18 May 2002

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Anuradha Sawhney (0) 98201 22602

Stuttgart, Germany—The news comes at a time when Orissa state’s anti-corruption bureau has discovered that police and transport authorities take hefty bribes from each lorry carrying illegally overcrowded cattle from Orissa to West Bengal: DaimlerChrysler, the world’s number three carmaker (headquartered in Germany and owner of Mercedes-Benz and other brands) has assured PETA that it will not consider using leather obtained from Indian animals until the cruelty to them stops. The car company reviews its buying options continually, but India will be off its radar until PETA gives the nod.

Also joining PETA’s boycott of Indian leather are May Department Stores, the second largest  upscale department store operator in the U.S., as well as U.S.’s  Quiksilver, and U.K.’s Mothercare. These giants have pledged not to buy any Indian leather, now bringing the number of large companies who have made the same commitment to almost forty. The Delhi office of Swedish company, Hennes and Mauritz (H&M), reveals that the company has also asked its suppliers to stop using Indian leather until there are solid improvements in the way Indian animals are transported and slaughtered. H&M operates 770 stores in 14 countries.

Activists are now turning their sights on NEXT plc, a UK based company, which despite having been made aware of the abuses, has not yet joined the boycott. A PETA member dressed as a butcher has ‘slaughtered’ and ‘skinned’ an activist dressed as a cow in front of a NEXT retailer in London to demonstrate the plight of real Indian animals killed for their skins and more demonstrations are planned.

Although the Indian Council for Leather Exports (CLE) still claims that it is ‘taking steps’ at the Prime Minister’s level to alleviate animal suffering, no solid improvements have been seen in appalling conditions at the abattoirs; at the market; or in transport where the crux of the problem lies. As for the government, the penalties for animal cruelty remain weak and insufficient despite pleas from everyone from the Dalai Lama to Sir Paul McCartney, Ravi Shankar and over two dozen Bollywood and other Indian stars. The CLE reneged on its earlier pledge to provide monthly reports on efforts being made to clean up its supply chain to PETA with those reports drying up in May 2001. PETA has informed the CLE that the door is open to review recent reports and for cooperation, but the CLE has yet to walk through it.

The Indian Ministry of Agriculture rightly refers to leather as a ‘co-product’ of the meat industry rather than a ‘by-product,’ placing responsibility for clean-up operations squarely on the leather industry’s shoulders. A proposal recently submitted to the Ministry by a group chaired by Mr. Irfan Allana, Owner of Allanasons Ltd., a company involved in the export of buffalo meat from India, encourages the expansion of the meat and leather industries by asking that bans on the killing of certain animals and on certain meat exports be lifted, but fails to attach sufficient importance to animal welfare issues. PETA has asked the Ministry to make animal welfare a priority both at the export and domestic level.

PETA Research Manager, Poorva Joshipura, explains, ‘I have taken members of the CLE into abattoirs to show them that animal protection laws are never followed at India’s municipal abattoirs or in transport. There was horror on their faces as they held their noses and walked through the pools of guts, body parts, blood and waste on the floor of the Kolkatta municipal abattoir, flinching and sometimes turning their faces away to avoid watching the cruelty. These CLE representatives watched terrified buffaloes being beaten and having their tailbones twisted and broken to force them by way of pain to the kill floor. The CLE representatives even witnessed animals crying in pain while being skinned and dismembered alive. Despite this wretched suffering, the leather industry continues to subsidise the operation of abattoirs like that at Kolkatta as well as totally illegal, unlicensed slaughter facilities through its skin purchases.’

Joshipura continues, ‘Until animals are treated with a modicum of respect, no one should be seen dead in a pair of leather shoes or carrying a leather bag while there are other industries that make the same goods without causing pain and suffering.”