$JES 921 Book of Compassion Reverence For All Life Reference Book

Author(s): Pramoda Chitrabhanu, Pravin K Shah
Publisher: JAINA Education Committee

Page 36

5. - CRUELTY TOWARDS INDIA'S HOLY ANIMALS
Maseeh Rahman TIME Asia News Article, New Delhi
MAY 29, 2000 Vol. 156 NO. 21
05 - Is Nothing Sacred? Cruelty towards India's Holy Animals
Headline News:
International animal-rights activists expose the barbaric transport and slaughter of the country's most revered animals and accuse India of showing uncharacteristic cruelty toward
its holy animals.
Cruelty towards India's Holy Animals: Mahatma Gandhi believed that a nation could be judged by the way it treats its animals. If that yardstick were applied to his own country today, India would be in the doghouse.
Hindus venerate many of God's creatures, and the cow is considered especially sacred. But the international animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has exposed horrendous cruelty to India's cows as they are transported illegally, to slaughter houses. Many arrive dead or badly injured after long and torturous journeys in trains and trucks or on foot. "It is Dante's Inferno for cows and bullocks," says PETA president Ingrid Newkirk. India's livestock population, estimated at more than 500 million, is the world's largest. More than half is cows, buffaloes, and bulls. Once they become unproductive, many of the animals are sold by their owners, mostly subsistence farmers, and marched off to slaughterhouses. Cow slaughter is permitted in just two provinces, the communistruled states of West Bengal in the east and Kerala in the south. Although it is illegal to transport the animals for slaughter across state borders, traders bribe officials to look the other way as they pack the cows into rail cars or trucks headed for West Bengal or Kerala.
THE BOOK OF COMPASSION
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