Political Speech Kartick Satyanarayan

Hi. For those of you who havent seen dancing bears, this is
about dancing bears. In 1995, we started working on a two year
investigative research project to try and find out what was
going on. Because the sloth bears in the wild were obviously
getting depleted because of this. The Qalandar community are
a marginalized Islamic community who live across India, and
have been in India since the 13th century.

We went about getting evidence of what was going on by

heading into their community undercover. We went in
pretending to be buyers. The cubs were being harvested from
across the country and being sold and traded. These were
being sold for about 2,000 dollars each, they are used for bear
paw soup, and also being trained, later on, to become dancing
bears.

When we started working deeper and digging deeper, we found

that what they were doing to the bears was really appalling. It
was unacceptable. The mother bears are usually killed. The
cubs, which are taken, are separated. Their teeth are basically
bashed out with a metal rod. And they use a red hot iron needle
to make a hole through the muzzle. Now we had to start
changing these people and converting them from using that for
a livelihood.

The big news that I want to announce today is that next month
we will be bringing in the very last bear of India, into our recue
centre. (Applause) And India will no longer have to witness this
cruel barbaric practice which has been here for centuries. And
the people can hold their heads up high. And the Qalandar
people will rise above all this cruel barbaric past that theyve
lived all their lives. And the beautiful bears can of course live in

the wild again. And there will be no more removing of these

bears. And the children, both humans and bear cubs can live
peacefully. Thank you.