Two snake catchers from Tamil Nadu Vadivel Gopal and Masi Sadaiyan were honored with the Padma Shri Award for their social work.
Two snake catcher friends from Tamil Nadu – Vadivel Gopal and Masi Sadaiyan – have been honored with the Padma Shri award this year for their social work. Gopal and Sadaiyan are members of the Irular Snake Catchers Cooperative Society in Chennai and specialize in catching all kinds of venomous snakes.
They are also working to create harmony between both snakes and humans and bring awareness at the international level. They are called from many countries of the world to catch dangerous snakes and give their information.
Actually, both these friends belong to the Irula community. The people of the Irula tribe live in the north-eastern coastal region of Tamil Nadu. This tribe is considered special because of their age-old experience with snakes. They play an important role in India’s healthcare, but very few people know about this quality of the Irula tribe.
However, the Padma award given to these two friends of the community has brought laurels not only to these two, but to their entire community and has also brought them and their community recognition at a larger level.
Gopal and Sadaiyan may not be very educated, but they have complete knowledge of the world of snakes. He has given training to different snake catching groups around the world.
The Irula community is considered to be a very backward caste in Tamil Nadu. But his contribution has always been very high and very important in the interest of society and animals.
As we all know that the only cure for snake bite is to inject anti-venom containing its poison. Only a few companies sell this medicine in India. Most of the poison used to make this anti-venom serum is the venom of the snakes that the people of the Irula tribe catch.
Every year many lives are saved by this anti-venom. After the honor like Padma Shri award, today the whole country has started looking at his work with a different eye. The Better India salutes Gopal and Sadaiyan for their contribution!
Editing: Archana Dubey
See also: Padma Shri awardee architect, who designed the new Parliament building
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