Learn from ashoka it’s about animal welfare

Learn from ashoka it’s about animal welfare

With the Madras High Court staying the Centre’s order prohibiting the sale of cattle and other milch animals at marketplaces, the government is reportedly chewing the cud over making its case from a prevention of animal cruelty angle. This would be the right way forward. Ironically, the petition was introduced by animal rights activist Gauri Maulekhi in 2014 for that very objective – and not to disrupt livelihoods or change diets.
But somehow, in all the dust kicked up by far too many hooves, the issue of ameliorating the suffering of animals has been pushed into the background. GoI must use this opportunity to make prevention of animal cruelty policy.
For this purpose, the Centre would be wise to look towards a figure from Indian history, Emperor Ashoka, the first ruler in the world who included animals in his citizenry by providing them rights. A great communicator, Ashoka’s edicts, a kind of 3rd century BCE Mann Ki Baat scattered across the subcontinent, included messages prohibiting animal slaughter for religious sacrifice.
But even as a vegetarian himself and an evangelist of vegetarianism, Ashoka understood that forcing dietary restrictions on his largely non-vegetarian subjects was not an option. Thus, his emphasis on animal welfare, the banning of animal sacrifice, regulation of practices such as castration, establishing veterinary facilities, and the espousal of a strong message of kindness towards all animals.
This combination of ecological awareness and sensitivity toward animals – ‘stray’ dogs, for instance, face the brunt of cruelty – is a ‘modernist’ policy the government can borrow from the Mauryan king. This will bring the original intent of putting a stop to cruelty and apathy towards cattle on the table. And without hijacking an issue that deals with animal welfare and making it into offal to feed human brawls.