Beginning of a New Movement in India. Thank you Steemers! Our drive will continue.

Yes, one of the first movements in India to oppose keeping live marine creatures captured in personal as well as public aquariums. And I’m glad that you Steemers are also part of this movement. In my early days of Steeming, I was pleasantly surprised to get an unexpected support from the Steem community on this issue. Although I was quite new to this platform a couple of months back when I published the following post appealing to all Stemians to sign a petition to oppose the construction of a large public aquarium project in my city, I received a tremendous response on it:

PLEASE Help This Petition Against A Public Aquarium Project

Apart from signatures on the petition, I also got a few precious SBDs to help me print leaflets to spread awareness about the cruelty involved in the upkeep of aquariums.

Thanks to all Steemers, along with the offline signature campaign we carried in our city, we were able to hand over about 2,500 signatures opposing this project to the Home Minister of our state. Signatures from the possible foreign tourists from far off places, which makes a major chunk of the tourism revenues of our city, on which such aquarium projects rely, was a major setback for the stake holders of this project.

About a fortnight back - 20th October to be precise – a day before the said project was set to be inaugurated, it was very hectic for me with a lot of talks, discussions, debate, allegations, counter allegations, negotiations, persuasions, cajoling (to stop my opposition to the project) with various politicians, project contractor, project consultant and others involved. However it was unfortunate that this project finally got inaugurated on 21st October, 2017 due to our adamant Home Minister who insisted that they have already invested 80 million rupees in this project and can’t roll it back.

But we did protest on the site itself on the very occasion of its inauguration. Here are some of the photographs:

[Before the arrival of the Home Minister, City Mayor tried to ease the situation by personally talking to the activists protesting at the inaugural site]

[Ms. Joselyn, an animal rights activist who came down from Mumbai, in discussion with the Mayor of the city, Mr. Chandra Singh Kothari]

[Our leader Mr. Chetan Padliya, sharing some light moments with his daughter while security personnel were on vigil]

It did draw a lot of media attention too. Here is coverage from Times of India of this news where most of the news item was devoted to the opposition of aquarium instead of its inaugural ceremony which was attended by all top-notch politicians and bureaucrats in the city:

So after a temporary phase of disappointment resulting from the past fortnight’s development, yesterday I received an email which lifted up my soul with new energy and excitement. Our project, to which we have given a name- “Jal Pari, Kyo Dhari?” (“Why Have You Captured The Beautiful Angel of the Water?”), have received a support from Global Animal Advocacy Progtam of The Pollination Project, California. My friend @chetanpadliya is spearheading this initiative to make all homes, businesses and establishments free from all kinds of aquariums of live marine creatures. Here’s a link to the coverage on their website:
https://thepollinationproject.org/grants-awarded/jal-pari-kyon-dhari-abhiyan-beyond-stupidity/

This support is going to give a much needed boost to this movement. I’m looking forward to spread the message to a wider community and may be we get enough funds that we can plan a temporary shelter for the rescued fishes too. Let's see how future unfolds for the innocent creatures of aquarium industry.