Is buying Peacock feathers necessary?

Eshani Sarmah

‘Peacock’ the national bird of India beautifully designed by nature is an intriguing bird with its striking train and metallic blue – green plumage. Peacocks are male Indian Peafowl.

This beautifully designed bird though have legal protection in India is suffering from artificial declining for many decades due to mercilessly killing for its meat and especially for feathers.

The demand of their feathers for festivals like Janamashthami and for decoration purposes in houses led to massive killing of peacocks in India, Especially all over Rajasthan, Haryana and the peripheries of Delhi. Poachers killed peacocks by poisoning them or by shooting and pluck their feathers and sell those to the local vendors and these vendors further sell to layman.

There were many cases of illegal killing of peafowl in India. Recently in October 2022 man held 20 peacocks to death by poisoning them in a village of Tamil Nadu. Again after this incident on November 2022, 15 peafowl poisoned to death in Tiruchirapalli farm where a team of forest officials led by forest ranger found the owner of the farm guilty after doing further investigation.

There were many cases in Rajasthan also where a large number of peacocks were found buried in a village area without their feathers.

The biggest problem is that though in India under the Schedule I of Wild Life (Protection)Act, 1972, peafowls are protected as Section 51 (I-A) bans killing an export of peacock items but then Section 43 (3) (a) and Section 44 of the same act allow domestic trade in feathers or articles if they are naturally shed. This is a big loophole because it is very difficult to establish if the feathers was plucked or naturally shed.

Is buying Peacock feathers necessary? — Photo by NAUSHIL | SKYHAWK. ASIA on Pexels.com

Also, Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act,1960,mentions that it is an act to prevent the infliction of unnecessary pain or suffering on animals and for that purpose to amend the law relating to the prevention of cruelty to animals. Further the Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act, 2022 came into force to protect wild animals, birds and plants. Despite all these provisions, acts, rules and regulations these peafowls are losing there lives day by day.

“ Beauty became a curse for them”.

There immense beauty is divine and priceless which has to be protected from all dangers and basically this divine beauty has to be kept safe from extinction. For that what we can do is not to buy any kind of materials that is produced by peafowl. We can exclude the use of feathers in our festivals or for any household decoration as it is not compulsory to use peacock feathers in any rituals in India.

So when the demand will decrease the urge of selling the product will also decrease and as such we contribute towards the protection of these divines as Part – IV A of the Constitution of India under Article 51 A (g); it shall be the duty of every citizen of India – to protect an improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wildlife, and to have compassion for living creatures.

References:

1. Wild Life (Protection) Act,1972

2. Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act, 2022

3. P M Bakshi ; Constitution of India; published by Universal Lexis Nexis; 17^th edition , 2020.

4.https://m.timesofindia.com/city/kanpur/killing-of-peacocks-goes-unchecked/articleshow/1524085.cms (access on 28-02-2023; 6:00 pm)

5.https://www.indiatoday.in/amp/mail-today/story/peacocks-poaching-rajasthan-forest-department-96424. (assess on 28-02-2023; 6:30 pm)

[Eshani Sarmah,a law student of Centre For Juridical Studies, Dibrugarh University]

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