Slaughtering cowsis barbaric and offensive to India

 Anuradha Dutt

‘Liberals' have condemned the anti cow-slaughter laws adopted by some States. In doing so, they ignore the sensitivities of the majority population

The enactment of Cow Slaughter Prohibition (Amendment) Act, 2010 in Madhya Pradesh has elicited some vitriolic reactions, with one writer dwelling on the attractions of a beef steak. A similar diatribe in a Muslim nation, extolling the flavour of pork, would have been sufficient to get the police and clerics on the scribe’s trail. But India happens to be a secular democracy, with the Constitutional directive to ban cow slaughter being flouted with impunity by West Bengal, Kerala and the North-East.

The fact that most people in Hindu-majority India shun beef, and that the 1857 Mutiny against the British rule was triggered by the use of cow and pig lard on cartridges, seems to be of little concern to political parties that pander to minority sentiments or, more likely, beef, leather and exporters’ cartels. The irony is that even Jammu & Kashmir, battered by Islamist terror, has a strong anti-cow slaughter Act, enforced in 1896 by the erstwhile Dogra monarchy.

In the present instance, disturbed by the provisions for a seven-year jail term for a lapse and minimum fine of Rs 5,000, beef lobbyists have been quoting from the scriptures, like the Biblical Devil, to justify their stand. The onset of economic liberalisation was marked by a slew of supposedly scholarly features on the consumption of beef, especially as ritual food, by Hindus in Vedic and subsequent times.

But that the interpretation of Sanskrit verses is geared towards demolishing traditional beliefs is evident from the following excerpts. Mahabharat, for instance, states in praise of cows: “Cows are the prestige of beings — they are givers of all good. Cows were and will be the health-givers. Cows are the root of wealth and prosperity. Nothing that is given to the cows or is with them is lost. Cows are food itself. They give food and ghee and milk for the sacrifice. Oblations and offerings are inherent in the cow. Verily, cows are the very result of the sacrifice, and the yagyas are inherent in them.”

How easy would it be to twist the phrase, ‘Cows are food itself’, out of context to imply that ancient people routinely consumed beef. Besides cows’ utility as milch animals, in farming, with dung and remains fertilising fields, and the use of panchgavya — five products of milk, ghee, butter (and curd), dung and urine — in Ayurvedic medicine and the first three as sacrificial offerings, they have sanctity in Indic metaphysics. The Shree Krishna avatar and his profound association with cows underline this belief.

Preceding this, Atharva Veda says: “The cow, in the form of the universe, may fulfill our desires.” The exalted position accorded to cows in the Vedas is denoted by the use of the term Dhenu (cow) for Aditi, mother of the gods, while the gods are referred to as gojaat (kin of the cows). ‘Aghnya’ is the word commonly used for cows in the Vedas, denoting that they should not be injured. These earliest available Sanskrit texts recount that the deity Indra freed the cows from the mountain and made them available to humans, though not for meat. The fire in which meat is roasted is not to be used for yagyas, with a phrase in Rig Veda stating: “I am taking away the fire far from the place of roasting.”

A verse in Yajur Veda abjures all violence: “Protect and rear the animals: do not hit the cow; do not hit the goats; nor the sheep; nor any other creature; nor two-legged animals; nor the one-legged; one should not injure any living being.”

Panchatantra, which is a set of popular fables, aver: “If one can go to heaven by cutting down trees, killing animals and letting of blood of injured beings — who will go to hell then?”

About ritual sacrifice, Mahabharat says: “It is said that in the olden age, crops used to take the place of animals; and pious men, seeking heaven, used to perform their sacrifices with these only.” Eight chapters of Anushasan Parva of Mahabharata concern the cow. Bhishma, quoting from the Shrutis, says: “The cow is my mother; the bullock is the father; heaven is my shelter; and by this in the world arises my prestige.”

Further, he says: “The sacrifice becomes fruitful by her. She is the embryo of nectar and the prestige of the world. On earth, she is prosperity, birth-giving. All prosperity is due to the cow. This is the real truth.”

Devout Hindus, and especially the business class since millennia, have rendered service to cows by providing for the upkeep of cattle, even old, useless ones that are saved from slaughter houses. Some Islamic rulers, respecting such sentiments, also banned cow slaughter, which, however, was sanctioned by the British on a mass scale, for obtaining beef, leather and lard. Mechanised means of butchering facilitated the decimation of cattle and other creatures.