Bygone cow economics

Some student organisations in Jawaharlal Nehru University wanted to celebrate the beef and pork festival on September 28 to mark Periyar E.V. Ramasamy’s birthday. Some Sangh Parivar organisations issued a “fatwa” that the hands of those who served beef would be cut.

They also declared a price for those who cut such hands. The student organisations said they would squarely face the challenge. Meanwhile, a Gorakshan Samiti went to the Delhi high court and filed a PIL seeking a ban on beef eating on the campus. Using an archaic state government law, the Delhi high court directed the police and the JNU to see that no such festival took place. The matter ended there.
What one eats is essentially an individual choice. How would it become such a serious issue, then?
The fact is, the Indian state and the judiciary have been using the Gandhian theory of non-violence and cow protection to interfere with and impose their will on the people’s food culture. The fact is also that neither the courts nor the organisations that want to protect cow know the real position of cows in today’s Indian villages.
Over the years, the scenarios have changed. From Gandhi’s days to the present, the cow and bull population has come down; and quite drastically at that. In many villages, one cannot see even a single cow because the economic role of cow as an agrarian asset has diminished. In my village, during the 50s and 60s, there used to be hundreds of cows. There also used to be double that number of bulls and oxen. Now, however, you find a few dozens of oxen, but no cows. One sees hundreds of she-buffaloes leaving the village early in the morning for grazing, but no cow.
Clearly, in the village economy in those days, there were fixed concepts about animal utility. Cows were kept for producing bulls or oxen that would till the land or draw bullock carts. Very occasionally, cows were also used for those two purposes.
In my childhood, we had a sturdy barren cow, which used to compete with the best of our oxen in drawing the cart and tilling the land. But such cows were rare. Normally, farmers never used to milk the cow, because they thought once the milk is taken from a cow, its calf would be weak. In the case of the calf being female, they would milk the cow. But they would never depend on cow milk. The milk they would use was, and is, of buffalo.
The cattle wealth of the nation does not grow with the practice of vegetarianism. After all, why do people rear cattle — sheep, goat, buffaloes, cows and bulls in large numbers — unless they derived some economic benefit out of it? Curiously, cow was being discussed as the milk-producing animal in India, whereas there’s no reference to buffalo, which gives much more milk.
To quote Sushil Kumar, director of the national diary research institute in Haryana, “Buffaloes form about 30 per cent of the Indian bovine population and they produce about 52 per cent of the country’s milk.” And, “the water buffalo contributes more to milk production than the cow, because of its inherent ability to thrive under adverse climatic conditions”. The health-promoting aspects of buffalo milk are said to be superior to those of cow milk. For example, the cholesterol content of buffalo milk is lower than that of cow milk. Buffalo milk has about 11.42 per cent higher protein than cow milk. Animal bioassays have shown the protein efficiency ratio (PER) value of buffalo milk proteins at 2.74 and that of cow milk at 2.49. Buffalo milk is also superior to cow milk in terms of important minerals, namely calcium, iron, and phosphorus content.
One might ask why there is a strict ban on cow slaughter in states like Gujarat and Delhi while there is no ban on buffalo slaughter. The reason is, Hindus discriminate between animals. The Hindu culture not only discriminates between caste and caste, but also between animal and animal irrespective of their levels of utility.
As bulls are no longer tilling the land and pulling the cart, their importance has come down. Which is why, villagers do not nurture cows any more to produce bulls. Tractors and motorbikes have replaced the bull population. The Hindu Gorakshna Samitis and the courts must understand that these animals cannot grow in number as zoo animals. Only utility sustains their population and increased utility increases their number. People cannot nurture and feed millions of cows simply for worshipping them. Earlier, they were nurturing them because they were resources of agrarian economy.
Ultimately, cattle can survive in large numbers only in our village settings. In the name of cow protection, if the Hindutva forces do not allow our agrarian societies to make use of the bull population for their food purpose, the villagers have no reason to rear them.
If bull becomes a food-animal, the scenario would change. The Hindutva forces would continue to uphold the “Cow is the Kamadhenu” theory, but by doing so, buffaloes cannot be replaced by cows. Tragically, while the whole nation drinks buffalo milk, the killing of young buffaloes continues for meat purpose. No one has a complaint about that.
Besides, studies show children need to consume more meat and milk in order to develop their mind and body in proper proportions. But, who will tell this to the sadhus and sanyasis who run the Goraksha Samitis? They might not have any idea about the scientific theory of child growth. On one hand, they pretend to love the nation and on the other, holding out theories of their own, they make the state and the judiciary bend to their whims.
If this trend continues for long, the nation will suffer both economically and health-wise.
Earlier, we were physical and mental slaves of invaders, time and again; and even in future, we will be slaves of the West and of even countries like China and Japan, which, though, encourage uninhibited food cultures. The nation must realise that sentiment is not science.

The writer is director, Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad