By Jyotirmoy Prodhani
The first English essay we learnt in school was on the cow. The next one was, “My Aim in Life”, where the official aim of most students was to become a humble school teacher. For decades the essay on the cow has remained the same. It begins with that famous line, “The cow is a four footed domestic animal”, considered the perfect opening of a great essay. Later, few of us who had opted for Hindi as an additional subject (it was never compulsory), got to read an abridged version of Premchand’s Godan. Till then we had no idea that the cow could ever occupy centre stage with such formidable stride.
In Assam there are special rituals in the form of Garu (cow) Bihu during Rongali and Bhogali Bihu. One is not aware as to whether in the Hindi heartland, also known as the cow belt, there are any such folk rituals and privileges reserved for the cow despite having the most violent cow protectors (gau rakshaks) thriving in those territories. The idea of goushala has primarily come from the cow belt where in most cases the cows experience what it feels to be in the worst form of hell, to the extent that people had to file PIL suits seeking judicial intervention to improve their condition. Though goushalas are most likely to become premium national institutes soon, yet one can well anticipate that putrid squalid of these enclosures is least likely to disappear. Ironically, no matter how much they officially claim the cow to be their mata, as soon as it is dead, it quickly transforms into horrible dirt, a filthy untouchable. To deal with the dead cows the great protectors and worshippers of cow go to the extent of inventing a whole new caste with similar status- the Untouchables.
By the way, how long does the cow remain a ‘national animal’ – as long as she is alive or even after her death? In that case, will the carcasses of cows ever be offered pujan by the Brahmins? Will they pull the tail of a dead cow to dab it on their foreheads as it is normally done with dead elephants? One never knows. With the growing clout of the cow, we might soon discover skin and dry bones of dead cows adorning households in the manner that tiger skin and deer trophies did earlier on the walls of the rich and mighty. In that case the untouchables, exploited for centuries in the name of the cow, might be relieved of the customary obligation to handle the cow carcasses; the high castes might as well take over the job now. It seems utopian though because hypocrisy is expected to remain as intact.
When the present union government is so sentimental about the cow, it should also be equally concerned about the most abusive methods used to extract its milk. In fact, it is the cow which is the only animal on this planet that cannot feed its milk to its own calves properly. Every drop of milk extracted from her is by cruelly depriving a young and hungry calf of its right to the mother’s udder. Commercial production of milk products is the biggest cause of the awful exploitation of the cows. Ghee is one such mass milk product, which is considered a health hazard and one of the biggest causes of endemic obesity, alarming rise of diabetes, heart attacks, pressure and a host of other ailments. To begin with, at least in the North Eastern states where ghee is not the primary form of edible oil, it should be banned on ethical grounds. This would greatly reduce the mental and physical agony of the cow. By forcing cows to produce more milk for commercial gains, at times by injecting poisonous diclofenac, the perpetrators are not only inflicting immoral harm to the souls of the cow but also to not less than ‘thirty three crores of celestial souls’ who supposedly live inside her. Other major milk products like paneer etc. should also follow suit on the same ethical grounds. This would be a genuine tribute to the beleaguered cow.
While teaching Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas to a class of students predominantly from the North East, they were clueless as to how people could be so callous and crass to kill each other for the innocuous and ordinary animals as pigs and cows. Pakistan is an Islamic Republic. Bangladesh followed suit; it is no longer secular; Islam is its state religion. Official status of pork in these two countries must be that of haram, but one is unsure if they have also banned slaughter of pigs altogether. But here in India no matter how much they try to convince that beef is not banned but only cow slaughter, it is anybody’s guess that unless one slaughters cattle one cannot invent beef. Imagine if a judge, following irresistible ‘call of the soul’, in the place of ‘celibate, tear jerking peacocks’, recommends chicken as India’s national bird and its eggs as national treasure! Soon venerable murgshalas might start cropping up imposing a moral obligation on the central government again to ban ‘culling of cocks and hen’ as well, though not ‘eating chicken’, as it were.
In the wake of a ferocious logic to turn India vegetarian, it is noteworthy that in the Vedic period cattle slaughter was rather common. Even Sage Manu, exceptionally notorious for prescribing brutal casteism and other obscurantist practices, had sanctioned eating of many wild animals. Among domestic animals, any animal with teeth in jaw was allowed with the exception of camel, but not the cow. (The Myth of the Holy Cow, D N Jha, 91). For Manu eating meat on sacrificial occasions was a divine rule- daivah vidih smrtah. In the Mahabharata Yudhisthira, who was averse to himsa, used to regularly hunt wild animals for his brothers, his wife Draupadi and the Brahmins who used to live nearby. (Jha 95) The sixth century BC Sanskrit grammarian, Panini, used the word goghna, meaning killing of cow, as a synonym for ‘guest’ because the sages used to kill cubs and cows to entertain guests. (Jha 33)
Animals deserve protection, but when this becomes an outrageous agenda particularly with the sadist intention of offending and targeting the ‘other’, it is an ominous sign of a colossal doom. Noted Tamil playwright Indira Parthasarathi in his play, Aurangzeb, has depicted how the great Mughal empire began to collapse during the reign of Aurangzeb not because he was vanquished by the collective force of others but by the weight of his own bigotry and monstrous obstinacy to refuse to accept the plurality and diversity of his empire, which he was fanatically obsessed to turn into one country, Hindostan; with one language, Hindostani and one religion, Islam. Are we, through a queer twist of history, back to the regime of mad dreams of crazy despots? Then, if the present regime crumbles like that of Aurangzeb’s, they should not blame it on others.
It is quite likely, given the present obsession of the state with the cow, that a student might well begin his first essay thus, “The cow is a national animal. It is mostly found in the government institutes called goushalas. In olden days when there were farmers they used to keep them at home. Now it is not possible to keep cow without special permit and licence from the government. Cow milk is very good, but very expensive. Only very big and rich people can drink milk. My uncle bought two packets of milk from a foreign country. I once drank that milk. It was very tasty.”
This might well be a sad opening on a famous topic.
Jyotirmoy Prodhani is a Professor of English at NEHU, Shillong
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