Fantastic, and yet it seems that proportionally very few people live with domestic cats. Why then start a cat fancy association. It might be called "Cat Association of India" (CAI) by the way. The reasons are these.
I bumped into a the Blue Cross of India website. A distinguished Indian women, Dr. Nanditha Krishna, has written an article that is posted on the site, called, "Are We Civilized?" It is an article on animal welfare in India or the lack of it. Well, not the lack of it exactly, but the need to improve it substantially. Through this article I discover that Dr. Nanditha Krishna is Honorary Director of the C P Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation and the C P R Environmental Education Centre. I visited the C P Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation website and discover that they are concerned with the promotion of the community and India culture; both wide and excellent objectives. These goals are to be achieved through education.
It is the element of education that I would like to be brought to bear on the matter of animal welfare. I couldn't see anything on the Foundations website that was concerned with the promotion of animal (and therefore cat, my area of interest) welfare. Cat and animal welfare can be improved in India through education. And what better medium to disseminate information about an animal, a companion animal, the cat, than through a cat association formed by the cat lovers of India?
The cat associations in the West are really only concerned with promoting the purebred cats or non-purebred show cats. They do this by holding information on cat pedigrees, providing judges at cat shows and endorsing and supporting cat shows. There is little work on the ground to do with the feral cat problem. The concept of show cats at shows and feral cats being euthanized at shelters don't sit comfortably together. Indians can improve on the concept of the cat association and create a first.
So why cannot the cat lovers of India create a cat association in India that not only promotes the cat but also tackles cat cruelty and animal cruelty through education? The purebred cat spearheading the welfare of the lowly feral cat is a very democratic concept and it would provide masses of credibility to the formation of a cat association, one that would not only provide pleasure to the better off and their purebred cats but also help their poorer cousins - covering the full spectrum. This could only have a beneficial spin off for all animals domestic and wild in India.
If the people of India are better informed I believe that they can and will become animal lovers or at least they will better respect animals and thereby drastically reduce incidences of cruelty to them. The cat lovers of India can help and promote this cause.
I cannot complete this post without mentioning Captain Sundaram, the Founder of the Blue Cross of India. He was a wonderful man ably supported by his wife who must also be highly commended as well.
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