A futile debate
The story Blurring identities (16-31 May, 2015) was unique on many counts. Personhood to animals is a fallacy that can only exist in the polemics of the animal right activists. Everyone knows that most animals have been sources of food for human beings from time immemorial. Can this natural chain be broken now? All of us, even vegetarians, approve of domesticating a wide range of animals and insects for their interest and thus encroach upon their right of freedom, food and habitat. Can acts like milking a cow, saddling a horse, yoking bullocks, squeezing honeycombs and chaining dogs be condoned under the proposed personhood? Animal rights activists first ought to ponder whether human civilisation has granted personhood to all its races across the globe. Today, the bane of one
country or race is exploited as a boon by another country or race. In such a scenario, the very idea of personhood for animals looks far-fetched. The least humans can do for animals is domesticate and treat them kindly and make their butchering as humane as possible.
L R SHARMA
SUNDERNAGAR