An apology for justice: Just Rs 50 for a horse
BIJNOR: Four years of official inertia may cost poor tongawallahs here with the authorities culling their horses under a 112-year law and promising them a mere Rs 50 to compensate for loss of livelihood.
The tongawallahs' horses had glanders, a highly contagious disease that can be passed on to human beings. Just days ago, they were put down as directed by the Glanders and Farcy Act of 1899. Each tongawallah was promised no more than Rs 50 under the rules of the law, grossly inadequate to replace an animal that costs roughly Rs 50,000 today.
The tongawallahs are in a bind. Kirpal is all but unable to comprehend the scale of the calamity. He bought his mare two years ago at the local horse and cattle mela. She cost Rs 35,000. He pressed her into service, transporting bricks from the local kiln, earning him Rs 250 per day, just enough to feed the animal, and his wife and three daughters.
Now, Kirpal is stumped for ideas. The mare is dead and he cannot afford to replace her.
It need not have been this way. The local authorities had been down this road before. In 2007, there was an outbreak of glanders in the Gautam Budh Nagar and Meerut districts. The compensation offered for every culled horse was so small that officials rightly judged it time to revise the amount. Luckily, the rules of the 1899 Act enable state governments to do this. Dr A K Saxena, deputy director, epidemiology, of UP's Animal Husbandry Department, admits a request for improved compensation was sent to the UP governor in 2007. The request was met with deafening silence and glacial inertia.
Cue Kirpal's abject despair. And that of Rajaram, his father. Theirs are the first animals in UP to be stricken with glanders since 2007. Rajaram's glanders-infected mare was reported to be on the loose in the Bijnor district. He claimed she had run away. Meanwhile, Kirpal's mare tested positive for glanders, along with two others in Akbarpur Jhojha and Rasulpur Nangla villages.
Unsurpr! isingly, the prospect of receiving meagre compensation has hit the villagers hard. They say it is imperative it be revised to reflect current prices. For them there is little consolation in the thought that anyone unlucky enough to own a mule or a donkey with glanders gets paid even less Rs 30 and Rs 25 respectively.
The laughable compensation is more than an academic curiosity. Horses are a vital source of livelihood in these parts, used to ferry people for a fee from village to main road and to take bricks, vegetables and farm produce to market.
The tongawallahs describe the slow unfolding of their private horror story. The glanders diagnosis was made by a local vet. Subsequently, a team from the Hisar-based National Research Centre for Equines visited the affected animals. Thirty-seven samples were taken from local horses. By the third week of December, Bijnor's chief veterinary officer was told that four had tested positive. UP's Animal Husbandry Department took swift and necessary action the very next day, deeming it necessary to put down the animals. The district magistrate issued an order banning horses from entering or leaving Bijnor district. But along the way, there were some flip-flops, which briefly gave the villagers hope that all might not be lost. That was when the Animal Husbandry Department suggested the horses be quarantined in order to be tested by a team from the Indian Veterinary Research Institute in Bareilly. This was done but the diagnosis was unchanged. On New Year's Eve, the final, dismal order came and the horses were administered lethal injections and their owners left to await their petty payouts.
"Everything was done by the book," assures Bijnor's chief veterinary officer Dr R K Gupta. Perhaps. But that may be the problem. The rulebook is outdated. And a desperately poor people are suffering the consequences. In Akondha village, Rajaram's family says the loss of two horses means it no longer has any source of livelihood. Kirpal says the family has nothing ! but two bighas of land and "I do not know what I am going to do." In Akbarpur Jhojha village, Shaukat, a barber, says it will be hard going without the mare who transported the vegetables he grew to boost his income to market. Shaukat is despairing. He adopted the sick mare six months ago, nursing her back to health and reaping the benefit of her becoming "healthy again."
R D Ram, the sub-divisional magistrate of Chandpur, which administers all three villages, admits there is a problem between the letter and spirit of the law. He assures that the villagers will receive fair compensation, with the caveat that they are exaggerating the value of each
animal.
Perhaps justice lies somewhere between the two extreme versions.
The tongawallahs' horses had glanders, a highly contagious disease that can be passed on to human beings. Just days ago, they were put down as directed by the Glanders and Farcy Act of 1899. Each tongawallah was promised no more than Rs 50 under the rules of the law, grossly inadequate to replace an animal that costs roughly Rs 50,000 today.
The tongawallahs are in a bind. Kirpal is all but unable to comprehend the scale of the calamity. He bought his mare two years ago at the local horse and cattle mela. She cost Rs 35,000. He pressed her into service, transporting bricks from the local kiln, earning him Rs 250 per day, just enough to feed the animal, and his wife and three daughters.
Now, Kirpal is stumped for ideas. The mare is dead and he cannot afford to replace her.
It need not have been this way. The local authorities had been down this road before. In 2007, there was an outbreak of glanders in the Gautam Budh Nagar and Meerut districts. The compensation offered for every culled horse was so small that officials rightly judged it time to revise the amount. Luckily, the rules of the 1899 Act enable state governments to do this. Dr A K Saxena, deputy director, epidemiology, of UP's Animal Husbandry Department, admits a request for improved compensation was sent to the UP governor in 2007. The request was met with deafening silence and glacial inertia.
Cue Kirpal's abject despair. And that of Rajaram, his father. Theirs are the first animals in UP to be stricken with glanders since 2007. Rajaram's glanders-infected mare was reported to be on the loose in the Bijnor district. He claimed she had run away. Meanwhile, Kirpal's mare tested positive for glanders, along with two others in Akbarpur Jhojha and Rasulpur Nangla villages.
Unsurpr! isingly, the prospect of receiving meagre compensation has hit the villagers hard. They say it is imperative it be revised to reflect current prices. For them there is little consolation in the thought that anyone unlucky enough to own a mule or a donkey with glanders gets paid even less Rs 30 and Rs 25 respectively.
The laughable compensation is more than an academic curiosity. Horses are a vital source of livelihood in these parts, used to ferry people for a fee from village to main road and to take bricks, vegetables and farm produce to market.
The tongawallahs describe the slow unfolding of their private horror story. The glanders diagnosis was made by a local vet. Subsequently, a team from the Hisar-based National Research Centre for Equines visited the affected animals. Thirty-seven samples were taken from local horses. By the third week of December, Bijnor's chief veterinary officer was told that four had tested positive. UP's Animal Husbandry Department took swift and necessary action the very next day, deeming it necessary to put down the animals. The district magistrate issued an order banning horses from entering or leaving Bijnor district. But along the way, there were some flip-flops, which briefly gave the villagers hope that all might not be lost. That was when the Animal Husbandry Department suggested the horses be quarantined in order to be tested by a team from the Indian Veterinary Research Institute in Bareilly. This was done but the diagnosis was unchanged. On New Year's Eve, the final, dismal order came and the horses were administered lethal injections and their owners left to await their petty payouts.
"Everything was done by the book," assures Bijnor's chief veterinary officer Dr R K Gupta. Perhaps. But that may be the problem. The rulebook is outdated. And a desperately poor people are suffering the consequences. In Akondha village, Rajaram's family says the loss of two horses means it no longer has any source of livelihood. Kirpal says the family has nothing ! but two bighas of land and "I do not know what I am going to do." In Akbarpur Jhojha village, Shaukat, a barber, says it will be hard going without the mare who transported the vegetables he grew to boost his income to market. Shaukat is despairing. He adopted the sick mare six months ago, nursing her back to health and reaping the benefit of her becoming "healthy again."
R D Ram, the sub-divisional magistrate of Chandpur, which administers all three villages, admits there is a problem between the letter and spirit of the law. He assures that the villagers will receive fair compensation, with the caveat that they are exaggerating the value of each
animal.
Perhaps justice lies somewhere between the two extreme versions.
Comments