The recent incident of a housewife in Bangalore who
flung some stray puppies to their death shook me. A few days later, there were
reports of a management graduate in Chennai who threw a dog from the terrace. Then,
watched a Facebook video of the plight of Jersey calves in dairy farms across
the U.K. where around 90,000 male dairy calves are shot every year within days
of their birth because they have no value in the dairy industry! This kind of
inconsiderate treatment of life makes me wonder if we are human at all. How
cruel are we!
If I try hard enough, I might still understand cruelty
for survival. But cruelty for an insane sense of pleasure or out of lack of
sensitivity to another living being or plain greed - that is something I can't grasp.
When animals are overworked, brutally experimented on where they sometimes lose
their eyesight or life itself, beaten black and blue because you are incapable
of venting out your frustration on anyone else and you find a mute animal and
you go mad on him, I have found these behaviours extremely hard to come to
terms with.
Apparently, there is a term for the pleasure
derived from cruelty to animals. It is Zoosadism. Ernest Borneman
coined the term. It is a sign of sociopathic tendencies.
Various studies have proven that if people like or are ready to cause harm to
animals, they are equally likely to do so to humans as well. People diagnosed
with certain psychopathologies, including antisocial behavior, have had a
history of torturing pets and small animals. A study of psychiatric patients found
that all of them had notably high levels of aggression toward people. And they
had a history of repeatedly torturing dogs and cats. Cruelty to animals commonly appears in the
records of rapists and murderers. One extremely disgusting Zoosadist was
Richard Chase, an American serial killer who killed 6 people in a single month.
He would remove the guts from animals. He would them consume it raw or mix the
organs with Coca-Cola in a blender and drink the brew. He believed that by eating
the creatures he could stop his heart from shrinking.
Insects are not spared either. Have we all not seen the
child who pulls off a fly's wings? As a child, I remember neighborhood boys
trapping butterflies in glass bottles and watching them die out of suffocation.
Just because they have no human language we kill or maim innocent animals. They
depend on us for food, for survival. They do have a speech pattern and language
of their own. It’s a pity we humans don’t comprehend what they speak. Surely,
we can’t let the poor souls suffer! Starvation, death, maiming of limbs – the
things we humans do to animals without the slightest guilt whatsoever just
because the animals cannot speak human language! Will we ever grow up to show compassion to another
soul? It is sad, really.
These things will not end unless we raise kids who are
actively and consistently discouraged from harming another life, no matter how
small the animal. There should be no hiding behind the excuse that “oh it was
just for some childish fun.” Raising kids who have had at least one animal as a
pet, whom they fed or took care of, will also help in stirring their empathy. Greater
social awareness against animal abuse and stricter implementation of laws and
punishments are needed too. But most important of all, we need to value all
life forms, to be grateful to the diversity that God has created, to appreciate
and know that every life is worthy; no one is above another, no one deserves
pain. Can we all, as parents, make a difference and raise kids who learn to be
thankful for God’s creations? Everything else is just noise. Ultimately, what a
parent teaches a child is what stands the test of time. Empathy is a treasured
emotion and the lack of it shows in every sphere of our lives. Look at the mess
we have made of Mother Earth! Reckless humans!
