Cow Eats Cow World

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 8^th and 9^th 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