{"id":7488,"date":"2009-02-19T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-19T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2009\/02\/19\/india-s-snake-men-are-taking-to-the-streets\/"},"modified":"2009-02-19T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-19T12:00:00","slug":"india-s-snake-men-are-taking-to-the-streets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2009\/02\/19\/india-s-snake-men-are-taking-to-the-streets\/","title":{"rendered":"India&#8217;s Snake Men Are Taking To The Streets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"source\"><a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/asia\/charm-offensive-why-india8217s-snake-men-and-their-serpents-are-taking-to-the-streets-1625975.html\">www.independent.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"summary\">NEW DELHI, INDIA, February 19, 2009: Contrary to romantic tales, in India there are fewer charmers than one might imagine. Government legislation dating back almost 35 years gives police the right to apprehend anyone using a wild animal for such entertainment purposes. The charmers that do operate in tourist centers and large cities, live a largely furtive existence, earning a few coins out of passers-by.<\/p>\n<p>But now the snake-charmers are fighting back. A newly created union for the men and their snakes has been established to demand that the legislation banning them from their &#8220;birth right&#8221; be overturned and that alternative employment for the snake charmers be provided. In a sign of strength, around 5,000 snake charmers from the Indian state of West Bengal this week took to the streets of Calcutta demanding action and claiming that their generations-old profession is on the brink of death. Many were carrying their snakes with them as they marched.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>www.independent.co.uk NEW DELHI, INDIA, February 19, 2009: Contrary to romantic tales, in India there are fewer charmers than one might,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}