So-called humanity

Controversial Meat Ban Begins in Mumbai, Defied by Shiv Sena, MNS: 10 Developments -
MUMBAI: A controversial four-day ban on sale of meat began in Mumbai this morning, but the Shiv Sena has vowed that it will allow no such restriction and Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Narvnirman Sena or MNS has said it will sell meat to defy the order.
The issue has placed the Sena and the BJP, partners in the Maharashtra government, in a political stand-off. The ban has been ordered by Mumbai's civic body, controlled by the two parties, in view of a Jain festival and fast.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation order said the slaughter and sale of meat in Mumbai would be prohibited on four days - September 17 to 20.
Sources said the BJP had asked for the number of days to be extended to eight, but that was rejected by the civic body. The ban covers mutton and chicken, and excludes fish and eggs.
The Shiv Sena says there must be no ban at all. "We will ensure there is no ban on sale of meat for the eight days," said Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray.
The MNS has said it will gather at a Dadar market in Mumbai to sell meat this morning.
In Mira Bhayander, a town on the outskirts of Mumbai with a sizeable Jain population, the BJP-controlled civic body had ordered an eight-day meat ban. That has now been trimmed to two, like in earlier years, but the BJP is still pressing for eight days.
The ban was introduced in 1994 by the then Congress government. Ten years later, the two-day ban was extended to four days, but according to officials, was never properly implemented.
The Sena, which has a majority in the Mumbai civic body, finds itself on the same side on the meat ban as the opposition Nationalist Congress Party or NCP and the Congress, which had introduced the ban.
But the NCP-controlled Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation has also announced a suspension of sale of meat till September 17, in view of 'Paryushan' or the Jain festival of forgiveness.
The opposition parties as well as the Shiv Sena have alleged a political move by the BJP to appease the Jain community in Mumbai, with an eye on elections to the civic body in 2017.

Rajasthan HC says Santhara illegal: Jains to challenge court order -
As devotees turned up in large numbers, bids were called for different steps of the last rites, and the highest bidder won the right to give mukhagni.
Written by Milind Ghatwai | Bhopal | Updated: August 16, 2015 12:37 am
The Jain community is mobilising opinion through public meetings and marches as it prepares to challenge the Rajasthan High Court’s order declaring Sallekhana or Santhara (the practice of fasting unto death) illegal and akin to su***de.
Jains celebrated a Santhara death in Durg Thursday. Aadhyatma Sagar, 87, a monk from Tikamgarh in Madhya Pradesh, had undertaken Santhara a day before the court’s order on the practice, and did not eat anything till his death around 1 pm on Thursday. He was given Muni Deeksha by Aacharya Vibhav Sagar Maharaj.
As devotees turned up in large numbers, bids were called for different steps of the last rites, and the highest bidder won the right to give mukhagni.
“I consider myself lucky that my father took Samadhi, as it is an honour,” his daughter Vidhya Jain told The Indian Express from Durg. Both she and her nephew Durgesh said comparing the practice with su***de was wrong.
Meanwhile, retired judge of Madhya Pradesh High Court, Justice Abhay Gohil, who is set to lead the legal challenge to the High Court order, said, “The entire community is unhappy with the order that violates basic religious tenets… Would the courts also declare the way the Parsis dispose their dead illegal? Will they ban animal sacrifice during Eid as Jains consider it violence?”
The community, which some years ago had to fight to preserve right of its monks to carry peacock feathers, and in May saw a case against a Digambar monk for walking around naked, has called the recent order yet another infringement of its religious beliefs.

This is what kindness means -https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc_GGCbVXXI

RESTORING FAITH IN HUMANITY 2014 Welcome to Compilations.TV channel! Click to subscribe ➨ http://compilations.tv REAL LIFE HEROES on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/RealLifeHeroesTV Mo...

Despite of JAIN historical and religious significance, Santhara has of late come to face opposition by activists who demand its abolishment citing abuse and coercion. As someone responsible for the petition in the Rajasthan High Court, human rights activist and Jaipur based lawyer Nikhil Soni, should know. A native of Churu district in Rajasthan – with the reputation of the world’s Santhara capital for its highest per capita incidence of the practice in recent history - Soni says for years he quietly watched many such fasts-unto-death.
That was till September 2006 when Soni heard that one, Bimla Devi was being coerced into Santhara by her family. “Diagnosed with terminal cancer, the elderly Bimla Devi was too weak and depressed to protest as her relatives went about publicly announcing ‘her decision’ to undertake Santhara. And, in her final hours, when Bimla Devi began screaming in a last-ditch effort to get food and water, her cries were drowned out by loud bhajans sung to the accompaniment of high-decibel percussion.”
He remembers being shaken to the core. “Bimla Devi’s case convinced me that Santhara is, su***de masquerading as a religious practice wrapped in the mantle of hoary tradition. At its worst, Santhara came across as nothing but ritual murder, devised to rid a family of the economic burden of caring for its elderly who were seen as burden on the family budget.”
As he unsuccessfully tried to get the police to save Bimla Devi, he resolved to scale up his fight to save others from what he calls “being sacrificed” in the name of Santhara. “I filed a writ petition against the practice in the Rajasthan High Court calling it ‘a social evil’ that should be deemed an act of “su***de” — and therefore illegal — under Indian law. My petition demands that practitioners of Santhara be prosecuted under Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code for ‘attempt to commit su***de’ and their supporters — who encourage it by venerating them as ‘spiritually elevated’ beings — charged with abetting this crime.”
Community Support
Community insiders place the conservative estimate to about 200 Santharas every year in India, which the 2001 census says has 4.3 million Jains. Although many insist though the Jains in India are actually between 6-8 million, many end up being counted as Hindus due to ignorance or supremacist homogenisation.
These numbers indicate how Soni’s petition has pitted him against the might of one of the wealthiest communities in India with sharp battle lines as both camps are unwilling to budge even an inch in their argument. “While Soni’s petition invokes Right to Life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India, the Santhara advocates, interestingly use the same Article to argue their side,” smiles Hattangadi. “The Right to Life, they argue, is meaningless without the corresponding right to stop living or the right to die. The same Article, they underline, also grants a person the right to personal liberty in such matters.”
Many like Jain studies scholar Manish Modi actually think that the hullaballoo over Santhara has more to do with larger right-wing Hindu plan to homogenise all minorities. "They have done this to all minorities and are trying the same with the Jain community too. The huge majority which swept in the current dispensation to power in the general elections last year has only emoboldened them."
Stances like these have been bolstered considerably by the active support of retired High Court judge Pana Chand Jain who not only seeks the protection of at least three other constitutional provisions, but also the endorsement of an international covenant. In his interview in the documentary he dwells on Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution which allow followers of all faiths to freely profess, practise and propagate their religious faith; and the freedom to manage their religious affairs. “Mindful of the country’s ethnic and cultural diversity, Article 29 guarantees citizens with a distinct culture, the right to conserve the same,” he points out and adds, “Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — of which India is a signatory - says: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; [and the right] to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”
Judiciary thinks otherwise
As if this weren’t complicated enough, the judiciary thinks very differently on this issue. While Santhara followers evoke the Constitution and international covenant, Soni has the weight of judicial opinion firmly on his side of the right-to-die debate {Maruti Shripati Dubal v State of Maharashtra (1986) and P.Rathinam v Union of India (1994)} which respectively held that “if destruction of one’s property or its deliverance to others for a cause or no cause is not an offence, there is no reason why sacrifice of one’s body for a cause or without a cause or for the mere deliverance of it should be regarded as an offence” and that Sec 309 of IPC was “unconstitutional and hence void.” This ruling by a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court ruled in Smt Gian Kaur v State of Punjab (1996) that “the right-to-life is a natural right embodied in Article 21, but su***de is an unnatural termination or extinction of life and therefore incompatible and inconsistent with the concept of right-to-life.” Emphasizing the sanctity of human life, the Court, in over-ruling both Dubal and Rathinam, was categorical that “by no stretch of imagination,” can “extinction” of life be read to be included in “protection” of life.
All eyes are now on the Rajasthan High Court. Will it accept the Supreme Court’s precedent in Gian Kaur and outlaw Santhara? Will such a decision ‘hurt’ religious sensitivities of nearly 6 million practising Jains worldwide, for whom the centuries-old ritual holds a pride of place among their sacred traditions? Justice Jain seems to have already anticipated this eventuality. He argues, “Santhara can’t be called “su***de” by no stretch of imagination. It is no where remotely an act of extreme desperation fuelled by anguish.”