The
National Commission on Cattle, presided over by
Justice GM Lodha, recently submitted its recommendations
to the Union Government. The report, in 4 volumes,
calls for stringent laws to protect cow and its
progeny in the interest of India's rural economy.
As is only to be expected of people with Western
mindset, a national daily's correspondent has
slammed the report and its recommendations in
satirical terms. The tenor of the report, however,
did not surprise me at all, since such westernised
minds suffer from an inveterate habit of condemning
all things associated with India, Yoga or Ayurveda,
till there is an approval from the West. Ignorance
is the mother of their arrogance and it leaves
its imprint on the issue of cow protection as
well. They distort it either to make it appear
as a contentious Hindu-Muslim issue, which it
is not, or treat it solely as a matter of Hindu
sentiments.
Even Islamic scholars aver that Islam gives no
compulsive directive for killing of cow either
for religious or mundane purposes. The British
shrewdly foisted this issue. They were beefeaters
and had no compunctions about killing cows to
meet their taste. To their pleasant surprise,
they found they could co-opt the Muslims into
that category and widen the latter's gulf with
the Hindus. The first War of Independence in 1857
erupted as a sepoy mutiny, when an Indian section
of the British army refused to teeth cartridges
supposedly made from cow/pork fat. Its extreme
manifestation was a Brahmin soldier Mangal Pandey,
who shot dead Sergeant Wheeler, thus beginning
the uprising prematurely.
Bahadur Shah 'Zafar', after regaining Delhi in
1857 for a brief interlude, made the killing of
cow a capital offence. Bahadur Shah was not the
first Mughal king to make such a proclamation.
Babur may have been an ardent Ghazi of Islam,
but he, in his letter dated 935 Hijri, advocated
his son Humayun to stop cow slaughter in India.
As recorded in his famous firman of 1586, Akbar
too completely forbade cow slaughter throughout
his empire. Then Emperor Jehangir promulgated
an order that on Sundays, when Akbar was born,
and Thursdays, when Jehangir ascended to the throne,
no animal should be sacrificed. Even bigoted Aurangzeb
always refrained from making cow-sacrifice during
Bakr-Id. We are also aware how in Maharaja Ranjit
Singh's kingdom the only crime that had capital
punishment was cow slaughter.
Religious and cultural sentiments associated with
cow are too well known to bear repetition. But
its economic and ecological aspects elude these
second-hand Western-minders. In an agrarian country
like India, bovine population was considered an
asset and an index of prosperity. While cows yielded
milk, oxen tilled in the fields or drew carts.
India's voice has been one of peaceful co-existence
with flora, fauna and rest of humankind. There
was an inclination towards complete vegetarianism
as reflected in Jainism and Buddhism. Since these
philosophies put their faith in transmigration
of soul, they desisted from animal slaughter since
an animal was also a Buddha in the making. And
cow was a mother-animal by every conceivable standard
for them.
Serene
by temperament, herbivorous by diet, the very
appearance of a white cow evoked a sense of piety.
Apart from milk, the excretion of cows too was
never allowed to go waste. Cow dung, also known
for its anti-septic value, is still used as fuel
in its dried form. It is used in compost manure
and even in the production of electricity through
eco-friendly gobar-gas.
The Article 48 of the Constitution says: "The
State shall endeavor or organise agriculture and
animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines
and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving
and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the
slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and
draught cattle." In the 1950s, the Jana Sangh
voiced the demand for cow protection as per Article
48 and Mahatma Gandhi's declaration: "Cow
protection is more important than even Swaraj."
A 1958 decision of 5-member bench of the Supreme
Court upheld Article 48 as fully legitimate. One
of the members who happened to be from Muslim
community called for making Article 48 mandatory
since it was still liable to misuse.
Agricultural is still the mainstay of India's
economy - cow breeding and cow preservation are
integral to it. 75 per cent of Indians live in
villages and derive the greatest benefits from
cows and bullocks. Despite the compulsions of
modernism, tractors are not suitable for Indian
land holdings unlike in the US and the UK. In
US the land available to each person is around
14 acre; in India it is around 0.70 acre. A tractor
consumes diesel, creates pollution, doesn't eat
grass nor produces dung for manure. So for Indian
conditions ploughing is still ideal. Even Albert
Einstein, in a letter to Sir CV Raman, wrote:
"Tell the people of India, that if they want
to survive and show the world path to survive,
then they should forget about tractor and preserve
their ancient tradition of ploughing."
While India gets trapped in the fad of non-vegetarianism,
there is move towards vegetarianism in the West.
There is a widespread belief that beef has high
protein content and cannot be supplanted. A clinical
dietician's chart will show that beef, with 22
per cent protein, ranks far below vegetable products
like soybean (43), groundnut (31), pulses (24).
Moreover, excess intake of protein is not good,
as it only contributes to obesity, a bane of modern
civilisation. To procure 1 kg of beef (or for
that matter flesh) it takes 7 kg of crops and
7,000 kg of water. This contributes to water shortage
in regions where beef is prevalent.
Long back, scientist James Watson Scott had noted
that if food shortages were to be banished from
populous countries, the food habits of the people
should be altered to vegetarianism, which is fast
catching up in Europe. Thus protection of cow
makes good economic and ecological sense.
Courtesy: The Pioneer, August 15, 2002