Let the Camels Raise Their Heads with Pride

O lad́alii lumájhumá

Ye mháro goraband nakharálo.

[On the beautiful tassels hanging and swinging from the neck ornament (Gorband) of my camel looks so stunning.]

​This is the start of a famous Rajasthani song about a lady telling her husband how she decorated their beloved camel so their camel will raise its beautiful neck and ride majestically over the desert sands. But the real life of camels is far from this beauty.

​Camels are gifts of nature — they survive scorching deserts, provide milk, transport supplies and support entire communities. Yet, no desert is harsher than the heart of a greedy human.

​Across Rajasthan, Haryana and Gujarat, camels are forced to carry tourists, bricks and heavy loads without rest or food. When they fail, they are beaten. Many collapse, break their legs, or suffer untreated wounds, infections, ticks and maggots. In circuses and fairs, their “training” involves breaking their spirit through pain.

​In old age, many are abandoned or sold illegally for slaughter. One news report told of a camel left in the heat without food or water — driven mad, it ran into a field, only to have its skull crushed with an axe. If this happened to you after a lifetime of service, what would you call your abusers?

​In 2014, Rajasthan declared the camel its state animal, banning slaughter and transport. Yet the law unintentionally pushed poor herders into deeper poverty, causing more smuggling and abandonment instead of protection.

​The problem is not the herders alone — it is the economic and social system. Wild wolves don’t have “rich wolves” eating while others starve. But humans allow profit to rule over compassion, and animals like camels become victims of global greed.

​Even in tourist resorts, camels suffer — tied, starved, pierced with painful nose ropes, forced to give rides for photos. Male camels are electroshocked for semen collection, females artificially inseminated, and babies branded with hot irons.

​When humanity forgets kindness, disaster follows. We saw during COVID how the violence humans inflict on animals ultimately returns to humans themselves.

Shrii Shrii Anandamurti warned us:

“The kind of persecution which is being perpetrated against animals today may be perpetrated by one social group against another tomorrow, because the very tendency to torture others is predominant in the blood of exploiters. They are not free from this disease – they merely mouth high ideals. That is why I said that this is all pseudo-humanistic strategy.”

If we want true humanity, we must restore dignity to animals — especially these gentle desert companions.
Let every camel raise its head again with pride, not pain.

This is not only our duty — it is the essence of our Neo-Humanism.