Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Every meat-eater is actually being subsidized, greatly subsidized by every
00:07non-meat-eater. This is injustice, this is direct stealing of money, pinching of
00:16money from the pocket of the vegetarian or the vegan to subsidize the meat-eater.
00:24When you eat meat, when you eat chicken, you are actually not paying for the
00:35environmental damage that your plate of meat has caused, you're not paying for
00:46the climate change, you're not paying for the biodiversity depletion, you're not
00:54paying for the loss of tropical jungles, green cover, nothing. None of that has
01:01been factored in into the price of your tandoori chicken. But the cost is
01:11enormous. So somebody is bearing that cost. Who is bearing that cost?
01:16Whole population. Whole population, meaning just to help you have your chicken,
01:23everybody else is paying the price. So if you are paying rupees 200 or 300 for
01:29your plate of chicken, its actual price should be maybe 800 or 1000 and it is
01:40gross injustice that the thing is being offered to you as a subsidy. So there has
01:49to be taxation, there has to be clear commensurate, just taxation, two things I
02:05talked of, culture and fiscal measures. Then there has to be education, people
02:14have to know, people have to know what milk is, people have to know what meat
02:20is, you will have to know the entire cycle. People talk so much about the
02:28right to information and everybody is so curious these days, people want to gossip,
02:32people want to say, no we want to know everything. First of all, don't you want
02:36to know what is going into your body? First of all, don't you want to know what
02:42is going into your body? So that has to be made known. Thirdly, it has to be
02:50made known that agriculture as such is not the absolutely holy profession it is
03:08made out to be. Very very people know, very very few people know that probably
03:18around two-thirds of all agriculture, rather three-fourths of all agriculture
03:23is just to support meat-eating. Now you'll wonder what am I saying, you'll wonder
03:32right people think of farmers as some kind of pursuers of a most noble
03:40profession, they say you know you should be a farmer. Especially in India,
03:48everybody is talking about poor farmers and this and that, everybody is talking
03:52of upholding farming and I support that, any person who is in need needs to be
03:58supported. But the field of farming, the entire industry of farming, the entire
04:06sector of agriculture, it has to be seen in perspective, we must know the facts,
04:11truth has to be exposed.
04:18Out of every four kilograms of grain that comes out from the farmers field,
04:25three kilograms goes towards feeding animals, so that they can be slaughtered
04:32and the meat-eaters can have their meat. That's the reality of agriculture.
04:43On one hand, we talk so much about preserving forests and if forests go, then the
04:49habitat of so many species just disappears. You need not physically
04:55eliminate those species, you just need to cut the forests down and those species
05:00are gone. Now why are the forests disappearing at such a huge rate? Do you
05:06know even as we are talking how many acres of forest has been cleared off in
05:12the last one hour itself? Can you even imagine? Now go find out, you'll be
05:17startled. Even as we are discussing this, at an unimaginable pace trees are being
05:25felled, unimaginable pace. Why are those trees being felled? So that there can be
05:33more agriculture, that agriculture goes towards feeding the ever-increasing
05:38population because we cannot live without kids. Further, we cannot live
05:45without our chicken wings and chicken burgers and mutton this and beef that. We
05:52do not even know that to get one kilogram of chicken or mutton or beef,
05:58you require probably 20, 30 or 40 kilograms of grains. So most of the
06:03grains that is being raised in the farmers fields is for the purposes of
06:09meat. That is something people must know. You cannot just blindly keep on talking
06:19of agriculture as something so holy and pious and natural. Are you getting it?
06:32Then the kids, the kids, the kids, reach out to them. It has to be a holy war. You
06:44have to, pardon me my language, invade schools. It's a battle for the mind.
06:57The kid must grow up knowing fully well that it's monstrous to kill an animal to
07:05eat it. Are you getting it? And that would require and change in the entire value system of the kid.
07:17Veganism cannot succeed if you just keep talking of animals. You keep saying, oh it
07:25is bad to look at animals as a commodity. It is bad to exploit animals. If man is
07:32exploiting man, why will man refrain from exploiting animals? So veganism has to be
07:38holistic, comprehensive. You may not like it to hear it this way, but veganism has
07:47to be basically a spiritual movement. Veganism has to be a movement of
07:52compassion and when compassion comes, you will not be compassionate towards merely the animals.
07:58When compassion rises in you, then you will be compassionate towards everything,
08:04everybody and yourself. First of all, you will cease to be cruel towards yourself,
08:11which most people are. So veganism needs to broaden its scope.