religions Article Compassion for Living Creatures in Indian Law Courts Gilles Tarabout Director of Research (Emeritus), National Centre for Scientific Research, 75016 Paris, France;
[email protected] Received: 27 March 2019; Accepted: 10 June 2019; Published: 14 June 2019 Abstract: The Constitution of India through an amendment of 1976 prescribes a Fundamental Duty ‘to have compassion for living creatures’. The use of this notion in actual legal practice, gathered from various judgments, provides a glimpse of the current debates in India that address the relationships between humans and animals. Judgments explicitly mentioning ‘compassion’ cover diverse issues, concerning stray dogs, trespassing cattle, birds in cages, bull races, cart-horses, animal sacrifice, etc. They often juxtapose a discourse on compassion as an emotional and moral attitude, and a discourse about legal rights, essentially the right not to suffer unnecessary pain at the hands of humans (according to formulae that bear the imprint of British utilitarianism). In these judgments, various religious founding figures such as the Buddha, Mahavira, etc., are paid due tribute, perhaps not so much in reference to their religion, but rather as historical icons—on the same footing as Mahatma Gandhi—of an idealized intrinsic Indian compassion. Keywords: India; animal welfare; compassion; Buddhism; court cases In 1976, the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution of India introduced a new section detailing various Fundamental Duties1 that citizens were to observe. One of these duties is ‘to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wild life, and to have compassion for living creatures’ (Constitution of India, Part IV-A, Art.