RDB: Beast and Man in India
Most people don’t walk what they talk at least in some facet of their life. Kipling makes this observation several times in his book Beast and Man in India. Hindus are known to worship cows and cattle, and the Hindu canon promotes ahimsa, nonviolence, but yet there is still animal cruelty occurring among Hindu believers. Kipling says that, “The Hindu worships the cow, and as a rule is reluctant to take the life of any animal except in sacrifice. But that does not preserve the ox, the horse, and the ass from being unmercifully beaten, over-driven, over-laden, under-fed, and worked with sores under their harness…”.[1] People don’t like following rules, even ones that they elect to follow. It is so easy for humans to underscore the importance of rules and justify breaking them from time to time. Take your average diet for instance. The Atkins diet prescribes a decreased use of carbs and higher protein intake. But when it’s Aunt Susie’s birthday and she’s having ice cream cake, maybe the idea of less carbs doesn’t sound so good.
Atkins Diet[2]
Kipling also comments that ”The topsy-turvy morality of the East would give a higher place to the…Hindu, who would die sooner than eat flesh, but who would also rather die than touch or help a dying man of a low caste near his door, than to the English lady whose life is spent in active beneficence, but who is defiled by eating beef and approaching the dead body of a pig.”[3] As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I find it much more important to value human life as opposed to animal life if there is a choice, and it seems Kipling may agree with me here. I would imagine the Hindu to have the same response as the priest or Levite in the story of The Good Samaritan. If the hurt man in the story was of a low caste, the Hindu wouldn’t stop to help him because it would violate his dignity. This is not to say that he might actually help, or that any of us wouldn’t do the same thing as the priest of Levite, but I find Kipling’s observation quite interesting.
The Good Samaritan[4]
Like most things, what appears on the surface is often more inviting than what lies below. For example, Kipling cites the animal hospitals of India as being an example of mercy to many people, but in actuality, there is more cruelty going on to animals than if they were left to die on their own. The hospital rational is as follows: “Ritual reverence for life does not include the performance of acts of mercy. It is enough to save the animal from immediate death, and to place food within its reach. So you see there creatures with unset broken limbs, with hoofs eighteen inches long, and monstrous wens.”[5] No doubt there is also neglect in hospitals for humans as well, but it is important to practice what you preach. It seems their idea of nonviolence should encompass animals in pain, but it unfortunately does not, and this is definitely a cause for concern.
[1] John Lockwood Kipling, Beast and Man in India (London: Macmillan and Co., 1891), 3.
[2] The Atkins Approved Diet, http://www.best-diet-4-life.com/atkins.gif
[3] Kipling, Beast and Man in India, 10.
[4] The Good Samaritan, http://www.saintmarymagdalene.org.uk/images/module1/Window_Good_SamaritanDscn4816.jpg
[5] Kipling, Beast and Man in India, 11.
No comments:
Post a Comment