Sir — This refers to the article “United, we can save the cow” (July 27) by Hiranmay Karlekar. Burgeoning human population is probably the biggest problem, especially in India, where the resources, including land, are scarce. If one has to provide affordable milk in humongous amount, and must, therefore, adopt dairy farming, that too in the face of international competition, it might well be inevitable to treat the animals more as devices to produce certain necessary items rather than living creatures equal to humans — keeping our atman pious. Many pure vegetarian city-dwellers must have experienced the dire need of milk as the only source of animal protein essential for human survival.
But we must applaud writers like Karlekar for raising awareness levels on the subject. It is fortunate that he no longer shies away from invoking the only rational reason for treating animals humanely — that is, they are ultimately the same as us, living beings, from the point of view of Hindu philosophy.