The New + the Next

To Him, Animals Are (Legal) Persons Too

Animals are property. Kevin Schneider takes the question of whether they should be to court.

Kevin Schneider serves as an elephant’s lawyer. Her name is Happy, and in 2006 she made history as the first elephant to recognize herself in a mirror. Despite her name, she lives in isolation at the Bronx Zoo, away from the zoo’s other elephants, who injured and killed Happy’s companion pachyderm in 2002.

Schneider — along with the organization where he serves as executive director, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) — wants her moved to a sanctuary. The case was dismissed by the Bronx Supreme Court on Feb. 20, with the judge saying Happy is “not a person” but admitting that the NhRP’s arguments were persuasive and that she “should be treated with respect and dignity, and … may be entitled to liberty.”

It’s all about small steps.

The New + the Next

Why Churches Are Now Under Attack in Modi’s India

Under Prime Minister Modi, India's Hindu right has largely avoided targeting Christians for fear of losing Western support. Now, ahead of a key political test, this is changing.

It was a calm Friday evening in December, when about a dozen Christian villagers sat to pray in a house in Bilkua village in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. Then a group of Hindu men armed with wooden sticks barged into the house, disrupted the service and later demanded pastor Ramu Hala leave. He hasn’t returned.

The country’s Hindu right has for decades viewed Christianity and Islam as alien religions. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tenure since 2014 has seen the Hindu right largely target Muslims, with the government keen to avoid alienating the West. Now, as the ruling BJP prepares for a political test pivotal to expanding its base, mounting attacks on Christians are evidence that the coyness of the past six years is being replaced with aggression.