Hi friends,
Today I want to speak about certain recent goings-on in our country which have disturbed all of us. But first a clarification - I DO NOT believe in extreme attitudes, am all for 'live & let live.'
My ancestors were from Kutch, (in Gujarat), my parents & several generations before them from Mumbai, I was born & brought up in Nagpur, Maharashtra, among Parsi, muslim, Christian & Hindu neighbours - all very good human beings living in harmony, studied in a proper Convent School where all Indian festivals were celebrated, despite Sister Superiors from France, Poland etc. , went on to marry a Bengali (he escaped to another universe after 12 yrs.) and have lived in Mumbai since. If that does'nt make me a cosmopolitan Indian, I do'nt know what does!
What has been disturbing lately are the deep fissures in our social fabric which are percolating down to our children's generation. Considering that youngsters today form opinions on the basis of the posts on social media & not on informed articles appearing in newspapers (how many of them do read newspapers?) I feel compelled to write about the logic behind the call for banning cow slaughter. Now, now..... do'nt get all worked up, please. So here goes... Brazil and India were the largest exporters of beef in the world in 2016. While the majority of Brazilians are non-veggies & must be consuming a considerable amount of beef themselves, the majority of Indians, I assume, are vegetarians. These large exporters with deep pockets purchase cows & calf in bulk at cattle melas. There have been instances when they have purchased the entire stock at one go, wiping the mela clean of young calf/cows, leaving the farmers who have come to purchase one, to return empty-handed. One cannot blame the sellers for selling it to the exporters instead of the farmers, when they are getting a better price for them. After all he too has to feed his family. So although his sympathies lie with the farmers, considering that successive droughts have made a hole in his pocket, he sells to the highest bidder.
As a result the number of cattle with our farmers has been going down. For the info of all my co-urbanites, apart from nutritious cow's milk, the cow dung & urine are also very good as manure for the fields. It makes the land more fertile on a daily basis. With a reduction in the number of cows, the farmers are compelled to buy manure & pesticides from the market, which has harmful chemicals and which over several years, has made our land less fertile. Have you heard your parents & grand parents complain that nowadays there is no taste in vegetables? I remember munching on raw cabbage leaves, kundru (ivy gourd), carrots, cucumber, radish, peas, tomatoes etc. while playing or studying. Raw spinach-tomatoes-spring onion salads were a common feature of our meals. Can we enjoy them now? Ugh!
I remember a classmate from Punjab who had so many cows back home that they would have glasses full of milk several times a day, as also lassi & yet so much milk was leftover. Since the servants too had cows at home they would not take away the excess milk & finally it used to be added to the cattle fodder..... which made the cows give more milk!
Today how many of us are sure that the milk/curd we consume is pure, that it is not laced with urea or some other chemicals? Have you noticed the number of little kids with hairline fractures? Or the 20-25 yr. olds suffering from spondylosis? Have you noticed young people's bones going tak-tak when they stretch or go up on their tip-toes?
While I agree that many of the so-called gau-rakshaks are criminal elements getting a high out of beating & killing people, the reason why this had to be given a religious angle (gai hamari ma hai, we pray to her) was to deter people from selling the cow to meat exporters. Then the cows would be available for the farmers to purchase. Because economic sense would compel that the meat exporters had the advantage. Where will the poor farmers go then to purchase cows? Of course this could have been handled in a better way.
While I am all for freedom to eat what we wish, there should be curtailment regarding meat exports, maybe a law which bans the sale of milk-giving cows & calf from being sold to slaughter houses, especially the exporters. The older cows are anyways sold to them by the farmers. The cow slaughter ban has been detrimental to their interests too since they have to now spend on fodder for the older cows without earning anything in return. The illegal slaughter house owners should be dealt with, with a heavy hand, not by violence but legally. The gau-rakshaks role should be only that of a whistle blower - they should be the eyes & ears of the Law, not the ones who misuse it.
Today I want to speak about certain recent goings-on in our country which have disturbed all of us. But first a clarification - I DO NOT believe in extreme attitudes, am all for 'live & let live.'
My ancestors were from Kutch, (in Gujarat), my parents & several generations before them from Mumbai, I was born & brought up in Nagpur, Maharashtra, among Parsi, muslim, Christian & Hindu neighbours - all very good human beings living in harmony, studied in a proper Convent School where all Indian festivals were celebrated, despite Sister Superiors from France, Poland etc. , went on to marry a Bengali (he escaped to another universe after 12 yrs.) and have lived in Mumbai since. If that does'nt make me a cosmopolitan Indian, I do'nt know what does!
What has been disturbing lately are the deep fissures in our social fabric which are percolating down to our children's generation. Considering that youngsters today form opinions on the basis of the posts on social media & not on informed articles appearing in newspapers (how many of them do read newspapers?) I feel compelled to write about the logic behind the call for banning cow slaughter. Now, now..... do'nt get all worked up, please. So here goes... Brazil and India were the largest exporters of beef in the world in 2016. While the majority of Brazilians are non-veggies & must be consuming a considerable amount of beef themselves, the majority of Indians, I assume, are vegetarians. These large exporters with deep pockets purchase cows & calf in bulk at cattle melas. There have been instances when they have purchased the entire stock at one go, wiping the mela clean of young calf/cows, leaving the farmers who have come to purchase one, to return empty-handed. One cannot blame the sellers for selling it to the exporters instead of the farmers, when they are getting a better price for them. After all he too has to feed his family. So although his sympathies lie with the farmers, considering that successive droughts have made a hole in his pocket, he sells to the highest bidder.
As a result the number of cattle with our farmers has been going down. For the info of all my co-urbanites, apart from nutritious cow's milk, the cow dung & urine are also very good as manure for the fields. It makes the land more fertile on a daily basis. With a reduction in the number of cows, the farmers are compelled to buy manure & pesticides from the market, which has harmful chemicals and which over several years, has made our land less fertile. Have you heard your parents & grand parents complain that nowadays there is no taste in vegetables? I remember munching on raw cabbage leaves, kundru (ivy gourd), carrots, cucumber, radish, peas, tomatoes etc. while playing or studying. Raw spinach-tomatoes-spring onion salads were a common feature of our meals. Can we enjoy them now? Ugh!
I remember a classmate from Punjab who had so many cows back home that they would have glasses full of milk several times a day, as also lassi & yet so much milk was leftover. Since the servants too had cows at home they would not take away the excess milk & finally it used to be added to the cattle fodder..... which made the cows give more milk!
Today how many of us are sure that the milk/curd we consume is pure, that it is not laced with urea or some other chemicals? Have you noticed the number of little kids with hairline fractures? Or the 20-25 yr. olds suffering from spondylosis? Have you noticed young people's bones going tak-tak when they stretch or go up on their tip-toes?
While I agree that many of the so-called gau-rakshaks are criminal elements getting a high out of beating & killing people, the reason why this had to be given a religious angle (gai hamari ma hai, we pray to her) was to deter people from selling the cow to meat exporters. Then the cows would be available for the farmers to purchase. Because economic sense would compel that the meat exporters had the advantage. Where will the poor farmers go then to purchase cows? Of course this could have been handled in a better way.
While I am all for freedom to eat what we wish, there should be curtailment regarding meat exports, maybe a law which bans the sale of milk-giving cows & calf from being sold to slaughter houses, especially the exporters. The older cows are anyways sold to them by the farmers. The cow slaughter ban has been detrimental to their interests too since they have to now spend on fodder for the older cows without earning anything in return. The illegal slaughter house owners should be dealt with, with a heavy hand, not by violence but legally. The gau-rakshaks role should be only that of a whistle blower - they should be the eyes & ears of the Law, not the ones who misuse it.
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