatever so one this i think a couple of months ago when during the lockdown there's somebody beating up a cat in their house and they're mad people or whatever so this woman calls me up at one o'clock and says oh but they're not listen the police won't listen the police will listen and then she obviously got me so emotional i said okay i'm coming with you and i'm going to hide my face and demonstrate how it's done so obviously we were wearing double triple masks i did not mention forget my name sanstha nothing no names at all just went to the police station said sir we need your help this is what's happening here it is you know how it's illegal you need to come and help us we've come out of our homes only because this is such an urgent situation could you please send two people to help us they were happy enough to send it just because he didn't behave like hysterical uh emotional balling people the police was happy to help and uh we went there got the cat out gave them the written complaint and walked away with the cat i mean they were so happy to help i'm just saying that where there is bribery where there is other kind of you know corruption entrenched the police will resist anyway but if you are uh sensible enough and if you go to the police station with enough authority in terms of your knowledge you will not need heart walker colony category anything or even any organization

solely by yourself

sensible thank you Gauri for that and thank you malika for the question both questions i think one of it was uh interesting for dr marpati as well rather i'm going to hand it over to you you've been patient answered everything that i can possibly think of i have millions of things that i cannot ask you because i realize i don't know anything but i just want to say one last thing because i think it's time for us to also go priya because of the fact that you have set up these squads all over bangalore i really think our little in our little or sphere here in bangalore where we are dealing with the lives of dogs and cats and pet animals um it's a really good situation where people are on their own you know it's like the borg everybody's functioning without a head doing exactly what you said gary you know taking initiatives doing things and as you said there were 26 squads 36 squads something 35 yeah it's an astonishing um fact of life here in bangalore so i think most of my questions are answered thank you for all that info and i realized how i know nothing now i feel that every day and gauri is responsible for making us feel like we know nothing but i do believe when we realize that something is missing that we start looking for it right yeah i still look for the information all the time there's so much happening every day that we all need to constantly be on a learning path but thank you so much for organizing this uh priya thank you lovely chatting with all of you and i hope that uh we have many more sessions like this

you know let's go bangalore let's go i'm going to give you the last word typically dr umapathy to say a big thank you because he's the guy who's going to be leading the charge in bangalore so dr omapathi a small uh a small boat of thanks from your side if you don't mind gauri you know running with a cervical spondylitis problem and i said we'll close at six we're at 6 37 what the

has given a lot of good information for our animal activists because most of them don't know simply they will be going to police station and uh they'll be asking for a violin affair and to take immediate action and all it's very difficult they have to follow some rules and regulations and they have to approach the officers properly then only the things will be done smoothly so gauri madam has given good information thank you very much for gauri also thank you thank you so thank you so much dr maputi for what you've done but gauri for uh bringing this together and i know how difficult time is for you but not only am i going to hold you to the next talk but to the democratization we talked about to moving forward on the training i'm going to hold you to all of them but thank you for being who you are and for being such an amazing uh lit up clear-minded individual that has given me so much of a direction in the last couple of years which i don't even think you know about but i do your conversations have meant a lot and i'm glad i'm able to share you and not be selfish with people who are here today and i hope they benefit as much as i did thank you so much thank you priya please get the same energy and you know everybody else should get a rub off from her uh priya it's amazing uh what you're doing and i i'm totally with you all the time lovely so whatever we can do to collaborate and work together um we'd be very happy and do remind me for whatever else is required uh if there's any any backup support direction or whatever is required we'd be happy to you know help you with that. super we'll take you up on that so everyone thank you so much i know there was no chat window which you could ask questions my apologies for the technical error but we're going to do this again we've had a promise from uh gauri so good night everyone and very special thanks to gauri for doing what you can have a great time be kind to the animals and use your heads thank you and good night