"AHIMSA"
Dr. T. Rama Prasad “AHIMSA”
A news report I read this morning(October 3, 2011) reminds me that we live in a self-centred world of hypocrisy. For 364 days in a year, we kill and eat millions of animals, birds and fishes. On the remaining one day in a year, Gandhi Jayanthi Day (2nd October), in reverence to the “Ahimsa” advocacy of the “Father of the Nation,” vendors were instructed to close the meat shops.
As some shops were doing business on this day, officials seized 800 kg of chicken, mutton and beef and buried the food items and fined the stall owners in a city here. This reflects the ‘nobleness’ of our mind and the make-believe farce to project that ours is a nation against cruelty to animals !! Funnily enough, fish are permitted to be sold, and the stalls of even the Fisheries Development Corporation remained open (TNIE, Oct. 3, 2011). What logic is this ? We have different yardsticks ! Or do the fishes not belong to the animal kingdom ? I do not know much about biology – I was a backbencher.
We, generally, pretend to be kind-hearted … we pass legislations to be kind in killing !!! … stunning the animals and birds before killing … recently, the Swiss government banned the common culinary practice of plunging live lobsters into boiling water – they are to be stunned by electric shock or destroying the brain ... the lobsters should not be transported in ice water ice packing, lest they would be uncomfortable! (https://melmagazine.com/why-are-we-still-boiling-lobsters-alive-8c7eb1a0b1b4). Curiously, there is an organisation named "Crustacean Compassion". They don’t say ‘don’t kill’ – they say ‘kill kindly and humanely’ ! That is one kind of ‘ahimsa’ !
After decades of hard-hitting campaigning against fur-based objects, animal rights activists got a ban on the sale of fur-based goods in San Francisco (March 2018). This is another pretension to project kindness towards animals. Can they ban sale of non-vegetarian food ?
After decades of hard-hitting campaigning against fur-based objects, animal rights activists got a ban on the sale of fur-based goods in San Francisco (March 2018). This is another pretension to project kindness towards animals. Can they ban sale of non-vegetarian food ?
SOCIETAL SANCTION
Whether it is fish or chicken, we didn’t create them, but we are cruel enough to slaughter them. We ban narcotics and so many other bad things. There is a legislation to punish various offences. But why do we not punish those who take the life of dumb and defenceless creatures and ban this ‘criminal’ activity ? The answer is: ‘there is societal sanction for non-vegetarianism, and the taste and opinion of the majority of the people prevails over the legal or spiritual thinking’. If the majority feels that rape is only a fun game, it would not be an offence ! (In August 2012, the national figure and the activist against corruption, Kiran Bedi, attracted a lot of criticism when she said that media make a big fuss when a police officer commits a small rape but they do not expose much about the huge corrupt practices of the ministers of the country! Later, she made an amendment saying that she meant small police officers, not small rape. All the same, it can’t absolve her of belittling the crime of rape.) We continue to do things as long as they are available and permitted by the society whether it is non-vegetarianism, infidelity, prostitution, corruption or whatever. Smoking is an example. As long as cultivation and marketing of tobacco is not banned, smoking continues to be in existence -- as the commodity is available and the society does not object much. Conflicts arise when certain sections of the society permit certain things while others don’t. Beef eating had become a big issue (2015 -16). And with the Union Minister Maneka Gandhi’s call to ban on dog meat (2016), people in Nagaland and Mizoram asserted that they will not give up their practice of eating dog meat which had been the norm for over centuries. They said that Maneka was barking up the wrong tree ! Many people in Tamil Nadu said they would conduct the traditional ‘Jallikattu’ (bull-taming sport related to Pongal festival in Tamil nadu) against legislation which has become a huge issue of religion, politics, society and judiciary. If you are interested to read an analytical article on this subject go to http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/Taming-bulls-maiming-rights/article13980816.ece .
CRUELTY SANCTIONED
Thinking can go to any extent. If it goes to one extreme, all who consume milk (animal source) or milk products are non-vegetarians responsible for the cruelty of robbing almost all the milk which is naturally meant for the lovely innocent calves. On one hand we worship the ‘holy’ cow and on the other we heartlessly prevent her from fondling and feeding her little child by separating them for most of the time. That the life of the 324 million Indian cattle (the largest in the world) is a horror show is well revealed in the article: “ http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/whats-behind-that-glass-of-milk/article4675921.ece .” The pathetic life of the caged chicken is much worse. What a suffering it is to be in a small cage -- so small that the chicken can’t even stretch its wings and body – from birth to the killing day. Imagine ourselves being grown in small cages from birth to adulthood only to be killed and served to cannibals.
Ironically, most of us eat non-vegetarian stuff without feeling guilty as we are not killing the creatures directly. We justify the eating as it is served at home or a hotel and as everybody else is eating, presumably for good health.
Vegans object to the use of any animal product, for eating or the use of it in any other way. It may be interesting to know that numerous vegans, vegetarians and the Hindu Forum of Britain (which represents over 300 Hindu organisations) expressed shock and anger, and objected to the use of animal fat (even traces) in the process of making new 5 pounds currency notes (2016 http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/cash-rage-in-the-uk-over-animal-fatlaced-5-note/article9402458.ece ) !
And the cruelty inflicted by barbaric rituals of animal sacrifice has societal sanction. Pigs are tied down and pierced with spears until they wriggle to death near some of our temples. Blood-curdling sacrificial ‘slaughtering’ of nearly 5,00,000 animals including water buffaloes, pigs, goats, chickens, rats and pigeons took place at Gadhmai in Nepal on a day despite global appeals against it. “Life is life – whether in a cat, or dog or man,” Aurobndo said. We have to ruminate on this also: “Deliberate cruelty to our defenceless and beautiful little cousins is surely one of the meanest and most detestable vices of which a human being can be guilty.”
Unfortunately, cultures, religious or secular, sanction certain things and we justify various inhuman acts – cruelty, slavery, exploitation of women, forced prostitution, wholesale slaughter of whole species of living beings – all in the name of customs, right, reason, ecology, economics, religious sentiments and yes, god.
‘LABORATORY CHICKEN’
‘Nature’ (God) could create amoeba to Obama; groundwater to galaxies, etc. What can we do? Can we create a blade of grass, let alone the Himalayas ? If we can create non-vegetarian dishes artificially, we need not be killing billions of innocent animals, birds and fishes ! In fact, active research has been going on for the past five years since Peta, the US animal welfare group announced an award of one million dollars to the first scientist who proves that “cultured” or laboratory chicken can be made in commercial quantities. Damanhur, Mark Post, Vladimir Mironov, et al are doing research in this direction using stem cells, embryonic muscle cells, etc. (Maastricht University and Utrecht University, Netherlands) to produce meat without killing birds and animals. On August 5, 2013, the world’s first lab-grown beef dish (burger) was cooked and tasted in public in London. The ‘meat’ was grown from small fibres of natural beef in glass containers over a period of three months which is the result of several years of research in Netherlands. This type of lab-grown non-vegetarian stuff may hit supermarkets in 10 to 20 years. Then, we need not mercilessly kill billions of lovely lambs, chickens and cattle.
“More than 40 billion chickens, fish, pigs and cows are killed every year for food in the US alone, in horrific ways.” Consumption of meat by the seven billion people and more in the world is expected to double between 2,000 and 2,050 and it would become impossible to get that much quantity from natural sources. Though it is generally known that vegetarianism is better for health, the estimates indicate that non-vegetarianism is gaining more momentum.
Thanks to Mrs. Maneka Gandhi, the staunch stalwart of the league against cruelty to animals, there has been some alleviation of suffering to the animals through her exemplary activity, including disseminating information like the above on ‘laboratory chicken’ (http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-sundaymagazine/its-still-chicken/article3510698.ece ) In this context, it may be of interest to read my writing published in TNIE of August 22, 2005 under the heading “Are you listening, Maneka (Gandhi)?”
“Until man duplicates a blade of grass,
nature can laugh at his scientific knowledge.”
--Thomas Edison
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