Fewer snake charmers for popular festival

Animal and nature lovers are pleased that public awareness has exerted pressure on snake charmers, who barely visit the city now with live reptiles during a popular Hindu snake festival.

For a city that was once a market for snakes, particularly cobras, during Nag Panchami or the Hindu snake festival that was celebrated yesterday, business has consistently fallen.

"Thousands of snakes would be brought into Mumbai from Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and other parts of the country where they would be sold here prior to the festival," said Isaac Kehimkar of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS).

Snake worship is an important ritual when milk and sweets are fed to the snakes and fairs are held in several parts of the state.

However, milk and sweets are hardly the diet of snakes that are hunted and starved for months before the festival, says Kehimkar. "The snake catchers remove their venom glands, teeth and even stitch their mouths that leads to infection."

Due to the cruel treatment by snake charmers, hundreds of snakes would earlier die during the festival when milk was force-fed to them.

Snake charmers who hold the reptile in a basket show off their pet, usually a cobra, that normally raises its hood in a dramatic manner, "actually in defence".

This demonstration, particularly in urban areas, draws out the fascination and piety of devotees who offer milk, sweets and money to the snake charmer.

"The commercialisation of this festival in Mumbai is contrary to traditions, as villagers usually go to areas where they know snakes live to worship and leave food for the reptiles," says Amit Chavan, an animal activist.

"There was no question of catching and harming the snakes. However, in Bathishirala, a group of 32 villages in Maharashtra's Sangli district where expert snake catchers live, the festival is being turned into a business and contest with each one showing off the biggest cobra."

Chavan hopes that the recent High Court order banning possession and display of snakes will help protect snakes across the state.

"Our campaign to the public, especially school children, asking them not to encourage snake charmers by giving them money, has helped a lot. Only a few snake charmers were spotted in the city today."

During the last three years, the BNHS, Worldwide Fund For Nature, Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and forest officials have been working hard to stop this trade by confiscating the snakes that are released into the forest.

"Sadly, 50 per cent of the snakes do not survive even when let into the forests. Without their venom glands, the snakes cannot catch their prey and therefore die."

According to the Wildlife Protection Act, no-one can keep wild animals or reptiles unless they obtain a license as all wildlife comes under the protection and property of the state.