Snake Charmers

You’re probably familiar with snake charming from movies, but animal rights activists got India to outlaw snake charming in 1972. They claimed that a lot of the practices the charmers performed were inhumane. Reportedly, some would remove the fangs or sew the snake’s mouth shut to make it appear to be tamed, causing the snakes to starve to death.

At first, officials were slow to enforce the new laws. However, they’ve recently become more aggressive about it. Snake charmers were already a marginalized group, to begin with. Many didn’t have skills other than snake handling. So the ban has been a tough adjustment that not everyone has successfully moved on from.