The trigger for this idea: A blog by Mr./Ms. Naresh Sharma at Naresh-Sharma.Sulekha.com.
The title of the blog post is 'A case against vegetarianism'.
I quote the introductory lines of the blog post:
Many people in India are vegetarians. The argument often given (wisely) is of compassion and kindness, that we should not kill animals and birds ruthlessly and eat their blood-soaked flesh. This argument is however incomplete.
This article points out the insufficiency of the argument with respect to making a vegetarian person more compassionate and kind than a non-vegetarian one. More specifically, I'm trying to say that although vegetarianism may be a necessary condition for being a truly kind and honest person, it may be more likely (statistically speaking in the Indian context) that a non-vegetarian person is more active, kind and compassionate than a vegetarian one. ... ,,,
My views
'Compassionism' , I am not proposing as a rigid doctrine. I am trying to present some colors and shades of 'the need for compassion'.
1. India is a poor country.
2. Land is scarce.
3. Vegetarian foods draw less resources from land than non-vegetarian foods. Meats, chicken, fish, eggs etc. are to be made from animals which have to consume feed for a number of days/months before they start yielding eggs or gaining body-weight.
4. Cutting vegetables can cause as much pain to plants as killing the animals causes to animals. Animals wail loudly. Plants weep silently.
5. We, humans cannot survive without eating animals or plants. Something must be eaten. Hence causing pain to other living things
become inevitable. We have to think of minimising the damage by eating less of plants/animals. We shall be drawing less from this Earth and cause less environmental damage if we satisfy ourselves with plant-food.
6. Compassion in food-related areas, we can term as food-compassionism. An over-eater whether vegetarian or non-vegetarian obviously will be less kind to nature than an under-eater or a moderate-eater.
7. There can be any number of traits of compassion or 'compassionisms'. Compassion becomes a countable noun, because there are different varieties of compassion, kindness and nobleness. Example: Antonio vs. Shylock in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Antonio was interest-compassionate.
8. We have in India some pure-vegetarian communities. They will rank very high in food-compassionism. Some of them may be lending monies to poor persons at usurious rates of interest. Such money-lenders collect their dues quite merciless. In 'lending-compassionism', the money-lenders will rank low. We have another type of money-lenders known as 'kabooliwalahs' and 'multaniwalahs' etc. They are non-vegetarians. They too lend at very high rates of interest and recover them as mercilessly as the vegetarian money-lenders do. The non-vegetarian money-lenders may rank low both in food-compassionism and lending-compassionism.
9. A person, who wants to be a truly compassionate person, may have to be compassionate in as many different sectors of compassion , as possible. He cannot be extremely compassionate in one area and totally heartless in another area. Gentleness and moderateness, we need -- not selectively -- but as a part of our very nature. Example: Jesus Christ wanted to be compassionate to humans. But he was 'uncompassionate' to animals when he feasted with meats and barbecues. His rank will be very high in terms of compassion to humans, but very low in 'compassion to humans'.
10. A person who is very compassionate to other humans need not denigrate the persons who are compassionate to animals. The 'compassionate to human' person need not be 'uncompassionate to animals'. Trying to justify such uncompassionateness by making numerous arguments and writing lengthy articles, will only reveal the hollowness of their habits.
A person can never be 100% perfect or 100% compassionate given this Capitalist Society and the merciless society we inherit. Many Indians, fortunately are vegetarians, whatever be their other shortcomings. They have to try to overcome their shortcomings.
I am sad that more and more Indians are becoming slaves of non-vegetarian foods, either because of 'habits' such as alcohol + non-veg. or compulsions from friends.
Summary: Food-compassionism is separate from lending-compassionism or animal compassionism or plant compassionism or some other compassionism. A person has to conquer oneself in many areas. That endeavor should continue , be he/she a vegetarian or a non-vegetarian.
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