- Title: INDIA: REPORT ON SNAKE CHARMERS
- Date: 12th November 2000
- Summary: NEW DELHI, INDIA (RECENT) (REUTERS) ( ** GOOD SCENES *) SCU SNAKE CHARMER PLAYING FLUTE; SCU FLUTE; SCU FACE OF SNAKE CHARMER AS HE PLAYS HIS FLUTE (2 SHOTS) (0.15) SCU SNAKE (COBRA) COMING OUT OF BASKET AS MASTER PLAYS FLUTE (0.30) SCU CHILDREN WATCHING THE SNAKE SHOW (0.37) SCU SNAKES DANCING TO THE TUNES OF SNAKE CHARMER'S FLUTE (0.46) CU SNAKE CHARMER PLAYING INSTRUMENT; CU SNAKE (COBRA) (2 SHOTS) (1.04) SCU CHILDREN WATCHING THE SHOW; SCU BOY WATCHING THE PERFORMANCE (2 SHOTS) (1.16) MV SHOW IN PROGRESS (1.24) SCU OLD SNAKE CHARMER SITTING; SCU ANOTHER INSTRUMENT BEING PLAYED BY CHARMERS; SCU SNAKES (3 SHOTS)
- Embargoed: 27th November 2000 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: NEW DELHI, INDIA
- Country: India
- Topics: Entertainment,Environment,Quirky,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
- Reuters ID: LVA9C7UGWFA9CW60DSWA4NVGCIMG
- Story Text: For travellers in India, snake charmers gathered outside monuments can be a source of annoyance and entertainment.
But today, many are struggling to survive after being ordered by wildlife authorities to abandon their occupation, because of the threat to snakes.
For centuries, they have intrigued and enthralled generations, giving children their first introduction to snakes.
But today, Indian snake charmers are a community fighting to keep their tradition alive.
The saffron clad, mysterious-eyed charmers are being ordered to free their snakes and to look for alternative ways to earn a living.
As chairman of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, India's most high profile animal rights activist Maneka Gandhi launched a crackdown on snake charmers by invoking the 1972 Wildlife Protection Act , which makes it illegal to capture snakes.
Wild life activists and the municipal authorities have since begun raiding their homes, forcing open their battered baskets freeing reptiles into the wild.
Like hundreds of thousands of their tribesmen across the country, nearly 300 unschooled snake charmers living in Morbandh, a village on the southern fringes of the Indian capital, say the move has forcing them towards a life of anguish and poverty.
Prabhu Nath, a 70-year-old snake charmer from Morband village who has been performing with snakes since he was five, said it was too late for him to learn a new skill.
"Now the government has restricted us from keeping snakes.
They force us to free the snakes. So, that means there is no way for us to earn our livelihood. We are not educated, we never went to any school, so there is nothing else that we can do. Life has become very difficult," Nath added.
Animal rights activists say Cobras used by snake charmers are forced to bite on a piece of cloth, which is then jerked out of their mouths, ripping their teeth out.
This can often lead to septicaemia in the snakes, resulting in a slow and painful death over three or four months.
Meanwhile, snakes like the King Cobra and the Python are on the list of endangered species. Wildlife activists complain their numbers are in swift decline.
The residents of Morbandh say they don't capture any of the banned or endangered snakes and they also take a vow while capturing a new snake --- to free the snake within a certain period which could be anything from two moths to six months.
Village headman Durgan Nath says snakes are treated like family members, and even worshipped.
"We go to the jungles and also to the fields and catch these snakes. We keep them at our houses. We rear and train them. Then, we perform on city roads. For a certain period we keep these snakes and, after that, we free them by leaving them back in the forest so that it is able to procreate," Nath said.
But Ashok Kumar of the Wild Life protection society of India insists the capturing of snakes from the wild is indeed a crime .
"There is a problem. The number of snakes are reducing all over the country, because the use of pesticides is increasing in the agricultural fields, urbanisation. And our perception of any animal is also changing. Fifty to a hundred years ago, man's attitude towards animals was different. I consider we are more enlightened now and to keep an animal captive in conditions which are not conducive for long life. A whole lot of untruths are being spread in this manner. Apart from damage to snakes, myths like they drink milk which is not true.
Slowly, this tradition should go out. It is not fair to the snakes, it is not fair to the people themselves," Kumar said.
Still others believe snake charmers, as synonymous with India as the Taj Mahal, are a part of the country's heritage and should not be wiped out Many say the Snake charmers knowledge of snakes should also be preserved.
"Not all of them know about snakes, but there are ones who know quite a lot about snakes. These charmers --- they know -- the good ones, the traditional ones, the ones who have been doing this for many generations. They learn from their ancestors how to recognise the different types of snakes, how to find out which snake will be found where. How to treat the snake bites, those who are really worshippers of snakes. They know all this, but there are a whole lot of frauds now."
Hindus regard snakes as symbols of divinity, but do not feed them after they are captured, They are usually given milk, which most experts believe snakes cannot drink.
Often the snake charmer repeatedly dunks the reptile's head in a pail of milk, suffocating it to death.
According to a World Wide Fund (WWF) survey on the occasion of Nagpanchami, or snake festival, some 70,000 snakes die from pneumonia, lung infection, sepsis and milk allergy every year. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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