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absurd argument falls flat. Who are we to make such an excuse? Our first, foremost, and primary duty as Jains and as human beings is to reduce the pain and suffering of other creatures. Mrs. Maneka Gandhi was so upset with this argument that she questioned the same Jains why they were willing to take their near relatives even as far as New York for treatment. Why don't they leave them alone to do
their karmic nirjara? e) What about the animal shelters for the cow's other children?
In India, Jains and Hindus have opened hundreds of shelters for aged and sick cows. These are called gaushalas and I have visited quite a few of them. Here the abandoned, sick, and old cows (those beyond the milking age) are brought in from owners, farmers, and milk producers and are cared for until they die their natural deaths. Some of the cow shelters house many thousands of cows (in one place I saw 20,000 cows). At New Pavapuri, in Rajasthan run solely by Jains, I was told, 12,000 cows are normal. All these places are charitable, non-profit, institutions, run purely for service and care of the animals. I applaud this concern for the five-sensed, helpless animals. I have observed that the community to the best of its abilities —takes care of the female cows but not its other children —the calves, bulls and oxen. It is a law of nature that cows give birth to male and female offspring in nearly equal proportion. The female offspring become cows, give milk and after the milking age the majority of them go to slaughterhouses to be killed for meat and leather. Only a very small percentage
of these cows end up in these shelters. Today, due the mechanization in agriculture and transportation of goods, the utility and use of male offspring (calves, bulls, and oxen) have disappeared and, as a result, the male calf has become an economic liability to its owner. The result is that the male offspring right after birth or shortly thereafter ends up in slaughterhouses. Unfortunately, even though I saw many shelters for the cows, I saw none for the cows' male offspring.
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An Ahimsa Crisis: You Decide
