22 July 2016 I don’t get the mixture of compassion and cruelty in India. Cows are sacred, but neglected unless they are still producing milk. Yesterday, and again this morning, I heard a cow bellowing in distress: whether it was stuck on a hillside or needed to be milked, it was awful to hear. Dogs are everywhere, many look scraggly, or lame from arthritis. People feed them scraps, but it’s mainly carbs, no protein. Yesterday I saw a female dog (yes, a bitch) just standing bewildered in the path of the Kora. She was scrawny and look to be starving. Then there’s the enormous bull, or rather, the bull with the enormous stomach, that appears so painfully distended. That can’t be right. He wanders around the road near Ahimsa House, but today I saw him at the top of the Kora path by the D.L. temple. Then there are the people on the Kora who bring food for the monkeys and dogs. And this morning, a little old man who had been arguing vociferously with another LOM (must have been trained in dialectics) gave what I presume was a bag of food to the beggar family that hangs out at the top of the hill. I’ve been somewhat selective in who I’ve given money to. Several women with children have come up with the “I don’t want money, only rice / milk” approach. [This is a scam whereby you buy food, and they re-sell to the store getting a bit more money than if you actually gave them a few rupees.] Usually I have to put money in my pocket before I go out, with the express plan that that’s the budget I’ll spend that day [on donations]. Dharamsala is small enough anyway that you get to know the local crowd. Yesterday I’d put three 10-Rp notes in my pocket to give to the folks at the top of the Kora, but darn if there weren’t four groups that day. [We’re talking less than 50 cents, folks, not a big spender here!] The last guy lucked out, as I fished out a 100-Rp note. Still, it doesn’t seem like the level of absolute destitution is as great here as in New Delhi. Probably because there are fewer people, it’s a tourist town, and it gets too cold for people to sleep on the streets. . . I did give some money to Tsering for his sister since he blessed some prayer beads for me in a rather elaborate ceremony at his home altar. He said his sister could use it for the butter lamp (to buy butter) and I protested that I wanted her to spend it going to the hospital, since she is dehydrated and vomiting. That’s kind of what I mean by cruelty (callousness?) and compassion. Why would you buy a religious item when you needed an IV? This was Christopher Hitchens’ critique of Mother Teresa in The Missionary Position: she spent millions in donations not on hospitals or services but on gold monstrances and other paraphernalia for the church. Of course, I was the one who bought the prayer beads! Comments are closed.
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Author Rebecca Moore is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at San Diego State University. She is currently Reviews Editor for Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions and Co-Director of The Jonestown Institute. Archives
December 2021
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