The cow as a crutch for Hindutva politics

The notion of the cow as revered mother, is no earlier than a 16th century construct. Many Hindus today believe that their Vedic ancestors revered the cow for its sacredness, a misconception actively encouraged by the drivers of Hindutva politics. Hindutva, a relatively new political ideology that uses elements of Hinduism and the ‘otherness’ of Abrahamic faiths, to drive the current political discourse in India, is using religious polarisation as its raison d’etre. While it proudly tom-toms the Vedic notion of “Vasudaiv Kutumbakam” (the world is one family), as its motivation, it displays a paranoid awareness of its own identity and speaks constantly of the threat of being swamped, mainly by the adherents of the exclusivist Abrahamic faiths.

The ‘sacred’ cow is thus sought to be made a symbol of community identity, juxtaposed mainly against Muslims, but opportunistically against Christians as well, who are sought to be portrayed as communities that slaughter and eat what is sacred to the Hindu. The sacredness of the cow is sought to be traced fraudulently to Vedic times, which are purported to have divine origins. It is a different matter, that throughout the Vedic period, the cow was actually prescribed to be slaughtered and eaten, as a sacred duty of Hindu observance, for certain occasions.

From research of Professor DN Jha, Professor of History at Delhi University, and a well known researcher into the politics of the cow and its historical origins, cow politics is said to have originated from the time of Babur. During the rule of Babur, Akbar, Jehangir and Aurangzeb, restrictive bans are said to have been applied, to the slaughter of cows, to accommodate Jain and Brahminical sensibilities.

The central theme of Hindutva cow politics, is that cow slaughter and consumption as food, was brought in by Muslim invaders, little realising that for their Vedic ancestors, cow meat constituted haute cuisine. The earliest Vedic references to the sacrifice and consumption of cow meat, comes from the oldest of the Vedas, attributed to divine origin, the Rigveda. There are over 700 references in the Rigveda, to cow related sources of food. The Aryans after all, were a pastoral community and carried on their Indo-European tradition of cattle rearing. Agriculture, for the early Aryans, was secondary to cattle rearing. Wealth and social status, was thus measured in cattle.

From Prof DN Jha’s ‘The Myth of the Holy Cow’, “...later Vedic texts provide detailed descriptions of sacrifices and frequently refer to ritual cattle slaughter. The Gopatha Brahmana alone mentions twenty one yajnas, though all of them may not have involved animal killing. A bull (vrshabha) was sacrificed to Indra, a dappled cow to the Maruts and a copper coloured cow to the Asvins. A cow was also sacrificed to Mitra and Varuna. In most public sacrifices, (the asvamedha, rajasuya, and vajapeya) flesh of various types of animals, especially that of the cow/ox/bull, was required…The agnyadheya, which was a preparatory rite preceding all public sacrifices, required a cow to be killed and the adhvaryu priest is said to have ‘put apart... on the red hide of a bull... four dishfuls of rice’. In the ashvamedha (horse sacrifice) the most important of the Vedic public sacrifices, first referred to in the Rigveda, and discussed in the Brahmanas, more than 600 animals (including wild boars) and birds were killed and its finale was marked by the sacrifice of 21 sterile cows, though the Taittirya Samhita (V.6 11-20) enumerates 180 animals, including horses, bulls, cows, deer and nilgai to be killed. The gosava (cow sacrifice), was an important component of the rajasuya and vajapeya sacrifices. In the latter, the Satapatha Brahmana tells us, a sterile spotted cow was offered to the Maruts. Similarly, in the agnistoma, a sterile cow was sacrificed. According to the Taittiriya Brahmana, an important element in the panchasaradiyasava (darsapunamasa) was the ‘immolation’ of seventeen ‘dwarf heifers under three’ and on the day preceding the sacrifice, the sacrificer was himself required to eat forest plants or fruits. The killing of animals, including cattle (pasu) figures in several other yajnas including chaturmasya, sautramani and independent cattle sacrifice called pasubandha or nirudhapasubandha, which also an important component of many sacrifices.”

At various other places, Vedic literature specifies 200 varieties of animals fit for human consumption, details the mode of carving up flesh into 36 pieces and specifies that animals are to be killed by the samitara, by strangulation. The Satapatha Brahmana declares elsewhere, ‘meat is the best kind of food’.  Of the many rules, at least two provide for the sacrifice of a black cow’. For a more complete and scholarly treatment of the subject and for access to an exhaustive bibliography, I recommend Prof DN Jha’s book, The Myth of the Holy Cow, available on Amazon India.

It is clear from the Rigveda and the Atharvaveda, that the cow was never considered sacred, an untruth that Hindutva politics seeks to uphold, to lend weight to its fraudulent narrative around the cow. If we are to prevent India from descending into medieval savagery and driven to religious paranoia by not more than 15% of its voters, it is important that Hindutva’s lies are challenged at every step, with intellect and scholarly content. We need more media outlets, like this one, that will be willing to engage with the Hindu mind and disseminate scholarly research. India has a tradition of learning and scholarship, which on its own, can counter the terrifying, medieval future that Hindutva fascists seem bent upon thrusting on the vast majority of Indians.

(Rajiv Tyagi is a former MiG-21 fighter pilot and communicates from rajiv.personal@gmail.com)