It has been about 6 weeks into the “shelter in place” order across much of the United States of America and like everyone else, many of us Hindu Americans have also experienced food shortages, long lines for hygiene products etc. for the first time ever in this country.
About a couple of weeks ago, I was distressed reading about massive wastage of food - fruits, vegetables and grain - because farmers were unable to harvest due to lack of labor and other logistical issues which would even prevent them from transporting their produce to food banks for millions of people going hungry across the country. Rather than allow their crops to rot and attract pests, farmers are “mulching” or “ploughing” unbelievable quantities of their produce, i.e. simply burying them.
Then, I read about Coronavirus outbreaks at some of the large slaughter houses and thought perhaps, the animals would get some temporary breathing space.
I was quite naive and foolish in my expectation that the poor animals would be allowed to live a little longer because slaughter houses are operating at a fraction of their usual capacity.
The animals will also likely be “ploughed under” as they did recently with vegetables and fruits, i.e. bulldozed and buried alive :(
I shudder at the very prospect. It would be a truly diabolical and demoniac abomination if it were to happen - as it probably will.
This offends me at so many levels - as a Hindu, a vegetarian, an animal lover and as a compassionate human being.
Mass factory breeding of animals for their flesh and mechanized industrial scale slaughter is pure evil, as it is.
But, bulldozing and burying alive hundreds of thousands of innocent animals because there is no labor available to slaughter them - must definitely rank as something incredibly mindless, inhuman, uncivilized and demoniac - even to a habitually carnivorous person - and regardless of race, religion, nationality, political or other grouping.
This is completely wrong! It is beyond simple brutality! Why can’t the animals be set free?
Human beings have not learned anything from the corona virus pandemic apparently.
BTW, I discovered 2 weeks into the American version of the “lockdown” - (by executing a SQL query that I run once in a while) - that, on Hanuman Jayanti day this year - I had spent more than half of my entire life in the USA. Of course, I have mixed feelings due to various reasons.
I hope and pray that better sense prevails and that my adopted country is saved from committing this atrocity.
