In India, people often consider it a virtue to feed stray dogs with dry chapatis or pigeons with yesterday’s rice. It is preached as charity, compassion, and even religion. But one question remains unanswered: if feeding stale food to dogs is virtue, then why isn’t feeding goat and beef meat to lions and tigers also a virtue?
The answer lies in our selective morality. What we call “virtue” is often just convenience dressed in spirituality. Leftover chapatis and rice cost us nothing, so offering them to animals becomes an easy ritual to ease our conscience. But when it comes to predators like lions or tigers, who demand fresh meat, the act suddenly stops being sacred. We shy away from it because it’s inconvenient, expensive, and bloody.
This reveals the hypocrisy at the heart of human compassion. Virtue, if it is real, cannot be selective. Compassion is not about feeding what we don’t need; it’s about recognizing and responding to the natural needs of other beings, even when it makes us uncomfortable.
Religion often simplifies virtue into acts of convenience, but dharma demands something more profound. If you truly believe feeding animals is sacred, then you must also acknowledge that feeding a predator is as much a dharmic act as feeding a pigeon. Otherwise, what you are practicing is not compassion—it’s just waste management disguised as spirituality.