Fifth column
Next week, on June 18, Bombay – now known by its new name Mumbai – is hosting a one-day conference on Indian cows titled, ‘The Glorious Indian Cow’. Under the tutelage of the well-known Islamophobe, former Harvard faculty, distinguished economist and BJP parliament member Dr Subramanian Swamy, the Virat Hindustan Sangam (VHS) – an Hindutva NGO that he founded and which is dedicated to educating and empowering the Indian (read: Hindu extremist) youth – is gathering more than “750 intellectuals” from across India “to mobilise cow-lovers” with the aim for cow conservation.
In the run up to the event, the VHS is promoting an animated film that eulogises the benefits of Indian cow breeds, calling them a divine blessing.
With the ascendance of Narendra Modi to power, the cow is either back on the menu or off it – depending on how you look at it. While it has been banned from the dinner table through the often fatal vigilante violence that is mainly directed at Muslims, a plethora of Hindutva extremist groups and individuals have mobilised a large-scale and continued public relations campaign for the Indian cow, its virtues and divine qualities – which were hitherto unknown to the outside world.
The national conference will be attended by politicians, industrialists and film stars, including Nepal’s Deputy Prime Minister Kamal Thapa, India’s Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir, Hrishikesh Mafatlal, a business magnate and Bollywood actor Vivek Oberoi. According to the organisers, a new mobile app and a book, ‘Capitalism, Communism and Cowism’ will also be launched on this occasion. The Cowism, I assume, refers to India’s new conscience about the cow that testifies to its qualities – both spiritual and scientific – to manufacture mass public reverence.
In January this year, Education and Panchayati Raj Minister Vasudev Devnani, while speaking in the BJP-ruled Rajasthan province, claimed that the cow is the only animal that “inhales and exhales oxygen” and beckoned people to understand its “scientific significance”. Devnani also claimed that a cold and a cough can be cured by going near a cow. He also declared that cow dung has ample quantity of vitamin B that results in soaking radioactivity. The relationship between cow refuse and its shielding properties against nuclear radiation were first revealed in September 2015 when the Hindutva terror outfit RSS claimed that: “cow dung can render hydrogen and atom bombs ineffective”. Their prescription is simple yet so powerful: “If you paint a place with cow dung, radioactivity won’t affect it”.
The urine of the Indian desi cow is central to her glory as – in the imagination of its votaries – it is the most beneficial organic substance that is a cure for almost every anomaly within the human system. In the parallel universe of the RSS, cow urine fights cancer and restores human defences, provoking a wide-scale use of the yellow liquid in medicine. Baba Ramdev, well-known Hindu extremist yoga guru and owner of the Patanjali Ayurved – a company with an annual turnover of over $700 million – is known to use cow urine for most ayurvedic products. Another Hindu extremist group, VHP, has been selling Cow-ka Cola (cow urine cola) for more than five years and has been earning good profits.
In 2014, the RSS launched cosmetics products based on cow excreta – known as ‘cowsmetics’. After receiving a successful market response, they are now launching these products on a massive scale and they will also be available online for the Indian clientele to relish. The products include Nandini Beauty Soap with aloe vera, almond oil and cow urine; tooth powder with pudina ka phool, babool chhal and cow dung ash, bathing liquid, skin cream and even a laxative all soaked in gau mutra, the cow urine. Last year, Gujrat Gauseva and Gauchar Vikas Board, an official government body for cow welfare, advised Indian women that if they wanted Cleopatra’s fabled beauty, they must use cow urine to massage their faces.
Deen Dayal Dham, a pharmaceutical company run by the RSS, produces medicines “for cancer and diabetes, face packs and soaps with cow urine as ingredient”. It is also used in oil for sprains and arthritis, shampoo, bath soaps, eye drops, toothpaste, incense and cataract medicine. One of the officials at the factory told the Times of India: “We have 50 cows in our own shed, and their urine and manure are collected daily, stored and used in the products according to specifications worked out for each product”.
As the demand for cow urine soars, scores of cow shelters or gaushalas have cropped up across the country. Urine, not milk, is the main produce of these cows. One of the officials at ISKON, the largest cow urine producer in India, said: “A litre of our distillate retails for Rs200, three times the price of milk as an increasing [number] of believers are ready to shuffle cash for a product they believe holds divine qualities”.
Postscript: Justice Mahesh Chandra Sharma, a judge at the Rajasthan High Court, on May 31 – his last day in office – delivered a 139-page judgment on the care of cows, a verdict he described as his “soul’s voice”. He asked the Indian government to take steps to declare the cow “the national animal” claiming “no crime is more heinous than cow slaughter”. In his last decree, he also noted “about a dozen benefits of cow urine”, including increasing appetite and strengthening of the brain and the heart. Among the otherworldly qualities of the cow urine, Justice Sharma declared: “[by] consuming cow urine, one can be out of sins of [his or her] previous life”. He added: “It is believed that 33 crore gods and goddesses reside inside the cow. Therefore… the cow is the mother of the world”.
Appendage: Hailing Justice Mahesh Chand Sharma’s order on cows, senior RSS leader Indresh Kumar went further in his reverence. Kumar demanded that cow should be declared a “world human animal” as “more than 90 percent of the population in India and the world are dependent on cows”.
Twitter: @murtaza_shibli
