With so much in the newspapers about rights, including tribal rights, water as a right, the right to information, it is sometimes difficult to figure out what a right is, where a right comes from and who gives out these rights. One interesting and practical way to understand the ideas behind rights is to try and figure out if animals have rights, and what difference it would make if they did.

Many people think animals do have rights and there are big international organisations that exist to fight for animal rights. It is slowly turning into a powerful movement. In India it seems quite popular because it fits in well with Indian religions.

The basic idea behind the animal rights movement is that animals deserve to live healthy productive lives free from harm and exploitation, and in keeping with the animal’s own biological lifestyle. This is different from the animal welfare view, which says that animals should be treated well if they are used by human beings, even if they are going to be later eaten or killed for human use. The rights view is that just as we extend or give rights to other human beings, we also have to give them to animals. We should not, and do not, exploit other humans so we should not also exploit other species.

We treat other people as we want to be treated, and we demand for other people what we would demand for ourselves. We do this because we know that other people feel pain and discomfort and have the standard human emotions and feelings like anger, fear, hunger, thirst, loneliness, friendship, and kinship. Out of this understanding that others have these feelings too comes the ability to identify with their feelings. This identification is known as empathy, which gives rise to respect and compassion. Animal rights extend that empathy, respect and compassion to other species, because it is obvious that they, or at least many of them, also feel pain, fear and the other feelings. Technically, many animal rights activists associate this ability to react to pain and seek to avoid it as being related to having a central nervous system. So of course it would be OK to kill and use plants. Or perhaps even insects, which have a slightly different nervous system.

If the animal rights view is correct, it would mean that killing or hurting animals is wrong, whether it be for food, leather or entertainment. Which is why all those who believe in animal rights are vegetarian, against zoos and defiantly against hunting.

Compare this to the animal welfare movement that acknowledges the possible suffering of animals and tries to reduce that suffering through the humane treatment of animals used by humans for food or transport, but does not demand an end to all use of animals. For example, a person committed to animal welfare might be concerned that chickens bred for egg-laying and eating get enough space, decent food, and are not treated cruelly while being reared. But they do not object to anyone eating them. The animal rights person would say that just as you would not put a person in a cage for life and then eat him, you should not do it to chickens.

The question that can be asked of animal rights activists is: “What does it mean in India when people do not have enough to eat, when people are being killed for having the wrong religion, where ordinary justice is unavailable to most people? Does the suffering of some animals matter?”

Of course this question is subtly saying that it is more important to help humans than to help non-humans, which in itself goes against the animal rights view by saying that one species is more important than others. But a more definitive response might be the point that many if not all of the actions that would be carried out if animal rights were universally accepted would actually be beneficial to human beings too. For example, raising livestock for meat and stopping its consumption would not only improve the health of most people it would also free up farmland, where livestock was grown, for crops that human beings could eat. In many cases the destruction of the environment would also be stopped, helping the poor who are dependent on the environment fare better than they do now.

Further, having more compassion for animals is likely to increase compassion for other human beings; if you are ready and willing to be cruel to animals you are likely to be cruel to other humans too. So, many people who believe in animal rights feel it is a part of the human rights movement, not some distinct thing opposed to it. After all, how can helping people become more compassionate be a bad thing?

It should be kept in mind that a lot of rights given to ‘groups’ we accept now as being obvious and correct are actually very recent and had to be fought for. For example, historically speaking, it was very recently that women and people of a different colour were given the same rights as men, especially white men.

Some of the animal rights discussions taking place right now concern testing medicines or performing scientific experiments on animals. Some scientists see this as a vital part of science, while others believe that no science has been helped by animal testing or dissections. Another discussion centres around the function of zoos; why in this day and age do we need to put animals in tiny cages and use them as a source of amusement? Proponents point out that zoos help in studying animals so that they can be protected, for example, by breeding endangered species. They also serve to motivate visitors to do more for wildlife.

Yet, choices do have to be made. If you are giving money to a charity should it be for one that helps poor urban children to survive? Or one that looks after street dogs? After all we only have a limited amount of money.

It might be interesting to do a kind of straw poll amongst your friends and family. Let us know what people think. Are animal rights worth pursuing in India when human rights and needs are not being met? Or, even more simply, do animals have feelings of the sort that human beings do? And is that enough to ‘grant’ them rights?

Warning: The discussion could get rather heated!

If you want to learn more about the philosophy of animal rights, here are titles of three fairly recent important books. There have been people writing about the subject for thousands of years but these books are said to have started the modern animal rights movement. They are hard going in places, but quite rewarding and more than worth the occasional struggle.

• The Case for Animal Rights, by Tom Regan
• In Defense of Animals, by Peter Singer
• Animal Liberation, also by Peter Singer

August 2005