The cruelty free lifestyle is beginning to take hold in small pockets around the globe. The idea that we, as human beings, can make every effort to navigate our lives without contributing to excessive cruelty to animals and other human beings is a good thing. Some would go much further and take a vegan approach to their interaction with other species on this planet. Some Buddhists are committed to a similarly non-violent footprint upon the earth. Living cruelty free in India is probably easier than in the west. The country has a rich vegetarian tradition, which provides an enormous range of flesh-free ingredients and dishes.
Cruelty Free Issues in India
This is not a utopia for animals, however, with many reported bad dairy farming practices occurring around the country. There are cruelty free issues in India, which need to be addressed, before any stamp of approval is given. Developing nations are often more concerned with having enough to eat, than with the more sophisticated concerns of wealthy westerners. India has emerged in recent times as a rapidly growing middle-class behemoth. Thus, many observers feel it is time for them to pay attention to things like cruelty free practices in their agricultural and manufacturing industries.
The Cruelty Free Focus in the Beauty Industry
The cruelty free focus in the beauty industry, through animal testing in the manufacture of cosmetics, is where this whole impetus got started. In my own view, if we all stopped wearing makeup and cosmetics the world would be a better place per se. There is something basically dishonest in manipulating your appearance via makeup. The reliance on billions of dollars’ worth of creams and cosmetics, reeks of insecurity and the suggestible nature of human beings being exploited by big business, in my opinion. That animals are being made to suffer, so that the skins of human beings do not have an adverse reaction to an external substance, just makes it worse.
Humans Have Been Hurting Animals Since the Beginning
Yes, humans have been hurting animals since the beginning, in India and throughout the ancient world. You can study the writings of the ancient Greeks, Romans and early Christian fathers and find a disdainful and callous attitude to animals in the main. A very few figures like Pythagoras, Porphyry and a couple of other ancients, made the case for treating animals kindly, but the vast majority were keen to distance human beings from their four legged mammalian peers.
