Sharing: GIVE US A BREAK!

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I am a vegetarian. So I don’t have a problem if the government bans beef or chicken or mutton. But I am a human being. I believe in my personal freedom. I think this ban is one step to taking away the freedom of a section of people. And I don’t agree with it. 

Click here for the nitti-gritties of the #BeefBan and what the law has to say about it. 

Till 1947, we were slaves to Englishmen and after that till date, we continue to remain slaves to our own countrymen. And we call ourselves the biggest democracy! 

What is democracy? Click Here to read full article. 

Democracy may be a word familiar to most, but it is a concept still misunderstood and misused. In the dictionary definition, democracy "is government by the people in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system". In the phrase of Abraham Lincoln, democracy is a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

Freedom and democracy are often used interchangeably, but the two are not synonymous. Democracy is indeed a set of ideas and principles about freedom, but it also consists of a set of practices and procedures that have been moulded through a long, often tortuous history. In short, democracy is the institutionalisation of freedom. 

This week, the Maharashtra government has banned beef. Why? To save cows and buffaloes. Will stopping people from eating beef save these poor animals? What about the leather industry that has a huge level of export? Dharavi is a hotbed of this industry where purses, bags, belts, jackets and more are made and sold in the open market and shipped to many parts of the world. Will the government be putting a stop to this too?

Then what about the silk industry? Is killing millions of silk worms perfectly alright only because we don’t worship them? At the end of it all, we are only killing living beings. 

Does exploiting cows for milk, curd, butter and ghee allowed? We Hindus use these products not just as food but also for conducting poojas and havans. Are we right in doing so? By what yardstick?

The government has a lot of pending work to do, that should definitely take way more priority than #BeefBan.

1. There are millions are children going without food and education. Can we do something about that? Pass a law to ensure that they get one square meal per day and basic schooling along with some vocational training? Shouldn’t that be more important than banning beef?
2. Most of the population cannot afford grains and vegetables sold in the market. While most of the profits from these hiked prices are lining the pockets of middlemen and rogues. Why can’t a law be passed regarding this?
3. Every time we drive out of Mumbai, in whichever direction, we pay a toll fee every few km –for years at a stretch. That particular flyover/bridge/expressway could have been built 200 times over, but still we continue to pay toll. Can’t there be a bill passed for this one?
4. There are millions of people who don’t have clean drinking water. Why can’t we do something for them?
5. There are millions out there, living in slums, without a proper roof on their heads. Let’s not even talk about sanitation. Except for a few NGOs who are working towards this, what have we done for them? 

I can go on and on. But you get the trend. There is a saying in Tamil: “When the whole city is on fire, the king asked for a match to light his cigarette.” 

I rest my case!