Animal lover turns activist to protect abused creatures in India

By Shuriah Niazi

NEW DELHI (AA) - Mini Vasudevan, a passionate animal activist in India’s southern city of Coimbatore, has made a difference in the lives of thousands of animals.

“Making a difference is as important as making a living,” Vasudevan, who is a telecommunications engineer by profession, told Anadolu Agency on the eve of World Animal Day, which will be observed on Monday. She considers her work with animals “extremely gratifying.”

She has been involved with animal welfare activities for several years in India and abroad.

After graduating, she left India for higher studies in the US at the University of Texas at Arlington, and later served as a general manager at Ericsson.

Vasudevan and her husband Madhu Ganesh, after having worked in the US for many years, returned to Coimbatore in 2004.

Having had a deep connection with animals from a young age, she was appalled by the condition of street animals in the city.

That led the couple to start the Humane Animal Society (HAS) in 2006, an NGO that works for the welfare and protection of animals in Coimbatore.

HAS has been involved in mass-vaccination drives, as well as rescues and rehabilitation of injured and abandoned animals.

What started small with the couple and two other trustees is now a big family with 21 full-time staff and more than 100 volunteers. According to HAS, its work has helped at least 65,000 animals.

While rescued animals are treated and rehabilitated before being released, the HAS Sanctuary is home to animals whose release would not be safe.

- Received highest civilian honor for women

Vasudevan received the Nari Shakti Puraskar, the highest civilian honor for women in India in recognition of her work on animal welfare, on International Women’s Day in 2019.

“Life abroad gave exposure to a lot of exploitation that animals were subjected to by humans. Awareness about this slowly transformed me to understand them better, and I realized that they were just sentient creatures just like humans with a soul and hence had a right to a suffering-free existence without being subjected to exploitation and abuse,” she said.

This realization is what changed her from an animal lover to an animal rights activist.

- Recognizing rights of animals a distant dream in India

But recognizing the rights of animals in India is still a distant dream, she said.

“Social conditioning has made most humans insensitive to the abuse and torture that animals are subjected to every single day," she said.

"Today, through education and creating awareness, HAS serves as a common platform and touches several thousand people every year, empowering and enabling them to create a better world for all life that is crucial for the future of the planet."

Vasudevan said she is grateful for the completely "uncharted" and "deeply emotional" journey HAS has offered. She believes it was her work with animals that truly opened up an "amazing world of knowledge, and understanding of the ways of nature."