India: Cowed

All that kill cows rot in hell for as many years as there are hairs on the body of the cow they kitted.

—Ancient Hindu Scripture

The news sent a shudder of horror through India. Indian newspapers called it “a calamity.” What outraged them was that 200 cows living in a large rest home maintained by Punjab state died last week of malnutrition and exposure. Two M.P.s of the right-wing, ultra Hindu Jana Sangh Party related the horrible details: a thousand cattle had been crowded together at Mattewara in flimsy bamboo sheds, sinking in mud and dung until they keeled over to provide grisly feasts for vultures and jackals. Mightily embarrassed, the state government sent its director of animal husbandry flying from Chandigarh to move 100 cows from the overcrowded rest home to another cow rest home nearby.

Traffic & Tithes. Though Indian agriculture ministry officials privately call cow worship a serious drain on their country’s resources, Hindus in millions still say as they have through the ages: “The cow is our mother.” India remains the world’s great cow country: its 202 million head of cattle (almost one-fourth of the world’s cattle population and double that of the U.S.) compete for food with its 400 million human inhabitants.

Since devout Hindus refuse to kill aging cows, thousands are turned loose to wander through villages and towns, exercising their uncontested right to root in any garden. In Calcutta, great humped Brahman bulls still stalk majestically across streets, bringing traffic to a screeching halt as they nose in a vegetable dealer’s baskets. In some smaller cities, humble people may still be seen following cows to catch and sip the animals’ urine in the belief that it surpasses in potency all other means of purifying soul and body. Hindu businessmen support old cows’ homes more readily than old people’s homes.

Shelter or Slaughter. Actually, for every Hindu tradition that forbids cow slaughter, progressive Hindus can find another that permits it. But butchering is banned outright in eight Indian states and restricted to very old animals in most others. Recently the Supreme Court ruled that state laws fixing the slaughtering age for cows at 25 years were unreasonable and suggested that 15 was old enough. According to one Delhi official’s bitter estimate, the 10% of India’s cows that are old, economically useless and fit only for the rest home program devour the output of 40 million of India’s 300 million cultivated acres. “Man eats cows in other countries, but here the cow is eating man,” says a Congress party leader. But he says it in private. Calling for more money for more rest homes for old cows, Nehru himself says: “The West does not worship the cow but takes care of it. We worship it but do not take care of it.”