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
