Ahimsa Crisis You Decide

Author(s): Sulekh C Jain
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

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For more than five years, I have been speaking frequently with Professor Gary Francione, distinguished Professor of Law and Philosophy at Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA about practical ahimsa. Gary is not only a Jain but is also passionate about ahimsa. In July 2009, I had a chance to meet Gary for the first time. I spent three days with him at the JAINA convention in Los Angeles, California, where he gave a soul-searching keynote speech on ahimsa and ecology. In the same year in October, I listened to his keynote speech at the opening of JVB Preksha Meditation Center in Houston, Texas. Both of his speeches created waves of emotion in me. They, and the ensuing phone conversations with Gary, helped convince me that there is an ahimsa crisis. This book is a result of that sad realization.
Several other friends have kindled this fire within me-among them Narendra Sheth in San Diego, California, Pravin K. Shah in Raleigh, North Carolina, Fakirchand Dalal in the Washington, D.C. area, Dilip V. Shah, a past president of JAINA, and Professor Glenn Paige in Honolulu, Hawaii.
I was born and brought up in a religious, moral, and nonritualistic Jain family near Delhi, India. I have also lived in the United Kingdom and the United States for the last 49 years. Since my twenties, I have been connected and intimately involved with a large number of Jain organizations and institutions in India, the US, the UK, France and Canada, either as a member, founder, co-founder, member of the executive committee, or chairman and president. I was the national secretary (four years) and president (four years) of the Federation of Jain Associations in North America (JAINA) as well. Throughout this work, ahimsa has remained central and North Star to my endeavors.
During my life, I have visited many Jain centers—not only in the aforementioned countries, but also in Dubai, Belgium, Singapore, Thailand, and Australia—and have participated in their varied activities and celebrations. I have been fortunate in meeting and interacting with practitioners from all four components of the Jain sangh (sadhus, sadhvis, shravaks,
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