Celebrating, not bullying, the green way ahead

veganism and against animal cruelty.

Animals rights are best embraced by communities, not imposed upon them. Urban dogs are a case in point — we have a court order favouring them, but few ever nurture them. On the other hand, several rural communities give up land so wild animals are able to flourish.

Writer Janaki Lenin reveals several moving instances across India of people leaving in harmony with animals like the Deccani shepherds, Dhangars, who live cordially with wolves who eat their sheep, for example. This isn’t a legal requirement, but it’s what they do.

Having said this, cajoling (instead of bullying) communities not to eat meat or kill animals for food is not an option either.

What we eat, and enjoy, is our culture. We know culture is dynamic, it changes (that’s why we have widows, not satis, these days ). To move people away from meat means making everyone, including lakhs of Hindus — the originators of butter chicken— give up their delicacies of choice.

Being selective on Eid won’t help the animals. Instead of vilifying meat, fish, chicken — which many find delicious, shouldn’t anti-meat activists celebrate vegetables creatively? Cultures are embedded in an ecological past, sometimes redundant in the present. Celebrating newer cultures is a pragmatic way to make environmental shifts.