Indigenising Animal Rights Beyond Judicial Rhetoric

Abstract

This paper intends to provide a detailed overview of how modern Indian jurisprudence, reflected not only by the courts but also parliamentary legislation, imagines the domain of animal laws in India. In a field riddled by inconsistencies, one particularly vexed factor remains, of course, the status of the cow, not only as an animal but also as a broader cultural and political symbol. Navigating these dichotomies conceptually, therefore, is crucial to unravelling the Indian debate on animal law. In our view, the Indian position today represents a form of ‘compassionate escapism’ which allows judges to address specific cases of animal cruelty before them, yet at each stage sidestepping important constitutional questions including the meaning of ‘right to life’ in the animal context, its reconciliation with the PCA 1960 and the socio-cultural significance of animals in India. However, with every such judicial intervention, the courts have created more questions than they have resolved. Given the fairly untested waters of constructing an Indian contextualised animal law jurisprudence, this paper is an attempt not to substantively propose but to roadmap the most crucial issues which require debate and intervention.