© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Jama Masjid, Delhi, INDIA

Jama Masjid strikes me as the Trafalgar Square (pre-2008) of Delhi. Flocks of pigeons gather in the open courtyard and are fed handsome amounts of seed; possibly the only other obvious Jainism influence in Jama Masjid other than the 260 pillars carved from Jain traditions that supports the big hall in the western chamber.

Whilst the pigeons in Jama Masjid are free, a stark reality occurs just hundreds of meters away at the Jama Masjid bird market, where pigeons, ducks, roosters and munias are cooped up in cramped cages waiting for an exchange of swabs of rupees for their lives. Although their feathered cousins – the parakeets, mynas, owls and falcons – won’t face the fate of a blade slicing through their throats, they do not escape the currency of cruelty that takes place every Friday and Sunday where they are sold to the highest bidder that promises to curtail their freedom for live.

Across the street, behind the Red Fort at INA Market there is a same scene; one that is replicated at Minto Road, Noida’s Sector 18 Market and Moolchang crossing where the vendors not only flaunt the birds without fear of authority but threatens to destroy any cameras pointed in their direction.

Although Schedule IV, Section 2, of the Indian Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 states that the trade of protected birds, including hill mynas, falcons, vultures, pheasants, rose-ring parakeets and cockatoos is banned, the apathy of the authorities is said to help this trade flourish.

In other instances, the law has been ‘confused’ with vendors arguing convoluted versions of the law such as: “Birds held captive before 1990 and the offspring of such birds can be traded.” Or those justifying their actions by a warped account of what is legal: “Trading of exotic foreign species is not mentioned in the Illegal Trade of Exotic Species.”

For the birds, neither does ‘generation’ nor the terms ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ hold any significance when life itself has clipped their wings.

And in the most extreme instances, the guardians of the law are  purported to be hand-in-glove with those who trade birds illegally. The lure of rupees proves too strong.

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