Ban On Cow Slaughter, And Beef Eating In India: Its Implications In Nepal

Siddhi B Ranjitkar

My dear cows and bullocks: enjoy your full lives in Maharastra. The government of the Hindu party had finally succeeded the president of India to put his seal of assent on the bill making it a law that put a ban on the slaughter of cows and the eating of beef in Maharastra. Some of them said that they had been preparing for a universal ban on cow slaughter in India. Now, cows would not be officially slaughtered at least in Maharastra. Apparently, cows will have long lives but miserable ones. Water buffaloes might take the place of cows and bullocks.

Cows and bullocks might be thinking what would be their destiny after they became economically unproductive. The Hindu fanatics had succeeded to officially protect their lives but had the Hindus succeeded in keeping cows and bullocks in a good shape. Obviously, the Hindus did not care about it. They knew that Hindus should not eat beef but they did not know why. So, they also did not know how to better the lives of the deity cow and god bullock. They just wanted to stop the slaughter of cows and bullocks and to stop the eating of beefsteak in Maharastra, nothing else.

Before a ban on the cow-and-bullock slaughter, cows and bullocks must have nice lives. They served the humans as much as possible. Cows gave milk to the Hindus and others as well; bullocks served the farmers and rural people by being helping hands in plowing and transporting. When they became weak, they served the humans other than the Hindus for their delicious dishes on their dinning tables. Thus, they served both Hindus and non-Hindus. Their lives had been the most useful ones both to the Hindus and non-Hindus, too.

Hindus believed that the lord had sent cows and bulls to serve the people. Cows were sent for giving milk, urine and dung so precious and sacred to the Hindus whereas bulls were sent to work for humans. Lord Shiva sent his companion bull called Nandi to work for the humans instead Nandi used mundane bulls.

For the mistake of Nandi: a divine bull, all-mundane bulls had to serve the humans for producing sufficient foods for humans to eat three meals a day.

Once, Supreme Hindu God Lord Shiva said to Nandi, “Nandi, go to the human world, and tell them to wash three times a day, and eat a one-midday meal.”

Nandi traveled from Kailash: the cosmic abode of Lord Shiva to the Hindu world. While on his cosmic way down to the Hindu world, Nandi got confused what Lord Shiva had told him to convey to the humans. Nandi came to the human world, and called the assembly of all humans, and he said to all humans, “Wash once a day, and eat three meals a day. These are the words of Lord Shiva.”

Nandi traveled back to Kailash in the cosmic world. Lord Shiva asked Nandi, “Did you correctly convey the message to the humans?” “Yes, I did,” replied Nandi. “Say, what message, did you convey.” “I said, wash once a day and eat three meals a day.” “O! You committed a grave mistake. How could humans have so much of food to have three meals a day? Go to them and serve them for producing sufficient food for them to eat three meals a day.”

However, the Nevah community never used bullocks for plowing land respecting the bronze Nandi sitting on a pedestal at the western gate to the Pashupait Temple in Kathmandu.

Hindus believed that cows’ milk was precious nutritious food, cows’ urine also worked as medicine, and cow dung as the holy material. Cow milk was the nutritious food, no doubt about that. Ayurvedic physicians used cows’ urine as a medium for preparing medicine. For example, Nepalese Ayurvedic physicians processed raw ‘silajit’ in cow urine to fine medicinal ‘silajit’ at the State-run Ayurvedic clinic-cum-medicine-preparing unit at Singhadurbar. One of the physicians told me that cow urine preserve the medicinal value of ‘silajit.’ ‘Silajit’ worked like any strong antibiotic cream. We consumed it, and applied it on any cuts, burns, or sores on our bodies. It had the aroma of cow urine. It acted very fast and very effectively. Cow dung was another high social value product. Hindus used it for purifying floor and as the symbol of purity at any Hindu religious events. Hindus believed that dying on the floor smeared with cow dung would take their souls for eternal spiritual lives in another world. Hindu believers would never miss it.

We used only the cow dung as a glue to post the paper portrait of the Naga deity on the Naga panchami day on the main entrance to our homes in Kathmandu once a year in July/August. Naga deity protects our home from getting struck by lightning.

Hindus had been smart and would be smart, too to exploit the deity cow and the bullock. They had kept cows not because they wanted to revere cows as a deity at their homes but for milking. As long as cows could give milk they would revere. Once, cows stopped giving milk then the Hindus threw the cows on the streets. Cows were still deities for the Hindus but cows also were stray animals even before the ban on slaughtering cows and bulls. With the ban on cow slaughter, a number of stray cows would increase on the streets of the Maharastra metropolis. Animal-rights activists had been very concerned with the cows being stray animals in the metropolitan cities of the Hindu world. But Hindus rarely cared about it.

Some of the very smart Hindus would send the cows and bullocks to other States to be slaughtered for food. The Hindu fanatics knew it but they could not do anything about it. When the ban on beef eating became effective, then, some smart guys would send the cows and bullocks to Bangladesh or Pakistan where these animals would be welcomed as the most nutritious food at low cost. Even today, cattle markets at the areas bordering Bangladesh have been flourishing. These poor Hindu deities had to go to the foreign countries to get martyred for the Hindus.

After the ban on cow-and-bullock slaughter, Maharastra farmers would be happy to get rid of cows and bullocks as and when saleable. If they were not able to sell the cows and bullocks then they would not feed them, and even eject them from homes. Those unlucky animals would need to be on their own at their old age. Unfortunately to these sacred animals, Hindu fanatics could not think of it.

Economically, the ban on cow slaughter and on beef eating had been just like a bomb falling on the people engaged in beef trade in the Maharastra State. Millions of workers and employers engaged in the beef trade would be out of business. Their families would go hungry, as the breadwinners lost the jobs. Their children might not be able to go to schools. Village retailers serving the beef traders also might lose their customers. The chain reactions of adverse economic impact of the ban on beef eating on the poor would be enormous. Prime Minister Narendra Modi would need to create jobs for them that had lost the jobs due to the beef ban.

Mumbai: one of the largest metropolitan cities in the Maharastra State could not serve beefsteak to the millions of tourists and other visitors. Restaurants serving beef needed to quickly adjust their menu after the ban on eating beef. Beef became untouchable.

Beefeaters might turn to buffalo meat. The buffalo breeders might have better business. Livestock farmers might be attracted to raising buffaloes rather than cows and bulls. Farmers could use buffaloes as the draft animals. They might be stronger than bulls. They might pull more loads. Buffaloes might have better lives but hard and short ones. Surely, buffaloes might not be treated with compassion. They were demons to be slaughtered not deities to be revered for Hindus.

Modi’s mantra: ‘Make In India’ required an environment conducive to investment. His finance minister had proposed to cut red tape, amend the labor law, and make easy to acquire land for factories. The central bank of India cut the interest rate by 0.25% to encourage the investors. But the Hindu fanatics had been for saving cow and bull deities. They did not mind sending the economy to hell while demonstrating their supremacy making cows and bulls as deities. Every living being is a deity, and a part of divinity.

I did not know whether the ban on slaughtering cows and bullocks and on eating beef went against the Indian constitutional provision or not but I was sure that it violated the fundamental rights of people including some Hindus that devoured beef. It was blatant violation of human rights in the democratic country. Could anyone dictate anybody what to eat and what not in a democratic country? Certainly not, but the Hindu fanatics did it in Maharastra. Any country claiming about being a democracy surely could not violate the fundamental human rights.

All world democrats took pride in India being a largest democracy but Hindu fanatics had put a black spot on the gorgeous status of India as a great democratic country. If the Hindu fanatics had the rights to put a ban on eating cows and bullocks, others had equal rights to eat beef and enjoy the beefsteak. Prime Minister Narendra Modi surely knew it but he was very smart to ignore such things as he did ignore the killings of thousands of Muslims in the Hindu-Muslim riot in Maharastra in 2002.

In the twenty-first century, I could not imagine that the Hindu fanatics would be similar to the members of the Nazi party in Germany, and Modi could rise as did Adolf Hitler in Germany in the twentieth century but the Hindu fanatics had shown the tendency.

In February 2015 during the Shivaratri festival, some leaders of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) visited Kathmandu ostensibly to revere Lord Pashupati: another name of Lord Shiva. But they opened an association for making Nepal a Hindu state. BJP leaders talked like the Nazi members had talked before raiding on Czechoslovakia. Nazis said that they wanted to protect Germans in Czechoslovakia. BJP leaders said that they wanted to make Nepal only a Hindu state in the world. The Hindu fanatics even said that they would not remain mute if Nepal were not made a Hindu state. What did it mean? Anybody could guess it easily.

I could not say whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi would send the Indian army for making Nepal a Hindu State as Adolf Hitler sent the German army to Czechoslovakia. If Modi were not to send the Indian army, as Hitler did in Czechoslovakia, the Hindu fanatics were ready to send Shiva Sena: army of Lord Shiva to Nepal on the pretext of protecting Hinduism in Nepal. That was the impression the BJP leaders gave while speaking to the media people in Kathmandu during the Shivaratri festival.

It was very hard to believe such things would happen in the twenty-first century but clearly the Hindu fanatics had been tending to it. The clear indications of it have been the setting up of an association for making Nepal a Hindu state, and the recent promulgation of the ban on cow slaughter and on beef eating in the Maharastra State.

Certainly, Nepalese would rise against any foreign interference in their business but all Nepalese of different faith including Hindus needed to rise above the religious communalism and be alert to fight against the Hindu fanatics poking their nose into the Nepalese business. What kind of Nepal would be was the business of Nepalese not of aliens.

Tetis-koti (33,333) Nepalese Hindu deities would judge what Nepal should be not the few saffron-clothing-wearing BJP leaders. Supreme Hindu-god Lord Shiva had been residing in Kathmandu for protecting Nepalese of all faith. Sankaracharya: the Indian supreme Hindu leader declared Dolesvore Mahadev in Bhaktapur, Nepal is the head of Kedarnath in India. So, BJP leaders would be well off abstaining from trying to disturb the head, and keeping the body clean for the benefits of the people of different faith.

March 8, 2015

Annex

BBC NEWS, INDIA

3 March 2015 Last updated at 09:17 ET

India's Maharashtra state bans beef

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-31712369