One of Rahat’s other achievements is the recent development of a retirement plan — asking owners who have bullocks past their working age not to send them to the butcher’s knife but instead to allow them to retire and live out their lives with their human families with a small subsidy. Bullocks like Raja and Mahadev are now leading a peaceful retired life ever since their owners, Tatya Jadhav and Yellappa Chikodikar, decided that they could not bear to see their bulls end up as jackets or shoes. The retired bullocks serve as models for respectful relations between humans and animals, just as the overloaded bullock carts represent the cruel practices that Animal Rahat hopes to make a thing of the past.

The success of Animal Rahat in Sangli prompted us to expand to the nearby sugar district of Sholapur. In just the first month of our operations there, the number of cases reached 40 a day.