I wanted to write a blog for a long time but there was
nothing so important or exciting or disturbing to hold my attention. Then came
the intervening night of 8th and 9th July when the city
of Bhopal got drenched to the core with water logging and flood like
situation. It was just not our city but the many parts of the state which
received very high rainfall for which the administration is never ready &
therefore difficulties which could have been avoided became of mammoth size with
lives being lost & crores of losses to property.
While my area was water logged (mainly because of wrong
constructions), we were all up since 3 in the morning & trying to minimize
our losses as much as we could. As the dawn horizoned, we took the mandatory
photographs, circulated with friends, climbed the highest terrace, shared cups
of tea & stories of 2006 when it last happened, called up friends &
family to know their plight (though mostly it was we who did the talking),
suddenly a calf came swimming to our area & before we could help him, he
climbed the tarmac and walked away calmly. I was surprised that none of the
owners came in the area before to hunt for it & there was no Gau rakshaks
in the lookout. When I shared my thoughts with my Ma, she coolly replied that
cows do not drown, they will float away. But somewhere at the back of my mind,
the sight of that calf floating to our area remained.
These past few days when the Rain God has show some mercy on
us, apart from potholes making our journeys difficult, it is the ubiquitous Gau
Mata which is causing serious heart burn on the roads of Bhopal. Right now if
you visit any part of the city you will find scores of these milch cattle
sitting proudly in the middle of the road, without a care in the world &
you may honk all you like but they won’t move and the best part is they move
with their families (the extended ones too). So the only way is to move around
them and make way.
Now this brings me to the question of Hindus revering Cows,
giving it the place of Mother but when it comes to taking care of them, they
are all lost somewhere. The recent political environment in the country is such
that Cows are being given more importance than people, at least in the
narratives and the literature all around. The latest incidence of Gujarat (no
not again the same state with such diabolical history) proves the point. Before
I proceed with my problem of seeing Cow as a sacred animal & not of
economic use, let me share a few statistics. We are the largest producer of Milk
in the world & if you refer to the economic survey of this year, you will
read how our Finance Minister boasts of this fact. Another statistic that is a
corollary to this is that we contribute to more than 55% of beef along with
Australia and Brazil to the world. Now both these statistics show that the
economics of cow farming or of the milch cattle’s is beneficial for us. So far
there is no problem, but the debate starts when the so called “Hindus” (so
called because Hinduism does not give the right to kill others in the name of
religion) start making it an issue of religion. People have been lynched in
recent times over eating beef or by carrying it or in the mere suspicion that
that have some links with this harbinger of hate.
What is
more worrying is the state response. We all know the premises on which the
present government came to power and the issues that it keeps pushing in the
name of nationalism, therefore it would have been much better if the government
would have come out in the open and told its citizens that they cannot eat,
talk, see, smell or even think about beef. Rather it has taken a sly stand
where it asks the “gaurakshaks” not to be caught & on the other hand the
premier talks about how saddened he is when he addresses the nation through “Mann
ki Baat”. This dual faced policy of the state is beyond comprehension.
My personal
view is that a country which venerates Cows but leaves them on the roads to
fend for themselves, allows them to eat polythene’s and the moment she becomes
incapable of producing more, she becomes a burden, selling beef should not be
an issue. As a student of economics too, my logic says that anything which
complements the income of the farmers should be encouraged. Madhya Pradesh has
a huge cattle population but does not allow its processing but there have been
reports that people belonging to the state ideologue are exporting beef which
makes perfect business sense but is deceiving the general public. There are a
lot many socio economic issues which need the focused attention of the
government and we are still in search of minimum government, maximum
governance. Hope to see the acche din soon
