Vegetarianism
“A perfect Hindu must be a vegetarian”.
The above statement could easily have been declaimed by any
of the new 'gurus'/'leaders' who inhabit India today. (As it happens, I heard a woman say
it while I was dreaming. I guess my subconscious wants to blog about
vegetarianism!).
At one level, the statement follows directly from the idea
of non-violence (ahimsa) that is associated with Hinduism.
However, apart from the current Hindutva strategy of
forcing vegetarianism down unwilling throats, one may also ask whether
sacrificing animals was a common practice in Vedic times? That history, of
course, is bound to be contentious. And multiple, as well as contradictory,
strands of thought may well have co-existed in ancient times. The correlation
between vegetarianism and Hinduism is probably not one-to-one.
But what does one mean by a perfect vegetarian? Obviously one
would have to give up eggs (I’m not there yet!). But a vegan may well insist
that one must also eschew (and not chew) all dairy products. This injunction
may not sit well with orthodox Hindus: how does one conduct all those rituals
without ghee? (As for me, I am unwilling to sacrifice milk chocolate!). And: would one be guilty of smelling chicken soup?
Another argument for vegetarianism is that the animals we
eat are fed food crops grown from land in the Amazon, the Congo basin and the
Himalayas, and this habitat loss causes a 60% reduction in ‘global
biodiversity’ [1]. This argument sounds
quite convincing to me – although it may not be to the taste of a committed
non-vegetarian. However, a non-vegetarian may well argue that in cold climates
you must consume animal protein to survive. WWF probably counters that we don’t
eat, we over-eat.
A few years ago, biotech companies have come up with
lab-grown meat for hamburgers. When first announced, it was unaffordable – but
improved tech has brought the cost down from $325,000 to $12! [2]. However, it
is at least a decade away from being commercially viable. Presumably, even a
quasi-modern Hindu who does not want to eat beef could eat that hamburger.
This reminds me, naturally, of Arthur C. Clarke’s macabre SF
story, first published in 1964, ”The Food of the Gods” [3], in which it turns
out that the lab-grown ‘ethical’ meat was actually cloned from human cells –
making the customers, who loved it without knowing what it was, cannibals – in
some sense of the word. But suppose that the initial cells had not been cloned
from human cells, but grown ab initio from chemicals. Would that make it ok?
Leaving such grave difficulties aside, another ethical
argument used by vegetarians is the avoidance of suffering, and we associate
that with any living organism that has a central nervous system (CNS) –
excluding plants and jellyfish. This is not entirely clear. Does a jellyfish
not suffer? What about a plant? Does suffering have to be ‘centralized’ and not
‘distributed’? Can one speak of suffering at a cellular level?
Contrary to popular belief, it seems that jellyfish actually
does have something like a CNS [4]. What brains jellyfish have are more akin to ‘neural
nets’ or a ‘ring’ CNS – but that should suffice to stop jellyfish-eaters (if
any)!
The Biblical commandment is: ‘thou shall not kill’. This
refers to humans – but it could just as well be extended to plants, jellyfish
and even cells. If we go so far as to include cells in a blanket prohibition, then even biotech
companies would not get a free pass - and strict vegetarians would starve to death. However, the biotech way would still be
ethically better than the alternative.
A Hindu might also ask: do you get worse karma from eating a
goat (that eats grass) or a shark (that is at the top of its food chain)? Do
you have to pay for the ‘sins’ of the shark, if any?
1 1)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/meat-eating-destroying-planet-report-warning-a7985071.html
3)
Arthur C. Clarke “Food of the Gods” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_of_the_Gods_(short_story)
4)
R.A.Satterlie Journal of Experimental Biology
214 (2011) 1215-1223
