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How the Republic of Vitalia became a vegetarian state
WARNING: This is a reportage from "The Times of South India" and may not necessarily reflect the government's position.Many foreigners who do not understand our customs wonder why we are vegetarians. It all started about 260 BCE when the emperor Aśoka waged a terrible war against the state of Kalinga. He killed thousands of people but after seeing all the suffering that he had caused, he embraced Buddhism:
"His Majesty feels remorse on account of the conquest of Kalinga because, during the subjugation of a previously unconquered country, slaughter, death, and taking away captive of the people necessarily occur, whereat His Majesty feels profound sorrow and regret".
"What have I done? If this is a victory, what's a defeat then? Is this a victory or a defeat? Is this justice or injustice? Is it gallantry or a rout? Is it valour to kill innocent children and women? Did I do it to widen the empire and for prosperity or to destroy the other's kingdom and splendour? One has lost her husband, someone else a father, someone a child, someone an unborn infant... What's this debris of the corpses? Are these marks of victory or defeat? Are these vultures, crows, eagles the messengers of death or evil?".
His dream was creating a state based on compassion for all creatures but his project failed after his death.
"I have enforced the law against killing certain animals and many others, but the greatest progress of righteousness among men comes from the exhortation in favour of non-injury to life and abstention from killing living beings".
More than 2,200 years later a new hope arose with the creation of the Vitalist Party (VP), the third force in India in 2009 with 100,000,000 votes. At that time, the number of vegetarians in India was 500,000,000 people. Much of them were Jains, 6,000,000 people. However, Jains and vegetarians were not equally distributed. The majority used to live in North India:
Nevertheless, because of the wars against Bigtopia, Blackacre, Marche Noir, Maxtopia, North Lilliputia and Wezeltonia, there was a massive migration of Jains to the South who, presumably, if they were not going to kill a non-human animal either a person. Conversely, there was a migration in the opposite direction. The government wanted to get rid of Kerala communists and Tamils so many of them were recruited as soldiers while others rebelled against it. In addition, many people that had suffered the consequences of the wars felt the need to become vegetarian, like many Jews who were in the concentration camps.
Saying the Republic of Vitalia is anti-Semitic or fascist is contradictory, especially if one takes into account that far-right is in the opposition
Finally, because of the difficulties of supply, there was an increase in the price of meat so, when South India became independent, around 75 % of the population was vegetarian. After a pact with the communists of Kerala, the socialists of Andhra Pradesh, the centrists of Tamil Nadu and the liberal-conservative of Karnataka it was decided to make vegetarianism compulsory throughout the country, although the implementation of this law has always been difficult in the islands.