No More Horsing Around

Glanders, a bacterial, zoonotic disease that affects equines and is a potential biological weapon, has been breaking out regularly across India since 2006. Should India be worried? RAJAT GHAI | New Delhi

 

- Rajat Ghai

FOR SURENDRA Singh Rajpurohit, horses are a passion as well as a source of livelihood. “I belong to a Rajput family that has been breeding horses for quite some time,” says the resident of Patan town in Rajasthan’s Ajmer district. He is in mourning as one of his best animals died recently.

“Almost three years ago, I bought a 3-month-old milk-white Marwari colt from Shahpura village in Jaipur district for ₹50,000. I named him Badal. I looked after him like he was my son. I used to give him 7 litres of milk daily besides his feed. I even gave him almonds and resins,” Rajpurohit says. “He was my pride. At the Pushkar fair during last Diwali buyers were prepared to give ₹ 700,000 for him.” Rajpurohit did not sell Badal then and in May this year tragedy struck. Badal developed mysterious lesions on his body. “It was like insect bites. The wounds continued to recur. I took him to the government veterinary hospital in Ajmer. But it was of no help. Then I sent his blood for testing to the Indian Council for Agricultural Research-National Regional Centre for Equines (ICAR-NRCE) in Hisar, Haryana. We waited for the results. But on August 1, Badal died,” Rajpurohit says.

“Other than the emotional loss, there was the monetary part. I had spent ₹ 1 lakh for breaking him (training a horse to carry a rider or pull freight). I was planning to sell him this Diwali. He would have fetched more this time. But my fate had something else in store for me,” says Rajpurohit.

The recent outbreak