Why We Need Scientific Temper In An Era Of Cow Politics

This story was published as part of Outlook Magazine's 'Cow Prescription' issue, dated February 6, 2023. To read more stories from the issue, click here.

In post-Independent India, doctors would often attribute the cause of sickle cell anaemia among  ‘untouchable’ communities to the practice of eating beef. This perception got so deeply entrenched among the medical fraternity across India that diseases that affected such communities were conceptualised accordingly. This dominant perception got carried further for a long period of time without adequate surveys. After more than a whopping three decades, the disease was also found among many non-‘untouchable’ communities across India. Thus, the medical fraternity had to change their perception, which meant having to kill the ‘protected ignorance’ that they had safeguarded for so long. Nevertheless, the taboo continues in the medical treatment of the disease. Moreover, as the cause of sickle cell anaemia was solely attributed to eating beef, it also became easy to mark the caste identity of the patient in the hospital premises.

Food habits in India are varied and multiple protein sources are always tapped. In ancient times, the consumption of cattle meat was the norm. There are many archaeological sites in India where there is evidence of such consumption as observed by the study of fossilised cattle bones, although it is difficult to identify the exact category (ox, bull, cow etc.) to which the bones belonged. However, the corpus of textual evidence in favour of cattle meat consumption is enormous. In tracing the root cause of untouchability, Dr. BR Ambedkar cited beef eating as among the causal factors, quoting several textual references to the practice in his seminal book, The Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became Untouchables, originally published in 1948. Later, Dr. D N Jha who was a well-known professor of history at Delhi University, dared to engage with the issue of the ‘holiness’ of the cowand remarked in the introduction of his 2001 book, The Myth of the Holy Cow, “All that I could do for this Indian edition was to add, as an appendix, a longish extract from the classic work of Dr B R Ambedkar, whose writings on the origin of untouchability, despite the great strides Indian historical scholarship has taken after him, remain a landmark in the study of social marginality in India.” Jha delineates many historical sources to trace the historicity of the practice of cattle slaughter through records of religious texts across the spectrum. At the time of writing his book, the cow had been deemed as a ‘holy’ animal among the Indian population and its consumption was given a religious and communal angle with caste conflicts being completely set aside from the narrative. Jha concludes that “the image of the cow projected by Indian textual traditions, especially the Brahmanical-Dharmasastric works, over the centuries is polymorphic. Its story through the millennia is full of inconsistencies and has not always been in conformity with dietary practices current in society.”

Ideas of the ‘divine’ and the ‘sacred’ have always been an integral part of Brahmanic philosophies and ideals. These ideas emerged as a strong political voice in the colonial period and consequently, many ideas and practices were propagated. Jha makes an interesting observation of one of MK Gandhi’s contradictions where Gandhi had compared the human mother (who demands everything) with the cow (that demands only grass and is useful even after its death). Jha observes how Gandhi considered the protection of the cow as an ideal of Hinduism. He also draws our attention to the roles played by Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of the Arya Samaj whose impact has been sizeable in northern India. All of the founders of such kinds of ‘Samaj’ (sects) in colonial India except the likes of Mahatma Phule, Pandit Ayothee Thass, and Dr. Ambedkar, followed Vedantic philosophy and, consequently, supported Gandhi when he advocated the protection of the cow. (Raja Ram Mohan Roy was also an exception).

In pre-independent India, dead cattle were consumed by ‘untouchable’ communities. It was under the leadership of Dr. Ambedkar that the ‘untouchable’ communities united in opposition to this hereditary practice. Since Dr Ambedkar recognised that the system of watandars (landed castes) tied the Mahars (an ‘untouchable’ caste) to their villages where they had no choice but to work as inferior servants, he introduced an amendment to the ‘The Bombay Hereditary Offices Bill’—popularly known as Mahar Vatan Kayada in Marathi— first in 1928 and then in 1938. It was never passed due to opposition to the bill and the changes proposed to it that were unacceptable to Dr. Ambedkar. Those who opposed the bill were predominantly caste Hindus and were followers of Gandhi and the Indian National Congress. However, from 1928 onwards, ‘untouchable’ communities themselves started following the resolution that they would boycott hereditary practices and professions. Consequently, the ‘untouchable’ communities in the Marathi-speaking areas of the then Bombay Presidency, the Central Provinces and Berar Province stopped ferrying the dead cattle of the Brahmin and non-Brahmin communities. They had to face retaliation by caste-Hindus and considerable hardships. Nevertheless, beef-eating continued in ‘untouchable’ communities. Their resolve not to consume dead beef/cattle emerged gradually as it was seen as an act of degradation and as non-hygienic.

As a matter of fact, ‘untouchable’ communities had no access to cattle and many were landless, as the work of professor Jyoti Atwal shows, wherein the few ‘untouchable’ communities that owned agricultural land in northern India faced considerable hardships in protecting it. In the village economy, the ownership of cattle is a sign of wealth and access to amenities. Often, cows are maintained as long as they give milk and later, they are sold to butchers. The non-Brahmin Hindu communities had such regular practices and Arya Samajis, through their agenda, propagated the setting up of gaushalas—cow shelters—but the impact of these developments in Indian villages is unclear. It became a part of political projects in later times. Cow protection soon became a part of the directive principles of state policy. In 1979, Vinoba Bhave, a Gandhian who had set up an ashram at Pavanar near Wardha in Maharashtra, went on a hunger strike for the enactment of a national law banning cow slaughter. Bhave, a Brahmin, was supported by many caste Hindus. Followers of Phule-Ambedkar were the only ones who did not jump on the cow protection bandwagon.

Beef-eating was never considered taboo among the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) communities across India. However, meat-eating habits were given up by some non-Brahmin communities in parts of northern India due to the considerable impact of the Arya Samaj movement. In southern India, too, consumption of cattle meat did not become taboo among the Scheduled caste and tribe communities. As an opposition to imposed Gandhism by various governments, some groups slaughter animals as part of their regular consumption on the birth anniversary of Gandhi. In tribal areas, the slaughtering of animals was no taboo but with the coming of urban ‘development’ and the claimed modernism of Vedantic ideals, the tribes felt its impact and had to be cautious on all fronts. Consumption of cattle meat, including beef, was a great source of protein for the body and was the cheapest source they could afford. Even today, cattle meat is consumed by both Scheduled Caste and Tribe communities and the idea of the cow is jus that of an animal and not something sacred or divine. The Brahmanical camp imposed the ideals of sacredness and divinity on the minds of the non-Brahmins and, consequently, violent means and attacks were justified. Largely, urbanised SCs and STs started to decrease consumption of beef and some even gave up the practice completely. The Sanskritised SCs and STs joined the bandwagon of hate and anger against the consumers of cattle meat but the majority among them never nurtured the habitS of hate, anger and violence against those who continued to consume cattle meat.

Independent India, with its resolve to establish constitutional democracy failed, to negotiate with the ideas of the ‘divine’ and the ‘sacred.’ Ritualistic thinking and practices grew further and the ideals of ‘creating scientific temper, humanism and the ideal of enquiry and reform’
envisaged in the Constitution were insufficiently realised.  Today, certain communities are ghettoised owing to their practice of consuming cattle meat, including beef. We can safely say that India has achieved the distinctions of having a large supply of labour, a mityhavadi sanskriti (a culture of falsehoods) and a vitambanavadi sanskriti (a culture of defamation). While the first brings cheer to all, the second nurtures a ‘protected ignorance’ and the third promotes violence, hate and anger allowing for tormenting anybody, lynching anyone, raping, committing violence against women and the destitute. Notions of  the‘divine’ and the ‘sacred’ became part of such perversions and violence as well. Every act we do today including the consumption of cattle meat, is seen as an act of treason.

The cow is but an animal yet many feminine qualities are attributed to it; however, the buffalo too has the same qualities but it is set outside the purview of the divine and the sacred. The Phase-Pardhi, a community in specific areas in the state of Maharashtra, use cows for hunting purposes. The people of the community both ride the cow and hunt the animal; thus, the universal attribution of feminine qualities to the cow can be questioned. It becomes a daunting task for those  at the helm of affairs to negotiate between all stakeholders but for SC and ST communities, it has become far more difficult to choose between food and the sacred-divine. They continue to suffer from a ‘protected ignorance’ and the ensuing ‘culture of defamation’.

(This appeared in the print edition as "The Politics Of FOOD POLICING")

(Views expressed are personal)

Y. S. Alone is a Professor at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.