Mark Twain said that there are two
important days in an individual’s life
the first is the day that you’re born
and the second is the day that you
figure out why you see for me the day
that I learned why was when I was a 13
year old girl and I stood outside a nice
restaurant in Mumbai with my mom
my dad and I saw Victoria carriage
contracted me and I told my god these
are so beautiful they’re so grand
they’re wonderful and actually what I
saw inside really sort of changed me for
life so I saw a very thin and frail
horse and she was pulling a carriage
that had six people inside it and the
rider and as expected she collapsed and
when she collapsed I saw the rider jump
out and I thought to myself great he’s
gonna get out he’s gonna take care of
her she’s gonna be fine
but what he did next jarred me and
injured everyone on that Street he got
off
he took his slippers off and he started
beating her on her face until she didn’t
stand up and she did stand up nobody
moved
nobody did everything anything each one
of us on that street felt bad about what
she had gone through that was the day
that I learned that for evil to triumph
good people had to stay silent that was
also the day that I decided I would
never ever stay silent I went on to get
a law degree and I spent the better part
of the past six years working for animal
rights I’m gonna tell you a little bit
about some of the cases that we worked
on and why I believe that the time is
now for us to start accepting animals as
citizens in our home state of
Maharashtra we celebrate Republic Day
festivals even Sundays with bullock cart
races what we do is we take these bulls
who are prey animals they’re innocent
animals they’re not animals who like to
run and we put them onto these carriages
I mean oh sorry into these carts and to
make them run we have to make them feel
and to make them feel this fear we hit
them we beat them we hit them with
spikes we take little implements that
you don’t give them electric shocks that
make them keep moving and worse still is
when they take one horse and one bull
and they put them on one card what
happens is that the bull who can’t run
as fast as the horse collapses and the
horse who can’t pull the weight of the
cart anymore falls down and when and
when a horse breaks its leg there’s only
one way one place the animal is going
and normally the animal is put to sleep
you know the tragedy of this entire
situation is that the way these animals
are treated once there was an incident
where we saw a rider actually jump up in
front and he bit the tail off the bull
to make the bull continue running and
moving faster in the state of Kerala
what we do is we hammer slaughter cows
we take them in to slaughterhouses we
put blindfolds on their eyes and we beat
them on their heads until they don’t
collapse when they collapse their
jugular is cut animals are transported
in exactly these conditions as if
they’re not living beings but they are
things awful packing 30 40 50 and even
60 of them in one truck today in India
we brag about our poultry industry we
encourage each one of us to eat eggs but
we don’t understand that for our need
for eggs
hens have to live in bare and barren
battery cages these hands never get a
chance to spread their wings even once
in their life they go so crazy in these
battery cages that they start pecking
and biting at one another even to access
their food these poor animals have to
put their heads across bars as you can
see so many of them have lost all of the
hair on their necks and their bodies
these these cages are rarely clean these
pumps stink of ammonia these poor hands
see the fat see the Sun twice in their
life once when they enter the farm and
the second is when they go to the
slaughterhouse the state of andhra
pradesh to celebrate the harvest season
who are basically bred
in isolation so they’ll ever see another
member of their species are made to
fight one another the victor gets to
live the loser is killed to the little
feet we tie blades and all sorts of
implements so that they kill and kill
one another and the other one collapses
easily the fight becomes more exciting
when the poor scared animals tried to
run away from these arenas they are
butchered and pushed back in at the end
of it they know that to live I have to
kill the other arm and that’s what
happens the loser is picked up come on
over to the winner’s side flat killed
cooked and eaten in the same day in the
state of Tamil Nadu we play a sport
called Charlie Khartoum
we take bulls who as I explained earlier
are prey animals they pack animals and
we make them run and when they when they
need to run the disorder the victor is
the bravest man who can hold on to the
hunt of this bull for the longest amount
of time an entire crowd is waiting for
this scared animal who’s been given
alcohol poked plotted and hit and harmed
in ways that we can’t even imagine their
body parts up pull they will bitten all
sorts of things have happened to them
you know so great is the fear that is
faced by these poor bulls that when they
have an option between jumping into a
feet into a ditch of 20 feet or facing
an oncoming crowd the bull chose to jump
into the ditch he jumped in face-first
needless to say in a few minutes he died
and all over South India and in the many
faults that we have we keep elephants to
bless people and to give rides I don’t
know what sort of a blessing it is when
you take a beautiful animal tie them up
with all fours and keep them in a temple
backyard I don’t know how that’s going
to change anyone’s life make anyone’s
life better in fact all we’re doing is
getting all the bad karma possible by
hurting these beautiful animals there
bill cases from Kerala where elephants
have reacted and they’ve killed their
Mahmud you know the l-train
new powers left their whole life and
when they react and they kill this man
who’d they just tied up in a temple
backyard and that is their life in fact
it’s more of a death sentence
there’s also incidences where elephants
have skin that grows over their chains I
never thought in 2017 we would still be
practicing animal sacrifice and when you
talk to me about sacrifice I talked
about some sacrificing my time to make
the world a better place sacrificing my
ego sacrificing you know and giving and
not keeping for myself but so many
faiths believe in getting an animal
loving an animal taking care of an
animal and then killing the animal and
I’m sure that when that bull cow camel
caught
you know sees that nice coming down on
their neck they die have a broken heart
before the knife actually kills them
Derry’s all over the world you know we
don’t even understand that for our greed
for milk there is a baby calf who is
being denied milk the worst is when
there is a male comes on day one he is
sent to slaughter the poor baby who only
wants his mother doesn’t even understand
why he’s being deprived off his mom what
is worse still is the mother spends many
many days in depression banging against
the walls that she is enslaved in
pulling the chance that she is died
because all this poor mother wants just
like any human mother and this audience
would want with me to be with her baby
you know by the end of this year 56
billion animals would have been killed
before on eight or our greed to eat them
as I finished the sentence many
thousands of necks have been cut and I
have not been able to do anything to
stop those necks being cut today we are
facing the sixth mass extinction so many
innocent species are being killed and it
is because of us
BBC’s blue planet – there really is the
teaser of their video a couple of weeks
ago and in this video they showed a
mother win then she was holding on to
her baby her be
he had died how had her baby died her
baby had died because of plastic
poisoning we had a hand to play in it it
was our fault and while the entire
situation seemed to so horrible
what gave me a glimmer of hope is an
environmentalist as a and as an animal
rights activist was it so many people in
the world sense upset with what they saw
they didn’t like it people who may have
been meat eaters people who may have
fish themselves people who may have
attended the circus and enjoyed the
killing of those animals today they
stood there and they felt bad for what
had happened to that mother whale and
that showed me that there is in fact
hope is one of my favorite singers and
songwriters Bob Dylan said you know
times they are a-changin gathering
people wherever you roam as Arundhati
Roy said that not only is another word
for another world possible but on a
quiet day I can hear her breathing and
this is the other world that I dream of
you see for yours we have treated
animals as it and things we have
embarrassed them we have taken away the
most basic things that they have wanted
which is to lead a quiet and peaceful
life when we want to insult someone we
say don’t behave like an animal when we
want to say that someone is interests
well we say don’t dress like an animal
when we don’t even realize that it is
awesome or badly behaved and then we
want much better behaved
we give companies and trust legal rights
it is this anthropocentric outlook of
ours it is this our outlook of ours that
I am superior we are superior we can do
what we want with the planet we can cut
down each tree we can ruin the rivers we
can ruin ecosystems we can do anything
we want to make our lives better that
has gotten us in the position that we’re
in global warming whether we like it or
not is the greatest challenge that we
are facing nations like Bangladesh I am
secure about their future the small
island states don’t know they’ll exist
in another 50 years environmental
refugees will have nowhere to go and I
asked the developed world
they open their doors to the poor at
that point of time it really is true
when the last River has been poisoned
when the air when you can’t breathe the
air when we’ve hunted them on every
single animal will we realize that money
can’t be eaten
you know despite all of this negativity
as a law student I read this book I read
this article actually cause trees have
standing by an author called Christopher
stone and sitting in Berkeley in
California Christopher stone argued that
the earth should have its own
independent rights trees should have
their own independent rights call
mccallion wrote a similar book called
wild low a manifesto for earth justice
when he argued that the environment
should have their own independent rights
and while the whole world was arguing
debating and chatting about this it was
in our country that our Supreme Court
passed an order in 2014 a bench of you
know justice pinaki whose injustice
rather Krishnan and they said the
Charlie Carter should be prohibited and
animals are real living beings these and
living beings should be free from fear
and they have a right to life which can
only be deprived in accordance with law
when we say this when we say that they
have a right to life which can only be
deprived in accordance with law and they
have a right to live free of fear we are
accepting that they are living beings in
Norway today deforestation has been
prohibited and by that I mean even from
their public procurement process they
don’t buy anything which is a product of
deforestation the Uttarakhand High Court
made to reverse the Ganga and the Yamuna
is reliving people and wildlife cases
pending in our Supreme Court at least it
means our country is thinking of animals
as people in India we have prohibited
the testing of cosmetics and of
household products on animals we have
ban mobile zoos the Victoria carriages
of Mumbai are now a thing of the past
and suddenly come
fashion is becoming cool the person who
saves the animal the person who is the
conservationist is heralded as our hero
when we see pictures on Instagram of
people who are hunting who hold up their
animals we don’t like it but we like the
picture of the brave firemen who went up
on a tree and save the kitten or you
know the sort of brave heroes that we
have today stopping the illegal wildlife
trade and poaching of animals all over
India you know Jeremy Bentham said that
it isn’t whether they can raise it or
that they can talk but can they suffer
and that I think is the point they can
suffer they can feel and the law should
extend its protection to them you know
on the 7th of July 2012 in Cambridge the
most brilliant scientific minds came
together and they they declared
something known as the Cambridge
declaration on consciousness and I’m not
a scientist and so I’m not even gonna
try to repeat what they said but in
essence they said that animals are
sentient they feel they have a sense of
self and they are no different from you
and from me despite the sort of positive
examples I’ve given you about the battle
hasn’t been won it’s still far it’s
still raging and we still need to fight
whenever I’m sad I think of the song you
know to dream the impossible dream to
fight the unbeatable foe to bear with
unbearable sorrow to go where the brave
dare not go and I know that I am
fighting a fight that is worthy and it
every day as the animal rights community
grows I know that we are getting more
and more allies on board today the
world’s largest meat companies have now
started investing in in vitro meat and
it meets the doesn’t come from animals
they’ve realized the world is becoming
compassionate as my mentor friend Member
of Parliament from Maharashtra Munna
Mahajan always says to me and because
the T is not far that we start accepting
animals and citizens it is not only the
dream of the dog lover or the tiger
Savior for this for this reality to be
actualized it is a dream
every single compassionate citizen the
choice for an animal between life and
death is you you can make that decision
if you see that I’m not gonna eat that
chicken tikka I’m not gonna wear those
leather shoes I’m not gonna buy a fur
jacket I’m not gonna buy makeup that is
tested on animals you have given them
that chance to live see in our life we
feel that we can only impact ourselves
our family our parents the ones we love
our partners our circle of friends our
co-workers but with animals when you
take that choice not to kill them
you are helping those lives who are far
far away from you because unseen they
suffer unhurt they cry in the factory
farms mother’s house who had their
babies taken away from them when they
are put into those awful crates
she can see her baby starving three feet
away from her but because she’s an iron
bars she can’t reach her baby she can’t
help I’m asking you to be that change
I read why not this book by Jack you
recall on the road which is one of my
favorite books and Jack Euric said that
too once for me are the mad ones the
crazy ones the ones who are mad to talk
mad to listen mad to dream the ones
never do or say a commonplace things but
the ones who born like women candles
they just born born born I’m asking this
very intelligent ed audience today to be
that roman candle born born born with
knowledge born with compassion born with
enlightenment born with the fact that
today you can make the world a better
place
you just have to do two things my
friends two things be vegan make the
choice leave animals out of your life
you can live a great life as a vegan and
as a vegan you are empowered with that
knowledge then not only am I
a great life not only am i having fun in
my existence but I’m also not having fun
at the cost of another living being my
only message to you except animals as
citizens because the time has come they
love like we do they laugh like we do
elephants have families like we do
chickens communicate with their eggs
when their eggs are just little babies
and they’ve just come out rats and mice
feel empathy no one in this room hasn’t
felt the love of the dog extend our love
to all living beings thank you [Applause]