An Ahimsa Crisis: You Decide: Adulteration & Poor Quality In Building Materials & Construction

Again, it is not uncommon to find builders who try to cut corners wherever possible by using sub-standard building materials and violating the construction codes and standards. Every day, one can read in newspapers in India about buildings falling down, collapsing, and catching fires; people are killed due to these very practices.

About fifteen years ago, there was a major earthquake in the city of Ahmedabad and parts of Gujarat State. As a result, several high-rise buildings collapsed, trapping and killing many people. I read in newspapers that some of the designers and builders of these buildings were Jains. There are many large and small Jain builders in India. I hope they each stop and reflect on the level and intensity of himsa for which they are directly and indirectly responsible.

Now you decide, is this behavior consistent with ahimsa?

Here I have very briefly touched up on just a few of the items such as food, medicines, and building materials that can be adulterated and lead to loss of life for living beings. In my opinion, the scope and the net of this disease is extremely vast. Hardly any commodity item, trade, or service is immune from this.

In 2009, one jeweler (a non-Jain) in India shared with me that one of his relatives opened a gold jewelry shop in Mumbai. Just for the shop premises he paid a very handsome price (called “pagri”) just to rent it, and then he spent substantial amount of money on furnishing and on inventory. As a result, the interest alone on that investment was so large, that the only way he could make some profit was to practice cheating in the quality and quantity of the jewelry items. What a story!

When I was born in India, the water was potable and one would never think or imagine that one day water would be sold in India. In fact, such a practice was hated and frowned upon. These days, since water has become a multi-million dollar (more rightly multi-billion dollar) business in India, there is widespread adulteration of filtered water with dirty or unhygienic water. One can read such stories quite often; many a times large corporations are the ones behind it. One can easily find imitation, deceptively labeled, and products suffering from poor workmanship all over India. All of these have taken a major toll on the lives, well-being, and emotions of people and are the fruit of nothing but greed and hence, himsa.

Are Jains free from such practices? I am not sure.

Now you decide, is this behavior consistent with ahimsa?