Vegetarianism is one of the very few doctrines I staunchly adhere to. Frequently I am confronted by the question - why I dont eat meat. My non-veg friends start throwing superlatives about the sublimity of the sensual delight it produces in your mouth. Then they urge me to 'try' it. My surname encourages them to assume that I hail from a meatophobic family background. So far so good. But then a very unexpected I-used-to-eat-non-veg-but-quit-it long-back comes as a bouncer and then they are often caught in surprise. 'Why?', they wail in pain. But generally I refuse to speak more about this subject to them. I fear that would create a bad taste in their mouth.
But it was different with Akshay. I knew he is one of them who know to dive deep into meaningful discussions with full fervor without getting too much attached to it. It is a very rare quality which I rarely found in anyone else after Ashutosh.
Without any prelude I put forward my view on non-vegetarianism.
- it is like rape, equally hideous and horrible.
- Why rape? Why not murder?
- I know nothing more inhuman and repugnant than rape. That's why.
Well, that doesn't sounds convincing at first. But there are parallels between slaughtering an animal and raping a person. Let me explain my point.
1. Compare the pleasure one gets by eating the most sumptuous non-veg delicacy to the pain that the animal suffers. Is there any comparison? And any justification? (No, you dont have to justify anything to me. But what about your own conscience?)
Similarly raping a woman or molesting a child for the ephemeral sensual or non-sensual gratification can NOT be justified, in any language, under any circumstances. It is outrightly criminal, inhuman act which is unworthy of any kindness and consideration. It is one of the most shameful thing I know a person can do to another.
There are certain extenuating circumstances where muder can be justified, can be defended, can even be glorified. But I can not think the same about rape. Again, similarly, killing an animal for a fleeting gustatory orgasm is too inordinately cruel an act to allow any sympathy. Yes, doing it for survival is a different issue and a VERY special case. I dont know anyone who has been stranded on an island and was forced to kill animals for his sustainence. But it is routinely presented as a readymade explanation. This is a very dishonest argument and it exhibits nothing but a plain lack of cooperation in a meaningful discussion. You simply can not convince these type of people. They are incorrigibly corrupt.
Again, murder is not always committed by a stronger person. But rape is a power game, or more precisely an overpower game. It is primitive to the core of this word. It is DISGUSTING. Same with non-veg, you kill because you can. But I think it is extremely shallow to exercise might on meek and weak.
- OK. Cool it. They are made to be eaten by us. It is natural.
As you are made to be eaten by a cannibal. As women are made to be exploited by men. As the poor is made to be starved by the rich. History echoes in your voice my friend. As blacks were made to be slaves by Whites. As Jews were made to be unworthy of any human dignity by Germans. As the Chinese were made an object of the most atrocious amusement by the Japanese in Nanking. Anyone can be made to be anything that way.
Would you have this as a categorical imperative - a universal rule? Oh no, you want it to wreck havoc at some selected places, and affect some selected people. And those places should be far from your home isnt? Sorry my friend, you can not live at a safe island that is surrounded by a stormy sea. If you think that you can, you think pathetically. Better outsource thinking to someone else.
This is again a very insincere argument where you know that the person himself is not convinced by his argument. He even wants you to know this by letting go a smile at the corner of his mouth for a moment. Since his stance is absolutely untenable he will try to trivialize it. What else can he do anyways? Sometimes I dont but sometimes I do find this outrageously satanic. The evil seems so deeply rooted in man that every human endeavor towards the establishment of peace seems farcical.
Man! Admit it. You never wanted peace. Peace is too boring for your taste. You always, secretly, longed to see blood. Werent you there cheering feverishly for (or against) Maximus while he was fighting for his life in the Colosseum? Dont you feel the same, dont you titillate your senses in the same perverse manner, when a matador deceives (or fails to deceive) a charging bull? You always wanted to enjoy the sight of soil moist with red blood, you always craved for its sweet hot smell. And you have never tried to even diagnose this very basic problem to cure it. Perhaps you never wanted to be cured. Only when you are plundered, brutally massacred and savagely raped, then only your dormant, nearly extinct faculty of humanity gets activated. Isnt it so? It is all about sides. Which side you are at- dominating or dominated.
2. This let them die attitude has killed us. Because we are also them for them. We have never been serious about solving the real problem. Only when you fall at the wrong side, you crib and wail. Otherwise you rock and roll. And that is why NOTHING WILL SAVE US.
Our very attitude towards 'the other' is vicious and pernicious. Let me elaborate.
It is very disturbing observation that the evaluation of an act is done only after knowing who was subjected to it. For instance- Killing a Pakistani is not so bad. Raping a dalit woman is not that unpermissible. Voting for a corrupt politician is okay if he happens to be of your own caste. Thankfully the stillborn was a girl child!
This apathy (nay, antipathy) has permeated our thought process profoundly. This even vitiate our sexuality. Khushwant Singh encashes this hidden perverseness of ours by writing 'Company of woman' where he strips girls of different religions and communities and tickles the testicles of us animals. Read that book which is far worse than pornography because it tries to render sex a political act. Can you imagine anything more replulsive?
The other has always been too bad to deserve a stay here. They should either be assimilated or purged. You should seduce their girls and marry them in order to convert them. You should divide them and multiply yourself. You should save your holy land from their unholy presence. You should beat them, loot them, rape them and kill them because it is them and as long as you do this to them this is not bad.
This is our morality in practice. And this is precisely why morality is sterile. It has been reduced to academic pastime taken with biscuits and coffee but not with seriousness and respect.
Our practical morality dictates that animals are fit to be killed and eaten because unlike you they are four-footed; because they can not protest; because they don't have political say; because they are weak. They must be, therefore, subjected to wait for a sharp scary weapons to rip their flesh apart before their helpless eyes. And doing that is not crime!
But the same act becomes a crime when someone does that to you or your kid! And you think it will work for you! No it won't. It didn't. Look - the color of human history is black-red - the color of dead blood. This is because of our dual mentality. And you know what - It is abominable! Cutting throat is abominable whether if is accompanied by mantra of Vedas or verses of Quran. There is no escape from death and truth.
It is inhuman to slit throats even if the throat being slit is not human. There are two types of people - those who can slit throats and those who can not. Those who can cut the throat of a speechless, defenseless, animal while looking in its eyes can do the same to your kid as well. This is to be understood at a social level. I am not talking about any particular sections of people, all of us share that cruelty inside us. We have inherited it collectively.
Killing is all about doing it once. It is all about crossing the threshold. Then it is easy. Then numbers dont matter to us. Death doesn't happen twice. Try to understand this. Words fail to describe what I am feeling right now. All I can say is that I am ashamed to be one of us. If human being is doomed to sufferings till death, it is justified because he deserves it.
Open your eyes. Cant you see how interconnected everything is? Take the cock-fight in Lucknow or the fight of gladiators in Rome. They are same. Dont you feel chicken were a cheap substitute for men in Awadh? Wont a visit to the Colosseum would have been a dream come true for Miya Jumman, since he would get to see the REAL stuff? How can we ignore this glaring similarity? It is too seriously related to us to be taken non-seriously.
This is now when I feel that only Gandhi could rescue us from ourselves. Only if we wanted to. But evidently we didnt.
- Then why do you eat plants? Even they have life.
True. But they dont have eyes. They dont talk to us. How much cruelty do you invoke to boil a potato? And what about the Jain hierarchy of senses? Doesnt it make any sense to you?
But above all my intention is to make you realize the disasterous consequences of allowing cruelty to others. We need to wage an internal war against this. Words wouldnt help much. This is not an issue of persuasion but of realization. Ultimately humanity would find salvation through Ahimsa which doesnt just mean not killing but it means not even having a desire of killing. We need to evolve ourselves to reach this height. The evolved world will be made on the foundation of Ahimsa only.
It is not late if we start even now. Camus launched a solo, and successful, campaign to abolish capital punishment in France and the mankind took a step ahead. Lets stop consuming carcass of animals and take one more step. It is highly unaesthetic to convert a beautiful living fish into a disgraceful slab of dead flesh. Let us admire life as long we are alive! Let us respect the sanctity of body as long as we have one!
Have a heart, be vegetarian. If you dont have that at least have a mind. If you dont have that too anyways you are in hell and thats where you will go sooner or later.
But it was different with Akshay. I knew he is one of them who know to dive deep into meaningful discussions with full fervor without getting too much attached to it. It is a very rare quality which I rarely found in anyone else after Ashutosh.
Without any prelude I put forward my view on non-vegetarianism.
- it is like rape, equally hideous and horrible.
- Why rape? Why not murder?
- I know nothing more inhuman and repugnant than rape. That's why.
Well, that doesn't sounds convincing at first. But there are parallels between slaughtering an animal and raping a person. Let me explain my point.
1. Compare the pleasure one gets by eating the most sumptuous non-veg delicacy to the pain that the animal suffers. Is there any comparison? And any justification? (No, you dont have to justify anything to me. But what about your own conscience?)
Similarly raping a woman or molesting a child for the ephemeral sensual or non-sensual gratification can NOT be justified, in any language, under any circumstances. It is outrightly criminal, inhuman act which is unworthy of any kindness and consideration. It is one of the most shameful thing I know a person can do to another.
There are certain extenuating circumstances where muder can be justified, can be defended, can even be glorified. But I can not think the same about rape. Again, similarly, killing an animal for a fleeting gustatory orgasm is too inordinately cruel an act to allow any sympathy. Yes, doing it for survival is a different issue and a VERY special case. I dont know anyone who has been stranded on an island and was forced to kill animals for his sustainence. But it is routinely presented as a readymade explanation. This is a very dishonest argument and it exhibits nothing but a plain lack of cooperation in a meaningful discussion. You simply can not convince these type of people. They are incorrigibly corrupt.
Again, murder is not always committed by a stronger person. But rape is a power game, or more precisely an overpower game. It is primitive to the core of this word. It is DISGUSTING. Same with non-veg, you kill because you can. But I think it is extremely shallow to exercise might on meek and weak.
- OK. Cool it. They are made to be eaten by us. It is natural.
As you are made to be eaten by a cannibal. As women are made to be exploited by men. As the poor is made to be starved by the rich. History echoes in your voice my friend. As blacks were made to be slaves by Whites. As Jews were made to be unworthy of any human dignity by Germans. As the Chinese were made an object of the most atrocious amusement by the Japanese in Nanking. Anyone can be made to be anything that way.
Would you have this as a categorical imperative - a universal rule? Oh no, you want it to wreck havoc at some selected places, and affect some selected people. And those places should be far from your home isnt? Sorry my friend, you can not live at a safe island that is surrounded by a stormy sea. If you think that you can, you think pathetically. Better outsource thinking to someone else.
This is again a very insincere argument where you know that the person himself is not convinced by his argument. He even wants you to know this by letting go a smile at the corner of his mouth for a moment. Since his stance is absolutely untenable he will try to trivialize it. What else can he do anyways? Sometimes I dont but sometimes I do find this outrageously satanic. The evil seems so deeply rooted in man that every human endeavor towards the establishment of peace seems farcical.
Man! Admit it. You never wanted peace. Peace is too boring for your taste. You always, secretly, longed to see blood. Werent you there cheering feverishly for (or against) Maximus while he was fighting for his life in the Colosseum? Dont you feel the same, dont you titillate your senses in the same perverse manner, when a matador deceives (or fails to deceive) a charging bull? You always wanted to enjoy the sight of soil moist with red blood, you always craved for its sweet hot smell. And you have never tried to even diagnose this very basic problem to cure it. Perhaps you never wanted to be cured. Only when you are plundered, brutally massacred and savagely raped, then only your dormant, nearly extinct faculty of humanity gets activated. Isnt it so? It is all about sides. Which side you are at- dominating or dominated.
2. This let them die attitude has killed us. Because we are also them for them. We have never been serious about solving the real problem. Only when you fall at the wrong side, you crib and wail. Otherwise you rock and roll. And that is why NOTHING WILL SAVE US.
Our very attitude towards 'the other' is vicious and pernicious. Let me elaborate.
It is very disturbing observation that the evaluation of an act is done only after knowing who was subjected to it. For instance- Killing a Pakistani is not so bad. Raping a dalit woman is not that unpermissible. Voting for a corrupt politician is okay if he happens to be of your own caste. Thankfully the stillborn was a girl child!
This apathy (nay, antipathy) has permeated our thought process profoundly. This even vitiate our sexuality. Khushwant Singh encashes this hidden perverseness of ours by writing 'Company of woman' where he strips girls of different religions and communities and tickles the testicles of us animals. Read that book which is far worse than pornography because it tries to render sex a political act. Can you imagine anything more replulsive?
The other has always been too bad to deserve a stay here. They should either be assimilated or purged. You should seduce their girls and marry them in order to convert them. You should divide them and multiply yourself. You should save your holy land from their unholy presence. You should beat them, loot them, rape them and kill them because it is them and as long as you do this to them this is not bad.
This is our morality in practice. And this is precisely why morality is sterile. It has been reduced to academic pastime taken with biscuits and coffee but not with seriousness and respect.
Our practical morality dictates that animals are fit to be killed and eaten because unlike you they are four-footed; because they can not protest; because they don't have political say; because they are weak. They must be, therefore, subjected to wait for a sharp scary weapons to rip their flesh apart before their helpless eyes. And doing that is not crime!
But the same act becomes a crime when someone does that to you or your kid! And you think it will work for you! No it won't. It didn't. Look - the color of human history is black-red - the color of dead blood. This is because of our dual mentality. And you know what - It is abominable! Cutting throat is abominable whether if is accompanied by mantra of Vedas or verses of Quran. There is no escape from death and truth.
It is inhuman to slit throats even if the throat being slit is not human. There are two types of people - those who can slit throats and those who can not. Those who can cut the throat of a speechless, defenseless, animal while looking in its eyes can do the same to your kid as well. This is to be understood at a social level. I am not talking about any particular sections of people, all of us share that cruelty inside us. We have inherited it collectively.
Killing is all about doing it once. It is all about crossing the threshold. Then it is easy. Then numbers dont matter to us. Death doesn't happen twice. Try to understand this. Words fail to describe what I am feeling right now. All I can say is that I am ashamed to be one of us. If human being is doomed to sufferings till death, it is justified because he deserves it.
Open your eyes. Cant you see how interconnected everything is? Take the cock-fight in Lucknow or the fight of gladiators in Rome. They are same. Dont you feel chicken were a cheap substitute for men in Awadh? Wont a visit to the Colosseum would have been a dream come true for Miya Jumman, since he would get to see the REAL stuff? How can we ignore this glaring similarity? It is too seriously related to us to be taken non-seriously.
This is now when I feel that only Gandhi could rescue us from ourselves. Only if we wanted to. But evidently we didnt.
- Then why do you eat plants? Even they have life.
True. But they dont have eyes. They dont talk to us. How much cruelty do you invoke to boil a potato? And what about the Jain hierarchy of senses? Doesnt it make any sense to you?
But above all my intention is to make you realize the disasterous consequences of allowing cruelty to others. We need to wage an internal war against this. Words wouldnt help much. This is not an issue of persuasion but of realization. Ultimately humanity would find salvation through Ahimsa which doesnt just mean not killing but it means not even having a desire of killing. We need to evolve ourselves to reach this height. The evolved world will be made on the foundation of Ahimsa only.
It is not late if we start even now. Camus launched a solo, and successful, campaign to abolish capital punishment in France and the mankind took a step ahead. Lets stop consuming carcass of animals and take one more step. It is highly unaesthetic to convert a beautiful living fish into a disgraceful slab of dead flesh. Let us admire life as long we are alive! Let us respect the sanctity of body as long as we have one!
Have a heart, be vegetarian. If you dont have that at least have a mind. If you dont have that too anyways you are in hell and thats where you will go sooner or later.
7 comments:
We are only convicted about our beliefs to the extent in which we consume our own propaganda. You mine friend have an insatiable appetite for veggies.
Job well done Abhishek :)
But the most important fact still stands tall and remains unaddressed.
See, there's no way one can approve of eating living beings. So we all essentially know that we are doing something wrong. The catch is that they all say that we didn't make this choice. They say that our ancestors did it. At least here in this country, we consider it a realistic choice. There is more than half of the world, that does not even consider vegiterianism a realistic choice. What about them?
The point is, we must stand up and take upon us, the responsibility of killing a living being and not just that, eating it up and then relishing it. Only after the day we accept this vociferously, things might start changing.
Camus wrote, "In the end, man is not entirely guilty - he did not start history. Nor is he wholly innocent - he continues it."
Oh yes, for others' knowledge and information, I am a non-veggie.
-- Akshaya
Akshay
You make a point. We must take the responsibility of killing living beings. Khalil Gibran says, in this context only, that the knife which kills you(the animal) will kill us too.
The pretence of being victims of violence perpetrated by the strong while committing atrocities on weak is hypocrisy. Even a blunt admission is not a solution. It pushes us many steps down. My article aims to sensitize people who CAN make choices. I understand that a man living in siberia can not grow vegetables and he has a right to his life as well as a duty to preserve it. But his reason can not be our excuse unless we decide to cheat and defeat the whole purpose of meaningful conversation.
So we have to make existential choice and accept its consequences, not as an individual but as a society. There is no escape.
I think the issue here is will the present society survive if everyone dooes turn vegetarian? I think it will lead to a food shortage.....
Also so many people dont afford to be completely vegetarian. A worker who does manual labor cannot get enough strength by simply eating veg. Especially in places where nonveg is chepaer than veg.
Vaibhav
It's nutrients (protein,vitamins etc) that gives us strength and not meat per se. Dal and soybean can supply protein in abundance for instance. Strength has got little to do with eating non-veg. Infact, in India, the laborers rely on the cheaper veg dishes rather than costly non-veg.
And lets refrain from talking about cases where climate and economics pressurize you to opt a particular lifestyle. You have NO choice there. So there is no point of discussion. I am essentially talking about a scenario where people like you and I CAN exercise our dietory choices.
Also I dont subscribe to the speculation that our resources can not sustain a vegetarian population. After all, you grow sth veg to feed your livestock, dont you? Why cant we employ the same resources to grow what WE may like to eat?
But anyways, thanks for reading the essay and posting comments. :)
What do u think about the people who have non-veg as their only diet, should they be having similar point of view about being non-vegetarian and NOT vegetarian?
I think we cant talk about of plants and animals based on senses. I dont think this distinction is justified. Infact, we are killing plants who are even less powerful than animals, because they cant even see us or cant even hear us when we attack them. They are 100 times more beautiful than animals. Etc....
Simple-
"should they be having similar point of view about being non-vegetarian?"
Convincing oneself is the easiest job. Even a thief can justify himself. The worst crimes in the world have been duly defended by the perpetrators.
If you ask me then YES, the people who kill animals for sensual delights MUST feel that they are doing wrong. Otherwise they are mentally numb! And to some extent, I think, they do feel so. But they will not stop doing it coz of their own weaknesses. I used to eat non-veg and I left it because 1.I understood it is an act of extreme cruelty, and 2. I had enough strength to resist my sensual demands. Adultery is bad and those who indulge in it do know this but still they dont stop doing it because their what we call character is weak if not bad.
SENSES are important coz that engenders pain and it is the pain involved in killing that is the very reason why it is considered cruel.
See one thing is clear-we can not eat inanimate objects. So our survival necessitates eating plants or animals. Now here we can make our choice, the less bad choice, and the basis of choice can be senses only. That's why eating leaves, flowers and fruits is better than eating flesh.
More... our body is not made (look at the shape of our teeth and study our digestive system) to eat animals. It is more healthy to eat plants. Gandhi must have his reasons to support so passionately the role of vegetarianism in our life. Also, we have something called 'satvik', 'rajsik' and 'tamsik' that characterize our food habits. Our whole philosophical tradition recommends a habit of having 'satvik' food. They say that our thinking is shaped by the food we intake. And I see some sense in it. They might have or not have 'scientific' evidence but they documented these hard-earned knowledge after years of assiduous and careful observation. We must think before rejecting it.
And power and beauty dont play much role here anyways. Power is a very subtle term to understand. For years man thought he was stronger than nature but time will decide that he was wrong. And I deliberately didnt quote Hesse coz he forbids killing fishes coz he says they are beautiful while he relishes eating meat of other animals. I found it ridiculous!
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