Holy Shit

With all respect to all those who worship cows, including my ancestors, I just don’t see any holiness in a cow—not any more than what I see in a sheep or a deer. I see them everyday on the streets—sometimes majestic, walking on the road leisurely and nonchalant, ignoring relentless honking of hapless office-goers; sometimes dirty, with dung and mud all over them; sometimes pathetic, being harshly shooed away by roadside vegetable vendors. They have nice, expressive eyes, though not as beautiful as doe eyes. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. It’s not about my likes and dislikes.

It’s about cow worship. The other day I went Google-searching for the origins of holy cow. I found some articles that said traditionally most Hindus including Brahmins used to eat beef. B R Ambedkar in fact stated that cow slaughter was declared a mortal sin by Brahmin pandits around the fourth or fifth century to regain the ground Brahminism had lost to Buddhism in most parts of the country. I also found that several people have strongly refuted this theory and some in very harsh words. I don’t want to take sides. It doesn’t matter when holy cow came into being. She’s here, and she has been here for at least 15 centuries.

But does she make sense? Or, is cow worship another baseless custom like Sati, where widows jumped into the pyre of their husbands? Well, protecting cows made economic sense because she provided milk, perhaps the main source of protein. Also, oxen were widely used to plough farmlands. So there was a reason for protecting them until they turned barren or too weak to work. Was that a reason for banning cow slaughter? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Now, while cow continues to provide the bulk of the milk we use, oxen have been steadily losing their place in the farms to tractors. That is to say there’s not much economic sense in protecting the male cattle. But then this is not about economy or what makes sense to you as an individual. It’s about one’s belief.

Fair enough. I have no problem if you worship cow, or snake, or rat. It’s absolutely up to you. Of course I don’t like it when you take away my food. Beef was one meat most people could afford and, as a matter of fact, it’s very tasty. Now, vegetarians may not get it—when I talk about beef or pork it’s not a bull or a pig that comes to my mind, but some of my favourite dishes or finely cut pieces of meat. Anyway, if the majority worship cow and the state has banned beef, as is the case in Delhi, then I would stick to the rule although I’m not convinced about such rulemaking in a highly diverse and secular country like ours. Nevertheless I would fall in line, in the spirit of 'when in Rome, do like Romans'.

But what has really got into me and prompted this blog piece is the disturbing vigilantism and plain vandalism some right wing groups have been displaying and the way a lot of us, the people, have come to consider such incidents normal.

One person, who apparently had mutton in his refrigerator, was lynched after being accused of cow slaughter right next to the national capital. After that so many central ministers and national leaders talked about cow slaughter, plans to impose a nationwide ban on it, putting up labs in ports to check beef exports, and declaring that cow is our mother. Did anyone talk about crowd violence and steps to check it? Did anyone care to remind people that law enforcement is the job of the police and administration and not that of the public? Even if anyone did it went unnoticed.

There have been several other incidents since—another person was lynched for trying to transport cattle, allegedly to a slaughterhouse, a Kashmir MLA was attacked in state assembly for holding a beef party and later inked in Delhi, a writer was inked for organising the launch of a book by a former Pakistan foreign minister, a Pakistani family spent a night out in the streets in Mumbai because no hotel would give them room… Then there are all those writers returning awards in protest against “rising intolerance” and the Sahitya Akademi and government’s silence over the murder of Kannada writer MM Kalburgi, which is another story.

My issue is not with the central government or the prime minister. As their supporters point out, law and order is a state subject and the central government has nothing to do with these incidents. I don’t disagree. My problem is with the way we people and those in power have been receiving these news as normal everyday incidents. It’s like, if you kill cattle then you may get lynched, if you are from Pakistan then you may not be able to find a place to stay, if you oppose cow slaughter ban then you could get inked…as if these are the most expected things to happen!

During the same period there have been many incidents of rapes, tens of them, of both grown-ups and children, mostly in gangs or pairs. Man’s real, biological mother is treated worse than any animal! But there is no vigilante to protect her. There’s hardly any central minister talking about such crimes. No marks for guessing why.

The problem is not with India or one political faction or ideology. The whole world is full of conflicts, between religions, between races, between cultures and communities. There are civil wars, terrorist attacks, border conflicts, western/US interventions… ISIS and Boko Haram are killing thousands in the Middle East and Nigeria, there’s civil war in Ukraine and several African countries, US and Russia are bombing parts of Iraq and Syria, many European countries won’t let refugees in, there’s no end in sight for the Palestine issue, racism still prevails in several parts of the world… Terrorist attacks have killed almost 18,000 people this year, according to global think tank Institute of Economics and Peace that has placed India at 143 out of 162 countries in its 2015 Global Peace Index. India is among the worse, but there are not many peaceful countries in the world. Why is it so?

Why do cows become more precious to some people than fellow human beings? What makes some people think their own faith is the only truth and those who don’t share it deserve nothing but hell? After all, our faith would have been different if our ancestors chose to follow a different custom. Yet, many of us scorn those who follow a different custom!

I think the biggest problem with man is that a lot of people don’t identify themselves at the primary level—as a human being. Look at all those people: Hindus, Muslims, Dalits, upper castes, Nagas, Tamils, blacks, whites, feminists, homosexuals, bisexuals, Chinese, refugees, settlers, Africans, Sunnis, Shias, rich and poor, capitalists and communists, Indians and Pakistanis, graduates and illiterates, vegetarians and non-vegetarians… there are so many kind of people. Yet, looking for someone who sees himself primarily as a human being would be like Diogenes of Sinope going around holding a lamp in the daytime looking for an “honest man”. We are just not used to identifying ourselves as humans.

It’s strange considering there’s a lot to celebrate about humans. OK, man might be the primary culprit for putting the planet at high risk by attributing greatly to global warming and climate change, mining out resources and changing landscapes in selfish pursuits. Still, there’s a lot to boast about man's journey, transforming from being just another animal to being at a striking distance of travelling to Mars! Not bad for a species, huh?

Why isn’t the world celebrating the human race’s progress and great achievements—be it the day Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon or the day Usain Bolt ran the fastest race in history, or what about a Stone Age day? Instead of that we are busy killing each other in the name of cow and caste. Holy shit!

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