Faith, Ethics, and the Animals Among Us

In a country like India, where temple elephants are paraded during festivals and cows are lovingly fed chapatis at dawn, the connection between religion and animals is not abstract—it is lived. But is our reverence for animals truly reflected in how we treat them?

Joyce D’Silva, a long-time advocate for humane farming practices and former CEO of Compassion in World Farming, seeks to answer this question in her thought-provoking new book, Animal Welfare in World Religion: Teaching and Practice. The book is not Indian in origin, but its themes resonate deeply with Indian readers, especially in a society where spiritual traditions are so tightly interwoven with everyday life—and often, with contradictions.

D’Silva takes the reader on a global religious journey, examining the ethical frameworks around animal life in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Rastafarianism, and various Indigenous spiritual traditions. Her tone is not polemical, but quietly insistent: she invites us to scrutinize the gulf between what our scriptures preach and what our societies practice.

For Indian readers, the chapters on Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism are especially compelling. The doctrine of ahimsa (non-violence), central to both Hindu and Jain thought, is explored not as a philosophical abstraction but as a test of moral consistency. D’Silva raises pointed questions: How can a society that reveres cows tolerate the cruelties of the dairy industry? How do we reconcile rituals that involve animal sacrifice with teachings of compassion and interconnectedness? Equally, for India’s sizable Muslim and Christian communities, the book offers thoughtful reflections on how scriptural compassion can be better aligned with contemporary practices—particularly around food choices, religious slaughter, and the ethics of stewardship.

Her critique is not limited to the East. In fact, some of the strongest commentary is reserved for the industrialized West, where factory farming is treated as a brutal blind spot in otherwise humane societies. But what elevates the book is D’Silva’s ability to show that these tensions—between belief and behavior—are universal. No faith tradition escapes scrutiny, and none is dismissed either.

What stands out is the humility with which D’Silva approaches sacred texts. She is not here to theologize but to prompt reflection. Her engagement with contemporary religious leaders across traditions lends the book a certain moral urgency. It’s not just a catalog of what holy books say, but a call to rethink what communities do.

Of course, as an Indian reader, one does feel the absence of certain localized traditions—the tribal cosmologies of India’s Adivasi communities, for instance, are not given the space they arguably deserve. Their relationship with animals is often more ecological than doctrinal, yet deeply instructive in our Anthropocene moment.

Still, Animal Welfare in World Religion succeeds where it matters: it makes us uncomfortable in the right ways. At a time when spiritual discourse is often reduced to identity politics or festival fanfare, this book quietly redirects our attention to something more elemental—our shared moral responsibility toward sentient life.

If read with the openness it asks for, D’Silva’s book could stir not just debate but conscience. And that, in our noisy times, is no small thing.