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INTERVIEWS:
LIVE & HELP LIVE
An interview with
Mrs. Maneka Gandhi
BY ASHWIN MEHTA
Mrs. Maneka Gandhi, a former environment minister in the Indian
Government, and daughter-in-law of Mrs. Indira Gandhi recently came to England to deliver the annual Schumacher Lecture. In July 1995, she also gave a keynote address at the JAINA convention in Chicago. One of India's foremost environmental and animal rights campaigners, Mrs. Maneka
Gandhi is feared in many quarters. Recently, she succeeded in banning Kentucky Fried Chicken from entering India. Here she talks of the need for an active revival in Jain philosophy and practice, especially directed towards protecting India's animal and enviro mental catastrophe.
In all your speeches at the JAINA convention in Chicago, you emphasised the need for active compassion amongst all Jains. Can you please elaborate on this idea.
I don't believe that vegetarianism is simply about not eating meat. All the hidden ways in which Jains are involved in meat leather shoes, leather belts, or animal-based toothpaste, vitamin pills, - should also
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...I am not embarassed about Ahimsa
Jain Spirit ..
Jain Education International
July-September 1999
be stopped if Jains want to be true vegetarians. I do not think Ahimsa is just about being vegetarian it is much beyond vegetarianism. Ahimsa is not live and let live, but live and help live. Actually going forward and helping animals is a much more positive expression of Ahimsa. My experience with Jains has shown that they are much more keen to donate to causes like temple building or rituals than to active compassion towards animals. In India, there are very few Young Jains who have the sense to realise that Jainism is the most powerful and profound philosophy in the world. Jainism is also a very modern economic philosophy, and to understand it simply as a religion of vegetarianism is to trivialise Jainism.
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How can we convince elders to pro mote this positive image of Jainism?
Unfortunately, most Jain elders also do not fully understand the socia and ecological basis of Jainism. If the did, they could have a tremendous impact on the current change sweeping India. If Jains start to us their pockets to influence change in the world, then they can move mountains. I definitely believe tha their charitable efforts should b redirected towards helping actua living things rather than building more and more temples. Jains could fund legal cases to change the law For example, next week I am going to court to ban animal dissection in schools. For my TV show, I get 200 letters a day. For example, Muslims have written to me, saying that I was a butcher and have now given it up because of your programme. One child took a razor and cut his hand feeling the pain and cruelty inflicted on animals in a slaughterhouse He then vowed never to touch meat again.
What about the panjrapoor tradition of the Jains. Surely that is a positive act towards helping sick and dying animals?
Panjrapoors do not exist, or wher they do, they lack the necessary management and expertise to care for sick and dying animals. I recently inspected one in Ahmedabad, and found that all the animals had died They put them in the panjrapoors but then nobody feeds them, or the hired hands are incompetent a looking after these animals. There are very few new panjrapoors coming up - Mr. Dipchand Gardi's work is an exception rather than the rule. (In the Gujarat famine of the late 1980's the Jains mounted an enormous animal rescue operation entitled 'Jiv Daya').
To what extent do you think have Jains been corrupted by their business success?
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