Champions of compassion: inside the movement to save pigs

The Pod: Hi Arun! Go ahead and introduce yourself…

Well, I’m Arun Patel. I’m married to Sylvia. I’ve got a daughter who’s 30 and I’m soon to be a grandfather.In terms of my working life, I’ve been at the British
Mountaineering Council (BMC), for the past 26 years managing the membership and insurance section. I say that because people comment on my activism, stating: “why don’t you get a proper job?!” I use part of my annual leave to accommodate my activism, so it’s always nice to challenge people’s preconceived notions of what an animal rights activist is.

Have you been vegan all your life?

No, I ate meat growing up, but became vegetarian about 20 years ago and for the past seven years I have been vegan. As a child I recall looking at my dinner plate, seeing chicken drumsticks, and thinking as a child that’s the leg of a chicken. My mum was vegetarian, but my dad wasn’t and so my mum would cook meat for him and the family. The only meat we didn’t eat as a family was beef because both my parents were Hindu, whereas I’d describe myself now as not having any specific religion. In 1997, when I joined the BMC, I met a couple of vegetarians which ignited my long-held concerns about meat-eating and I decided to adopt a vegetarian diet.

Then increasingly my concerns about the way dairy and eggs are produced led me to adopt a vegan diet (my wife Sylvia became vegan around the same time). It’s a welltravelled path I think!

So, tell me about the Animal Save Movement.

When I switched to a vegan diet seven years ago, I began regularly searching the internet for new information and other people with similar views. Then I came across some YouTube footage of what happens to animals at the abattoir, in particular the horrific fact that pigs are killed using gas, after which I stumbled across the Animal Save Movement.

It started back in 2010 in Toronto when Anita Krajnk, the founder, saw a pig being transported to a slaughterhouse and was so shocked by what she witnessed that she started regular vigils to bear witness to the animals suffering in their final moments. This formed the Toronto Pig Save group, which gradually developed into a global movement for bearing witness at slaughterhouses under the banner ‘Animal Save’. Perhaps most attention was given to the growing moment in 2015, when Anita was arrested for giving water to a pig on a truck outside a slaughterhouse. She faced a two-year trial on the charge of criminal mischief, which carried a 10-year sentence. But after a public outcry she secured the services of a human rights lawyer (pro bono) and was found not guilty in 2017. Then in 2019, the Animal Save Movement expanded to include Youth Climate Save, Climate Save and Health Save movements, moving the group’s focus beyond vigils to other strategic campaigns. This in turn has led to the development of the Plant Based Treaty, which encourages individuals and organisations across the globe to sign up and take action to expand the use plant-based foods, while also putting pressure on national governments to negotiate an international Plant Based Treaty as a companion to the UNFCCC Paris Agreement.

What happened after you discovered there was a local Manchester Pig Save group?

I thought, I’ve got to go and see for myself, because not only is it happening, but it’s happening in my community, half an hour away at a large abattoir run by a company called Tulip Ltd (which was bought by Pilgrims UK a few years later). The local ‘Manchester Pig Save’ movement held vigils at the abattoir and my wife Sylvia and I thought we need to go and have a look.

It’s a day in your life you don’t forget. The first time we went we actually didn’t know what to expect. Firstly you’re going to see a group of people that you have no idea if you are going to connect with. So that in itself was a challenge because you’ve got 30 people who all knew each other already and we were the two newbies. But the group welcomed us in like old friends!

The second challenge was approaching the livestock trailers because, by agreement with the abattoir, the trucks stopped for two to three minutes outside to allow the vigil to take place. I was absolutely horrified going towards the trucks seeing around 300 pigs packed into a single truck on a hot day, with the accompanying smell, and then being confronted with just one pig giving you eye contact. Believe me when I say they have almost human-like eyes and you can see the uncertainty and often the terror in those eyes. I’ll be honest, Sylvia and I were devastated. I could see she was in shock, as was I. So we just hugged. That was just a game changer. We hadn’t gone with the view to get deeply involved in activism, rather it was more of an exploratory visit. Never did we dream that this day would change our lives moving forward, to becoming regular animal rights activists.

Can you describe the principle behind the vigils?

The guiding principle is ‘bearing witness’. This comes from Leo Tolstoy (himself a vegetarian), who said that whenever you see suffering, you should always go towards it and confront it. That whenever you confront suffering, that suffering becomes your suffering and by being involved at the scene, you can’t simply walk away – you are now involved.

What would you say to people who said: what is the point, it feels quite passive?

I think there’s three things I’d say to that. Firstly, is that most of us have lost loved ones, such as parents, grandparents, great grandparents. You may get a call one day, to say a loved one is dying and we need to come quickly. It’s not a call you ignore – you’re not going to think: what’s the point, they’re going to die anyway. So, the reason we attend vigils is the same as for any form of suffering – to give comfort. You’re going to see your loved one because you want to comfort them in their last few hours and show them respect, respect that is denied to the poor animal being trucked into abattoirs. So, as a Pig Save group we are compelled to go.

Secondly, we have banners and signs which we display peacefully outside the abattoir, which lets people passing by know what is going on. We get lots of supportive beeps from car drivers, plus the usual obvious shout about ‘bacon butties’. But it raises awareness amongst the community of what is happening on their doorstep. We don’t want anyone to be able to say ‘they didn’t know’. We also share stories with friends and family within our own networks.

And thirdly, while we know we’re not going to save the animals on the day by bearing witness, by sharing what we do and the images on social media, notably through our own Manchester Pig Save channels, we can amplify our message to many, many other people across the country and indeed globally.

Your activism is peaceful and consensual. But some activism is more direct. What are your thoughts about people taking more direct action?

Well, I think the first thing I would say is that we support all forms of activism, with the exception that we don’t support anyone or anything that’s violent. Many people are passionate about animal rights, and I understand their passion and their demand for immediate action and consequences, because there are millions of lives being lost. And so I do, in fact, support people who take more direct action as long as it doesn’t get to violence. I would never ask someone to show love and compassion to animals if we can’t show love and compassion to each other. Ultimately, I view Manchester Pig Save as a love-based, compassionate group and we strive to be an inclusive community, anyone is welcome to come along and join in, as long as they abide by our non-violent principles.

As an example of our inclusivity, I bring food along to the vigils, for instance curries. And everyone was surprised because I went and gave some to the security guard on the gate. I did that every month for a year, which the guard was particularly grateful for, as he said the wholefood dahls actually helped improve his own health. In the end, the guy even used to come out with us socially! So for me, if you find what you have in common and show compassion, it’s amazing what you can do.

The Tulip Abattoir recently closed – what role do you think the Pig Save group played in that?

There had been a slaughterhouse there for 70 years, up to when it finally closed last year. I think there were several components that forced the closure. I firmly believe the vigils helped and on the back of them we made national headlines when animal rights activist Joey Carbstrong, supported by one of our Pig Save activists, released some footage of the actual gassing process. The footage drew a strong public reaction as you might expect. But alongside this, the business was declining, the number of trucks entering the site daily was dropping and business was clearly slowing down. Hence, I think the decision was probably underpinned by a number of factors, with the negative national media coverage certainly not helping.

So, what is the group doing now?

We have now moved to a second abattoir site in Colne, Lancashire run by Woodhead Brothers. It’s a slaughterhouse which supplies the supermarket Morrisons, ‘processing’ around 3,000 pigs, 1,000 sheep and 1,000 cows a day, making it a far bigger operation than the old Tulip site in Manchester. But the method of our operation, remains the same, peaceful vigils and bearing
witness in the hope that one day this cruelty will cease.

The idea of ‘injustice’ is deeply important to you – can you explain why that is?

What I’m against is injustice in all its forms, not solely related to animals. I like to think if I was around in the days of widespread slavery I would have stood against it, recognising of course that modern slavery remains very much an issue. I was also very involved with the gay rights movement, as I had good friends who were gay and regularly attended marches with them.

That said, I don’t think I’m particularly more empathetic than other people but I do have direct personal experience of injustice, growing up in the 1970s and 80s as someone of Indian heritage I often experienced racism. I suspect many activists probably have some direct experience of prejudice and this perhaps
motivates them to take action.

If anyone is now inspired to get involved but aren’t local to Manchester or Colne, are there other groups around the UK?

Absolutely, they can go to the Animal Save Movement website which has a list of all the local chapters across the world and here in the UK. And if there isn’t a local chapter near to you, then the Movement can provide all the information necessary to set up your own.

Is there anything else you want to say in summary?

As a group we are here to raise awareness, because the process of raising and slaughtering animals is hidden ‘behind the curtain’ for far too many people. I believe that it’s not what you say in life that matters, it’s how you live your life and what you do. You can tell someone to be kind and say please and say thank you but your own actions have to match the behaviours you want them to mirror. So our activism is based on being kind to people and kind to animals. As a vegan, I’m not going to shout at someone for eating meat. But I can maybe change their views by being kind, by bringing them vegan food, showing that there’s a better way to live your life. You know, I live by the principle of Ahimsa or non-violence and in fact most people do whether vegan, vegetarian or not. And I suppose this is a solid bedrock from which to build…

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