In a discussion with animal welfare advocate Gauri Maulekhi, Acharya Prashant addresses the escalating issue of animal cruelty. Gauri Maulekhi begins by stating that when she started her work in 1994, awareness about animal cruelty was low, but industrial-scale cruelty was also minimal. She notes a progressive increase in cruelty due to demands for meat, entertainment, experiments, and unnecessary luxuries, describing the current situation as an unprecedented and unsustainable "holocaust." She provides stark statistics, mentioning that 100 billion land animals are killed annually for human food, and 90 billion are used for experiments. She details the horrific conditions of factory farming, including battery cages for chickens, gestation crates for pigs, and the lifelong chaining of buffaloes in basements, where they are injected with oxytocin to induce labor pains for milk extraction. She asserts that this type of animal husbandry is neither part of Indian culture nor humane. Acharya Prashant responds by linking the sharp rise in animal cruelty over the past 30 years to the post-liberalization era in India, starting from the 1990s. He suggests that what is often called "modernity" has, in fact, made people more violent, cruel, and insensitive. He points out the irony that the younger generation, which is often considered progressive, has the highest percentage of non-vegetarians, indicating a departure from traditional Indian values and a more un-Indian way of life. He argues that the problem is not a lack of laws or technology but a fundamental degradation in human consciousness. He expresses skepticism about the efficacy of legal and technological solutions, such as plant-based meat, if the underlying violence in the human mind is not addressed. He fears that if one outlet for this inner "demon" is blocked, it will simply find another target, whether it be other humans or nature itself. He highlights the hypocrisy in terms like "humane killing" and emphasizes that the core issue is the human mind. He agrees that there is a disconnect between consumers and the suffering of the animals they eat, suggesting that if people witnessed the reality, they might not be able to consume meat. Ultimately, he concludes that the solution lies in a transformation of human consciousness.