PETA succeeds in getting 'cruel experiments' withdrawn from school

Mou Chakraborty
Kolkata, August 29, 2007
The West Bengal Board of Secondary Education has decided to withdraw “cruel experiments” on animals and birds to demonstrate the necessity of food and oxygen, prescribed for Class VI students, after a campaign launched by PETA.
A PETA release here said on Wednesday that in one experiment, children were told to starve a parrot to death, or deny water to it till it died or seal a guinea pig in a jar till it suffocated. After coming to know of this from a parent last year, PETA contacted West Bengal Minister of School Education, Partha Dey and urged him to direct the board to abandon the cruel experiments, it said.
Requests were also filed under the Right to Information Act.
“After we received the complain from PETA we had formed a committee to review their claim. The panel recommended the withdrawal of all such experiments which were pertains to cruelty against animals,” said president of WBSSE Ujjal Basu.
A circular has already been sent to all the concerned publishers. “From this year we will not be able to take this step as the books for this academic session has already been published. We have sent circular to all our publishers asking them not to print such experiments from their next edition. Hence from next year the students will not find these experiments,” said the sectary of WBBSE Swapan Sarkar.
The board has now suggested new experiments to replace the older ones, which demonstrates cruelty against animals. The board also feels that there is no definite line to define cruelty. “When we kill a fish, chicken and goats every day and have them for food, we do not think about cruelty. However, when we talk about killing a deer or a parrot it becomes a big issue,” said Sarkar. “We want students to love animals and hope that this will help them to change their perception towards them,” he added.
Deputy Secretary of WBSE Jayanta Joy Chattapadhyay, subsequently directed: “In respect of experiments on animals about the necessity of food and oxygen (group C, Unit III of class VI General Science syllabus), the authors must avoid discussion using rats/birds/toads, instead they can use common pest like cockroach or common air breathing fish (cat fish).”
“This is a victory for all the animals who suffer every day in painful, unnecessary experiments and whose stories must be told,” said PETA’s campaign coordinator Dharmesh Solanki. PTI
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