An Ahimsa Crisis: You Decide: Adulteration In Patrol/Gasoline And Diesel

I have come to know that quite often, (it was a common practice until a few years ago) many patrol station owners were engaged in mixing kerosene and some other cheaper fuels with gasoline/ patrol and diesel fuels used in automobiles and in agriculture. Also, cheating by not dispensing/delivering the right quantity/ volume has been very common. The dispensing meters are intentionally set in favor of the patrol pump owner and are barely calibrated, so as to dispense a lesser amount. In addition, since there are very few self-service patrol pumps in India, the attendants used to try to cheat here, too, by dispensing less and charging more. So one can see that the practice in this trade was to adulterate the product, dispense less, and charge more. What a fast way to become rich! I personally became a victim of such practices in India a few times.

A few years ago, I was going through the State of Rajasthan in India. On one patrol pump the big advertisement proclaimed, “Now Shudh [pure or not adulterated] and Pooraa [full quantity, also] bhi,” implying that up to that point, none of that had been true.

As retailers, many Jains own patrol and diesel stations. Quite a few are in the wholesale trading of such commodities as well.

Now you decide, is this behavior consistent with ahimsa?