Why hypocrisy is the meat of the matter

In Spiti, we had stopped at the monastery of Dhankar. A young monk came to us and asked when we would return to Shimla. A little hesitantly, he wondered if we had space in the vehicle, and if so, would we take the Rinpoche, the ‘Precious One’, the Head Lama of the monastery, with us? He would be en route to McLeodganj, where many of the head monks gathered annually for their winter retreat. We said we would be honoured to. A few days later, we picked the Rinpoche and the young monk, and set off. It’s a long drive and my friend, whose car it was, planned to do this non-stop. In between, when we took a break, an absolutely gorgeous little Lhasa Apso would pop out of the monk’s deep sleeves, be let out to do his business and then, the little dog would hop back into the arms of his loving master.

We were repeatedly offered tsampa, which is made from roast barley flour. This, like buckwheat and other millets, forms the mainstay of plant-based food in the area. Then, there is literally ‘hard cheese’ called chhurpi in parts of India’s northeast and in portions of the Trans Himalaya.

In the Trans Himalaya, given the soil conditions, the climate and high altitude, the number of crops per year is severely limited. Green vegetables are mostly brought in from lower areas. In the way that Chango’s famous apples are grown in cold aridity, Kinnaur’s peas are prized not only for their flavour, but also for their relative rarity. While communications and supplies have improved considerably and have brought variations in diet, there were times when asking for a vegetable, if any was available, meant that one would get soggy cabbages for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Traditional dietary options remained limited. The result is that despite the fact that most people of these areas are Buddhists, almost everyone eats meat. The animal is honoured by every part of it being eaten or used. The authoritative biographer of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Alexander Norman, notes: “It is characteristic of the Buddhist approach to avoid absolutes. Also, to the dismay of some, the Dalai Lama, though he has often spoken in favour of vegetarianism… is not a vegetarian himself.”

While it may be ethically, spiritually and morally desirable, vegetarianism does not necessarily assure one a place in the hallowed halls of goodness. Some of the worst humans on our planet have been vegetarians and have touted their supposed saintliness with this, as their only qualification. Take the case of Adolf Hitler. Towards the last years of his life when he committed the greatest atrocities against humans, Hitler touted his vegetarianism at every given opportunity. A close associate, the minister of armaments and war production, Albert Speer, observed that the Fuhrer gave descriptions of animal suffering and slaughter at meals to try to dissuade his colleagues from eating meat. Robert Payne, biographer of several world leaders, wrote that the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, portrayed Hitler as “a virtuous man, an ascetic who did not drink, smoke or eat meat”.

Returning from America and the World Parliament of Religions that had been held in Chicago, in 1893, Swami Vivekananda spoke to the Hindus of Tamil Nadu’s Sivaganga. That is where he made his famous statement: “We are neither Vedantists, most of us now, nor Pauranics, nor Tantrics. We are just ‘Don’t-touchists’. Our religion is in the kitchen. Our God is the cooking pot, and our religion is, ‘Don’t touch me, I am holy’.”

Exhorting people to change, the words he uttered just before this, have equal import: “Give up all those old discussions, old fights about things which are meaningless, which are nonsensical in their very nature. Think of the last 600 or 700 years of degradation when grown-up men by hundreds have been discussing for years whether we should drink a glass of water with the right hand or the left, whether the hand should be washed three times or four times, whether we should gargle five or six times. What can you expect from men who pass their lives in discussing such momentous questions as these and writing most learned philosophies on them!” While Swami Vivekananda was not speaking in the context of vegetarianism, or its absence, but about false beliefs and rituals, some of these words would have implications in a provocative and inconclusive debate.

Political or social appropriations and misappropriations of both heroes and villains is nothing new. Yesterday’s hero is today’s villain and the other way round. Should there be praise for the vegetarian and condemnation for the meat-eater? An image from a childhood book has stayed with me. This is of a Mayan hunter praying over an animal he has killed; he says: “I have need.”

As one writes this, it may be added that I am what one would call a non-vegetarian in passing. Nor am I a rigorously religious person. But, as a Hindu, I do not eat beef. That does not make me a better or worse human than someone who does. It is simply an acknowledgement of the belief system that I was born into, and one that I accept. It advocates giving up hypocrisy. Here, you, the reader, may be ahead of me.

— The writer is an author based in Shimla