The Evil of Vegetarianism — Dairy Is Not Any Less Evil than Meat Is
Vegetarianism, unlike veganism, is not something new. For ages now, people in different cultures have been and still choose to be vegetarian for different reasons. Some practice vegetarianism because their religion dictates that they have to be vegan (is it okay to let discriminating scriptures written thousands of years ago dictate how your kids and you should live today? Think about it sometime when you can!), whereas some others choose to be “vegetarian” (they refrain from consuming meat) because they think being vegetarian is being kind. But is vegetarianism really kind and harmless?
The Difference Between Vegetarianism in Well-Developed, Liberal Countries and Vegetarianism in Conservative Countries like India:
While “animal lovers” in well-developed, liberal, western countries can choose to be “vegetarian” and conservative Indians might choose to be “vegetarian” because of religious reasons, are both choices the same? While both of these sets of people could avoid consuming meat, to understand what it really means, you should dedicate some time to study and understand culture, religion, politics, and the history of these conservative places before you’d want to conclude that vegetarianism anywhere in the world is the same.
Vegetarianism in India: It is sad that even most Indians don’t know the real history of India. Most schools do not tell us the truth, what we should be knowing. In privileged families, for several generations, people believe lies that they are taught (which is what happens in any religion BTW), and grow up to justify or enable oppression or are at least ignorant of their privilege and how they contribute to oppression of the marginalized and oppressed communities in the country. I am ashamed to say that even my parents and I had been living in our own bubbles of ignorance for long. In the name of “Dharma”, “Hinduism”, “spirituality”, “Jainism”, “Buddhism”, and such, what has been happening in the history of India is nothing but ugly, disgusting discrimination. Any Indian who believes to be humane themselves must feel disgusted by this truth. A good place to start learning would be from reading this book: Annihilation of Caste by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar.
A Short Version of The Truth About Vegetarianism in India: For someone with no influence of any of these religions on them, like a westerner seeking “spiritual growth” or being an “animal lover”, the choice of vegetarianism might seem to be synonymous with kindness, but in India, among the privileged people, vegetarianism is more closely aligned with casteism, capitalism, control, dictatorship, hatred, discrimination, and in one word, oppression. This version of vegetarianism is plain evil.
Once again, before you want to instantly defend, hold your horses! Read. Understand. Learn. Try to look at everything you were ever taught with a critical lens, try to put yourselves in the shoes of the oppressed, be honest with yourself if you can (if you can’t be honest with even yourself, stop reading — nothing I write will make sense to you), and be willing to relearn. Is there discrimination in your religion? How does your form of faith treat women and queers? Forget criticizing other religions, just focus on your own: how accepting is your religion of others? Who are allowed to enter religious places? Whoa re allowed to practice your religion? What labels does your religion give different people? How normal is it in your religion to accept people from other religions? Questioning something you have been made to believe from day 1 is not something easy, but if you are interested in knowing the truth, you must start with questioning.
While India is very much a casteist country, and there is casteism in India even in Islam and Christianity (yes, Indian Muslims and Indian Christians have authored books about casteism in Islam and Christianity, please read), the majoritarian religion in India, Hinduism has its foundations in casteism. If you’re a Hindu, you’re not going to like this (of course, no religious person likes their religion being criticized): Hinduism is nothing but casteism. There is no rational or moral justification for the evil of caste discrimination: how do you justify a group of people claiming that they are “superior by birth” to all other groups of people, and those who are labelled as “inferior” (the word they use is “untouchable”, actually), must literally eat the feces of the “superior” castes? Yes, this did happen in India’s history, something our text books and history teachers would never tell us.
To conclude this part, vegetarianism in India is not the same as vegetarianism in a liberal country. “Vegetarianism” in religions like Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism was (and still is) a means of stating one’s privilege and social respect over the “non-vegetarians” or “meat eaters”, who are considered “inferior”, “untouchable”, “sinners”, and “low-class”.
Next, how is vegetarianism anywhere in the world evil?
I’m assuming that at this point, you would have the ability to read, correct yourself if you’re wrong, and be willing to change if your ways are proven to be inhuman and unethical. (Ignorant, aggressive defense is not something I’d want to waste time with.) Veganism has been explained clearly here; what vegan principles are. Read before you’d embarrass yourself by means of a loud, meaningless argument.
You might want to think that you are refraining from causing unnecessary harm and pain to lovable, cute animals by not eating meat. If this is who you are, I appreciate your concern and kindness, really, but that’s not the truth. Meat consumption is not the only evil contributing factor to the exploitation of animals; dairy consumption is equally evil.
First of all, animal milk is totally unnecessary for health. You can be vegan and still lead a healthy life. There’s enough nutrition for human beings in vegetables, fruits, seeds, and nuts. This means that when we consume dairy products, we have to admit that we’re exploiting animals unnecessarily.
Next, look at it rationally. How/When can an animal produce milk? Only when she gives birth to a baby. This is a fact, right? So how can you regularly get milk from a bunch of animals? By repeatedly impregnating them. Yes, dairy is the result of forced impregnation of female cows. If I call myself a feminist and support forced impregnation, how stupid, biased, and evil I must be? I can’t support forced impregnation in anyone, in any life, which is why we vegans are vegan.
Being forced to bear a child in your womb, being forced to go through pregnancy, and being forced to endure labour pain — none of this is fun or enjoyable. This is plain cruelty! And this happens not occasionally but repeatedly, and that’s how you get your coffee, tea, curd, and ice cream. Through torture.
Next, do you agree and believe that if you hurt a little puppy, the puppy could honestly feel pain? I hope you have at least this much of awareness and common sense. Now, it’s not just puppies, kittens, cats, and dogs that can “feel pain”. All animals are sentient; they have the ability to experience feelings like we humans do. Take a new-born child away from a mother, do you suppose either the baby or the mother would be heartbroken? That’s what happens in the dairy industry everyday! Baby calves are separated from the mothers — the milk that nature has given the mother cow, which is meant for her baby calf, the calf doesn’t get it. The baby calves are left to starve and the mothers’ milk is stolen from her to be put in packets and containers to be sold for humans to enjoy coffee! What would happen to those calves? The male calves are considered “unworthy” of investing money in (as they can’t produce milk because they can’t get pregnant), so they are sold to the leather industry (which is another form of cruelty), and the female cows suffer from malnutrition, only to grow up to be impregnated repeatedly till she dies; yes, that’s how you get your milk. And the process of milking is extremely painful, too.
Do your own research. Give it some thought. Read papers and articles. Watch documentaries and read books. I consider myself strongly feminist, and I wish to be as humanist as I can. Being a vegetarian would make my feminism and humanism lies, which is why I gave up on dairy. It’s a personal choice you’re making. What do you choose to do? Think about it the next time you want to have a coffee or tea, or eat ice cream or cheese pizza. You’re paying an industry to continue to be evil, is that what you want?
