Cow

Animal revered by almost all modern
Hindus, although there is one small
Hindu community in the state of Kerala
that eats beef. Aside from this anomaly,
reverence for the cow is one of the few
unifying beliefs for almost all Hindu
communities. Demands for a complete
ban on cow slaughter have become a
time-honored way for political groups to
generate support from the orthodox
Hindu community, although these
demands carry far more weight in
northern India, where a significant
Muslim minority has few scruples
about slaughtering and eating beef.
Organized calls for such a ban began as
early as the 1880s with the growth of
tension between the Hindu and Muslim
communities. This sentiment, generally
called the Cow Protection Movement,
has continued to the present day.
Demands for a complete ban on cow
slaughter have regularly surfaced since
1947, when India gained independence,
and this is one of the loaded causes of
Indian political life. Reverence for the
cow goes to such lengths that one of the
charitable acts performed by pious
Hindus is to contribute to goshalas,
institutions for old and infirm cows.
There is considerable speculation
and some disagreement about the
source of these feelings about the cow.
Some arguments have stressed the cow’s
value in an agricultural society, as a
source of both draft animals and reproducible wealth. Other arguments have
stressed the cow’s ability to transform
agricultural waste into milk products
and dung, a common fuel in much of
northern India. Still others have noted
the way that feelings about the cow are
imbued with the symbolism of motherhood, since both are said to provide
milk for a child’s nourishment. This last
point is probably the most important,
since it is very clear that conservative
Hindu feelings for the cow are based primarily on high emotional content rather
than on rational considerations of costs
and benefits.
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Cow