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33 

Original Article 

 

Animal Ethics and India: 

Understanding the Connection through the Capabilities Approach 

 

Rhyddhi Chakraborty 

Visiting Professor of Philosophy and Global Health 

American University of Sovereign Nations, Arizona, U.S.A. 

Email: rhyddhi_414@yahoo.co.in 

 

Abstract: This paper, unveiling the visionary short-sightedness of animal protection, argues 

for a just vision towards animals in India. Critically analysing the wide range of animal 

protections in India, the paper finds that in spite of such protections, animals continue to 

suffer out of unfair and unjust treatments in the country. Considering visionary short-

sightedness as the reason behind these unfair and unjust treatments, the paper argues that 

ensuring the rights of non-human animals to basic capabilities is a fundamental and just 

vision towards delivering ethical and just actions towards animals. For this, the paper grounds 

itself on the theoretical foundation of the capabilities approach and makes some policy-level 

recommendations to protect animals in India. 

 

Key Words: Animals, Capabilities Approach, Ethics, India 

 

Introduction 

 

You be good, I love you. 

The Great Silence, Exhibition on Making Nature, 

Wellcome Collection, London, 9 December 2016 

 

These are the last words of Alex, the African grey parrot, who has been the subject of 

research on complex problem, language, and understanding for thirty tears. Alex was 

precious to the world, for, being a parrot, he was able to distinguish colors, shape, and 

numbers, and share feelings with his researcher. While animals like Alex have proved that 

they are able to communicate, able to aspire, and able to do, very few humans have shown 

justified attention and realized their aspirations, their potentials, and their entitlements. 

Exceptions are Jane Morris Goodall
1
, Dian Fossey

2
 and other persons who have fought with 

the odds and extremities to speak on behalf of the nonhuman animals who could not speak for 

their own entitlements and rights. Theoretically, animal rights have been endorsed and 

propounded by Tom Regan in 1983. Recently, Martha Nussbaum, supporting the view of the 

protection of animal rights for the sake of animals, described some basic animal capabilities, 

which she argues are intrinsic to non-human animals and are needed to be ensured and 

protected for the sake of animals and for the sake of justice towards their due entitlements. 

This paper, extending Martha Nussbaum’s vision of the protection of animal capabilities, 

explains how the animal capabilities are maintained or thwarted in India. For this purpose, the 

mailto:rhyddhi_414@yahoo.co.in


Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2017; 8(1): 33-43 

34 

paper, first, through the description of practices of animal protection, unveils the 

shortcomings of the existing Indian measures to protect animals and argues for the ethical 

connection between animal rights and capabilities. Second, with the specific foundation of 

the justice framework of the capabilities approach, the paper argues for the protection of 

animal capabilities, particularly the right to life, gives reasons why that is vital for India, and 

explicates how it can be implemented through some policy recommendations in India. 

 

Reasons to be Concerned about Animals in India: Like many other countries, it has been a 

continuing tradition in India to sacrifice non-human species for medical research, industrial 

use, farm production, and human consumption, and also to check zoonotic diseases such as A 

H1N1 and A H5N1. The common fact underlying these activities is that animals are killed 

prematurely, mistreated with the consideration of having no dignified existence, and to a 

great extent unethically to save and secure human lives. In contrast, India has got a deep-

rooted tradition of concern, affiliation, and respect for non-human animals. For example, the 

two great world religions of Hinduism and Buddhism convey messages for the protection of 

animals with respect, dignity, and compassion. Animals in the Hindu tradition mostly have 

been conceived as protectors and companions of Gods and humans. Being associated with 

gods, these animals were portrayed to be preserved and conserved, for they have shown to 

possess the capacities to reason practically, to guide the Gods and humans to the path of 

righteousness
3
. 

 

The religio-cultural tradition of Buddhism propounded its messages of showing kindness, 

love, care, and sympathy for all kinds of animals – wild or domestic. Gautama Buddha, the 

propounder of Buddhism, had always suggested maintaining a harmonious relation to all 

forms of life. The passage from the Sutta Nipāta reflects such thought and vision: 

 

Ye keci pānabhūtatthī, tasā vā thāvarā vanavasesā / Dīghā vā ye mahantā vā, 

majjhimā rassakā nukathūlā // Ditthā vā yeca aditthā, ye ca dūre vasanti avidūre / 

Bhūtā vā sambhavesī vā, sabbe sattā bhavantu sukhitattā // (Metta Sutta, SA, 146-

147;1974:364).  

 

In other words, “metta or loving kindness is to be practiced towards all creatures, timid and 

bold, great, visible and invisible, near and far, born and awaiting birth.”
4
 

 

With inspirations from such heritage, Mohandas Karam Chand Gandhi, popularly known as 

Mahatma Gandhi, has shown how animals can be protected from the slightest of slight human 

harm, both intentional and non-intentional. As Fischer noted, Gandhi propounded the notion 

that the practice of non-violence towards animals (besides humans) can actually sustain man 

and can lift the human mind above the status of animal
5
. To Gandhi, it was a sin to ill-treat 

animals, to put animals in deprived conditions. Thus, feeding stray dogs was a sin to him, for 

he believed that making those dogs stray was a sign of the failure of civilization and society
6
. 

In short, to Gandhi, depriving animals of their natural environment was a sign of failure of 

human obligation and was a matter of injustice. 

 



Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2017; 8(1): 33-43 

35 

In spite of such ancient Indian custom of being compassionate towards non-human animals, 

through the historic periods, animals have continued to suffer from inhumane treatments in 

India. The subsections below point out some vital reasons for animal suffering in India and 

explain why they are unfounded, unfair, and unjust. 

 

1.Animal sacrifice for the sake of religion: In India, non-human animals such as bovines, 

camels, horses, goats, and chickens continue to be sacrificed for the sake of religious rituals
7
, 

even though the killing of animals for religious purposes has been declared to be illegal by 

the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, the Local Municipal Corporation Acts, Rule 3, 

Slaughterhouse Rules, 2001, and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal Act (PCA), 1960 of 

Indian Penal Code
8
. For instance, in spite of orders from the Kerala High Court not to trade 

and sacrifice camels for religious purposes, in 2015, a significant number of camels were 

smuggled out of Rajasthan to reach Kerala and were slaughtered during the festival season of 

Eid
9
. Even though it is an illegal and cognizable offense to use and incite animals for 

entertainment and fighting following sections 11 (1) (m) (II) and 11 (1) (n), PCA Act, 1960, 

Bulbul fighting continues to be a ritual during Assam’s harvest festival of Bhogali Bihu, 

especially in the Hayagriva-Madhava temple in Hajo, 30 km from Guwahati
10

. Overruling 

the legal rules, as the rituals have continued to meet the needs of human religions, they have 

pushed many animals, such as camels, to be enlisted as endangered animals in the country
11

.
 

 

2. Animal sacrifice due to illegal hunting, poaching, and trafficking: In spite of a range of 

legal protections for animals under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, illegal hunting, 

poaching, and trafficking continue in India, mainly to meet the demand of international 

agents, as representative of organized transnational crime. In the Kaziranga National Park, 

Assam, for example, between 2006 and 2015, just under 200 rhinos have been documented as 

poached. Through international cells in several South Asian countries, India contributes to 

these illegal actions for various animal products such as mongoose hair, snake skins, rhino 

horn, tiger and leopard claws, bones, skins, whiskers, elephant tusks, deer antlers, turtle 

shells, musk pods, bear bile, and meat, feathers, and nails of birds such as parakeets, mynas, 

munias, etc. These actions have not only driven the animals to be endangered, but have also 

changed the morphology of certain geographical locations. Acres and acres of wet, luscious 

rainforest of the north-eastern Indian states of Nagaland, Mizoram, and Manipur have 

witnessed a sharp decline of wild fauna, for they were either trapped or hunted
12

. One of the 

main obstacles to stop this illegal hunting, poaching, and trafficking, as made noticeable by 

investigators, is the difference in the legal status of wild animals in various countries. Also, as 

highlighted, several trafficked animals are not protected under the Convention on 

International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and every year 

a few countries issue permits for legal sale of a fixed number of wild animals
13

. 

Consequently, the animal population continues to suffer disproportionately and inequitably 

across the biological hot spots. 

 

3. Animal sacrifice for experimentation and research: The use of non-human animals in 

experiments, research, education, training, and in vivo testing is popularly known as animal 

testing
14

. Worldwide, it is reckoned that every second approximately three animals are used 



Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2017; 8(1): 33-43 

36 

for the experimentation process
15

. In India, a few years back, the findings of India’s 

Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals 

(CPCSEA) had presented a deplorable standard of animal care, shelter, and treatment in the 

majority of facilities inspected. Such appalling conditions have not only caused inexcusable 

levels of animal suffering, but have also undermined any pretensions that the research was 

conducted scientifically, and that the results were reliable
16

. 

 

To stop this brutal process of animal experimentation, a number of legal revisions and 

formation of injunctions took place in the country: Amendment of the PCA Act, 1960 in 

1982; formulation of the Breeding of and Experiments on Animals (Control and Supervision) 

Rules, 1998, amended in 2001 and 2006; provision of guidelines from the Committee for the 

Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA); formation of 

rules and procedures by the Indian National Science Academy (INSA) and the Indian Council 

of Medical Research (ICMR) for the care and use of animals in scientific research as well as 

in medical colleges, and to utilize non-animal alternatives wherever possible
17

. In 2012, the 

Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change has issued guidelines to the University 

Grants Commission (UGC), the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), the 

Pharmacy Council of India (PCI), and the Medical Council of India (MCI) to discontinue 

dissection and experiments with live animals in universities, colleges, research institutes, 

hospitals, laboratories, and instead use alternatives like computer simulation to avoid 

unnecessary suffering or pain in animals. In spite of such legal bans and prohibitions in the 

country, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) reports that Procter and 

Gamble India has continued to test on animals in 2016, even after announcing the end of the 

use of tests on animals for all its current non-food and non-drug products in 1999
18

. Such 

illegal arrangement of animal research and experimentation not only inflicts pain on their 

bodily health, but also affects the environment where animals deserve to be and obstructs 

their potentialities to grow and develop. 

 

4. Animal sacrifice for public health concerns: Besides the above-mentioned causes of 

animal sacrifice, India complies with international health regulations for the control of 

zoonotic diseases such as A H1N1 and AH5N1, and culls or puts down animals to prevent the 

spread of zoonotic diseases in the country. Table 1 highlights the number of ducks and 

chickens killed in India during the past few years to check and stamp out the disease of A 

H5N1 from the country. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2017; 8(1): 33-43 

37 

Table 1. Number of Birds culled to make the country free of Avian Flu 

(Source: http://dahd.nic.in)
19

 

Year Place Total Birds Culled (lakh) 

February 2005 - April 2006 Maharashtra, Gujarat 10.44  

July 2007 Manipur 3.39  

January 2008 West Bengal 42.62  

April 2008 West Bengal 19  

November 2008 Assam 5.09  

December 2008 West Bengal 2.01 

October 2009 Sikkim 4000 

January 2010 West Bengal 1.56  

February 2011 Agartala, Tripura 0.21  

September 2011 Assam 15409 

September 2012  Odisha 

 Meghalaya 

 Tripura 

 Karnataka 

0.81 

0.07 

0.13 

0.33 

September 2013 Bihar 0.06 

August 2014 Madhya Pradesh 0.31 

November-December 2014 Kerala 2.7  

 

Table 1 brings to notice the numbers of birds culled each year during the last few years to 

check the spread of avian flu in the country. This culling procedure might have helped the 

country to control the spread of the disease during the respective outbreaks. However, the 

procedure of culling has neither helped the country to totally uproot the disease from Indian 

soil, nor has it acted as a barrier to restrict the disease in the Indian territory. Rather, even 

after culling, the disease has continued, almost annually, and caused repetitive outbreaks and 

incidences in the country. Most recently, there has been a rising public health concern against 

culling as a public health means
20

. However, without any such deep reflection of relevance 

and significance of culling as a major public health measure in India, culling has continued to 

be implemented to prevent animal-vector borne diseases in the country, leaving many animal 

lives to an unjust end. 

 

As the above-mentioned facts highlight, animals, in spite of being perceived as having special 

senses and capacities in religious traditions, continue to be ignored and continue to be used 

for different human purposes in India. In spite of the range of legal protections and a rich 

religio-cultural tradition of showing compassion and respect towards animals, the conditions 

of non-human animals in India have degraded. They are deprived of their due entitlements 

and deprived of their due rights to exercise their intrinsic capacities mainly due to inhumane 

attitudes towards them. The question, therefore, arises, what went wrong that led to such 

unjust behaviour towards non-human animals? The strive to reveal the answer obviously 

leads to the question about the underlying vision towards the prevention of animal killing and 

the protection of animals. And so, in the following part, this paper argues for this vision with 



Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2017; 8(1): 33-43 

38 

a theoretical foundation on the capabilities approach (CA). There is a need for a theoretical 

foundation, for any sort of action demands theoretical undergirding, to drive it to proper 

vision and mission, and to strengthen it to have just and fair implementation, over and above, 

the legal provisions. The CA has been chosen as a suitable theoretical undergirding for this 

study, as the CA advocates to confer moral entitlements and intrinsic worth to diverse life 

forms, including non-human animals. 

 

Capabilities Approach, Animals, and India: Being part of the global justice requirement, 

the capabilities approach has been extended towards animal rights and animal welfare for the 

sake of animals only. As Nussbaum writes, it “requires looking around the world, at the other 

sentient beings with whose lives our own are intrexicably and complexly intertwined.”
21

 The 

core focus of the CA has thus been on the moral responsibilities of humans towards the 

ecosystem where animals and humans are living in connection with each other. 

 

Going beyond utilitarian, Kantian, and contractarian approaches to justice, the capabilities 

approach holds that every life form, including non-human animals, deserve due entitlements, 

dignity, respect, and scope to flourish. Differing particularly from the utilitarian approach, the 

capabilities approach recognizes that animals have got intrinsic rights to utilize their own 

potentials, rather than depending on humans to use them. As against the Kantian approach, 

the capabilities approach holds that animals have got their due rights and entitlements, for 

they have their own moral status to live their lives by using the practical reasoning that they 

possess. And in contrast to the contractarian approach, the capabilities approach conceives 

that animals do have the potentialities to choose the life they want to have and desire to lead. 

In short, according to the capabilities approach, non-human animals do have the moral 

capacity to think about their well-beings, to be and to do and therefore deserve a moral status.  

The capabilities approach views non-human animals as agents who are capable to flourish 

and subjects of interaction who share the same resources and space to live with humans in 

this world. Animals, as the CA claims, deserve moral entitlements, rights of not being made 

to suffer, sacrificed, abused, or mistreated for the sake of animals themselves. Being 

influenced by Aristotelian philosophy, the CA admires that “there is something wonderful 

and wonder-inspiring in all the complex forms of animal life”
22

 and argues for a world where 

the diverse and complex life forms of the world get the opportunity to flourish with humane 

guidance and responsibility, for the sake of the diverse life forms, not for any human benefits. 

It, thus, focuses on the welfare of all, and prescribes protection of intrinsic dignity as a basic 

entitlement of every life form, including non-human animals. The ethical foundation of 

capabilities approach aims to respect the human-animal relationship from the perspectives of 

both humans and other animals and follows the following principles: 

 

 Animals should not be deprived of flourishing. They should be provided positive 

opportunities to flourish, especially by humans, for they impact pervasively on the 

opportunities of animals to flourish by affecting habitats, determining opportunities 

for nutrition, free movement, etc. 

 Animals should be respected, not as spiritual objects, but simply as a member of 

animal species. 



Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2017; 8(1): 33-43 

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 Animals should be given their due entitlements, at least of the following core 

capabilities: 

o Life: All animals, irrespective of their size, sentience, and conscious interest, 

are entitled to live their lives. 

o Bodily health: All animals are entitled to not just life, but a healthy life with 

adequate nutrition, and space for movement, free from abuse and violence. 

o Bodily integrity: All animals deserve due protection of their bodily integrity 

from violence, abuse, and maltreatment. 

o Senses, imaginations, thought: Animals, both wild and tamed, should be 

equipped to manifest excellences as part of their characteristic capabilities. 

This also means providing proper light, space, and a variety of opportunities 

for animals to enable them to exercise their entitlements. 

o Emotions: Animals are known to have senses and emotions, such as fear, 

anger, resentment, gratitude, grief, envy, and compassion. Such emotional 

needs of animals are to be given importance and valued. 

o Practical reason: Animals frame their life plans and life goals in their own 

style. This capability of them should be honored in a responsible and 

reasonable way. 

o Affiliation: Animals are entitled to relations with humans and other animals. 

They are as well entitled to world policies which grant them their rights and 

legal status as dignified beings, regardless of their understanding of the 

concerned states. 

o Other species: Animals are entitled to be independent, and also to be in 

interdependent species relationships in which all enjoy a cooperative and 

mutually supportive relationship with each other. 

o Play: All animals deserve the provision of an adequate space, light, and 

sensory stimulation to enjoy and exercise their skills and competencies. 

o Control over one’s environment: Animals are entitled to own rights to their 

property, territories, and habitats. They are as well entitled to political 

participation, ensured by their human guardians who commit not to use them 

as mere means and to treat them rightly. 

 

This list, as Nussbaum mentions, is open-ended, with the provision of supplementation and 

deletion of core capabilities as required
23

. However, with the foundation on these core 

capabilities, this paper now considers the task to analyse the cases of animal sacrifice in India 

and the injustice that are imposed on them at the level of their capabilities. 

 

In India, when animals are sacrificed in the name of great religions or for public health 

reasons, the emotions and senses of the animals are ignored and undermined. Consequently, 

animals are made to suffer in their bodily integrities. As a result, even though these animals 

cannot protest against the injustice, the injustice occurs at the level of their capabilities to live 

the life they deserve, the treatment they have the right to claim, and in exercising their right 

to the just provision of their bodily health. 

 



Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2017; 8(1): 33-43 

40 

As mentioned before, hunting, poaching, and animal trafficking are still dominant causes of 

animal sufferings in India, more so because of gaps in international laws. While suffering 

from these activities, non-human animals lose control of their own environment in a drastic 

and an unjust manner. They are also made to suffer from their affiliation with humans and in 

their abilities to live with other members of their part of the eco-system. Making them suffer 

cause injustices at the level of their rights to basic life functions. 

 

In India, gaps and lapses in such legal scopes have failed to enable many animals to lead their 

lives to full forms. As a result, over and above the legal injustice, an ethical injustice is 

caused at the level of ensuring and enabling the animals’ right to life. For instance, even 

though the use of animals in research and experimentation has been prohibited in India, in 

many cases, it has continued for the commercial benefits of businesses in the country. While 

this has led to the violation of law, it has also caused an ethical injustice; animals, being 

maltreated for research and experimentation purposes, have been deprived of their intrinsic 

rights of maintaining bodily health and integrity, as well as exercising their skills and natural 

competencies to play and affiliate with others. 

 

To address such injustices to animals, this paper with its foundation on the CA, claims that 

the injustices that animals suffer are actually injustices at the level of their core capabilities. 

To address that, India should adopt the following recommendations. 

 

Recommendations and Conclusion: 

1. The animal protection policy of India should adopt a vision of ensuring and enabling 

protection of animal capabilities to determine the scope of animal sacrifices in the 

country, to enable and ensure animal rights in the country. 

2. The CA also demands that India should disseminate information equitably about the 

status of non-human animals in the country through proper education and training. 

This might motivate the growth of a sense of collective and shared responsibility to 

give up animal sacrifice in the name of religion and experimentation. In this regard, 

the animal protection policy can involve and engage tribes such as the Bishnoi and the 

Soliga who share not only a harmonious relationship with animals but also behave as 

their protectors
24

. 

3. The CA also asks India to undertake a stronger and a more open and transparent 

collaboration between local and global governments for the proper implementation of 

just measures to ensure and enable the lives of animals in the wild, to respect the 

ownership rights of animals, and to guarantee species diversity. It also suggests the 

strengthening of legal measures to check the international organized crimes of animal 

poaching and trafficking. It implies an open and transparent animal census, the 

strengthening of surveillance with enhanced technology, etc. 

4. As against culling as a public health measure for zoonotic diseases such as Avian flu, 

this paper, with its foundation on the CA, suggests that India, rather than following 

the international recommendations, needs to discover whether any indigenous and 

alternative method can be useful to curb diseases in the country. That implies greater 



Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2017; 8(1): 33-43 

41 

participatory decision-making, capacity-building, innovations for sustainable small-

scale business strategies, and alternative livelihood arrangements for the farmers. 

5. Individuals, as this paper with its foundation on the CA suggests, should inculcate 

compassion towards animals, both as individuals and as members of the animal 

kingdom. It implies that individuals should refrain from buying luxury items made of 

leather and fur, avoid eating the meat of young animals, forgo animal shows, sports, 

and games as means of entertainment, avoid any direct and indirect pain on animals, 

letting them free in natural environment, avoid human-animal conflicts, avoid hitting 

animals even out of panic, fear, or anxiety, practice not to harm animals in zoos, not 

to make domesticated animals suffer, not to leave any animal in isolation as well as in 

confinement, and take a strong stand and responsibility against any form of crimes 

against animals. In short, the CA prescribes that individuals should enhance the 

unconditional accountability towards any form of animal life, realizing that animals 

too have got emotions, senses, and the capacity to think, and so, deserve due 

entitlement as animals. 

 

Despite the diverse natural resources in India, the country increasingly suffers from scarcity 

of natural resources, man-animal conflicts, and the degradation of animal status. 

Additionally, India, which once used to ascribe dignity to both humans and other animals, has 

lost its vision of treating non-human animals with justice. To address this problem, this paper 

suggests Indian policies on animal protection to adhere to the vision of the CA and to bring 

about certain changes in its implementation to curb and check animal sacrifices in the 

country, thereby doing justice to animals, and to their rights and entitlements.  

 

 

Author Contribution: The author developed the conceptual idea and wrote the manuscript. 

 

Conflict of Interest: Declared none. 

 

Acknowledgement: I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer and Rainer Ebert for comments 

that helped to improve the paper in due course of time. 

 

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