YuLin 2015: Are Animal Lovers Biased Towards Dogs?
The YuLin 2015 dog meat festival online agitation sparks of a debate of supporting all animals equally
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The outrage on the social media against the Chinese dog meat festival YuLin 2015 kicked off a huge worldwide campaign to stop the festival. The shocking photographs of dogs being torched, boiled and beaten to death and served on a platter were shared across the world on Twitter and Facebook, which caught the attention of dog lovers across the globe. Various online petitions were sent out through email to stop YuLin 2015.
While animal activists are happy with the kind of support people have shown on social media to ban YuLin 2015, the other debate that’s started is that why this outrage and anger only to support dogs and not other animals when they are tortured through the year all over the world for various reason like sports and religion. Cows, buffaloes, hens, goats and other animals are transported in terrible, unhygienic conditions and slaughtered through the year, but never have we seen an outrage like this on the Internet?
The popular ‘Running of the Bulls’ in Spain gets huge coverage on television and online, in fact we also saw the festival in a mainstream Hindi film, Zoya Akhtar’s Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, where Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar and Abhay Deol participate in it in the climax. Everyone enjoyed the film but no one chose to look beyond the stars.
Last year there was a lot of hue and cry when pictures of buffaloes being sacrificed from Nepal’s Gadhimai Hindu Festival started circulating online. Over 5000 buffaloes were mercilessly killed during the annual festival. Millions of devotees gathered in Bariyarpur for the two-day event and gory photos of blood and slaughter made it to most timelines. But that didn’t stop the killing.
Mumbai’s popular animal activist and veterinarian Deepa Katyal says, “People shouldn’t sit and enjoy cruelty. Animals are not just tortured only in China, they are tortured everywhere. Not just dogs, all kinds of animals are tortured for various reasons. Be it cock-fights in Pakistan, bull-fights in Spain, buffalo killing in Nepal for religious reasons and now I am told dog-fights are happening secretly in India, basically every country has to come up with strict laws that protect animals. And those who support the agitation against YuLin should also consider supporting causes when any animal is tortured.”
Recently Maharashtra banned beef for religious reasons, cow slaughter has stopped but other animals including buffaloes are still slaughtered across the state. Protecting one animal and continuing the torture of others is something that animal activists feel is unfair. Katyal adds, “There are a lot of religious beliefs behind all this. I would say torturing and killing of any animal is unfair and the law of the land has to protect animals just like they protect humans. The mindset has to change, every life on this land is created by God so we shouldn’t be selective in showing support towards animals. I would urge people to support any cause that supports stopping animal cruelty and torture of any kind.”
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