 "Stray Cow")
The sun is the centre of the universe as we know but in a parallel universe it could well be the cow that powers the whole system. In the solar system, the cow provides the world with dairy products, leather and much else but in the parallel universe, cow provides us dairy products, medicines and now - it has been revealed - oxygen too.
Rajasthan’s education minister, Vasudev Devnani, has now said that the cow is the only animal that inhales and exhales oxygen. According to a report in the Indian Express, he said it at a function in Hingonia Gaushala.
The education minister was trying to make a scientific case for cows. Incidentally, Rajasthan is the only state in the country which has a minister for cow welfare. The venue where the education minister made the claim was Hingonia Gaushala which was the centre of a big controversy last year when more than 500 cows died in just over two weeks in July-August last year. Rajasthan government then revealed that 8,122 cows had died in the govt run cow shelter since January.
In September 2015, the health minister in the Rajasthan govt directed the Sawai Man Singh hospital to try cow urine based ‘disinfectant’. The BJP and RSS fascination for cows is often revealed in the bizarre statements they make. In August 2016, the animal husbandry and dairy production minister of Haryana’s BJP government said that the state faced a problem of stray cattle due to the ‘loose moral character’ of mix-bred bulls.
The BJP has often been accused of using cows as an election issue that creates communal tensions in various places. The party took it to another level just ahead of the final phase of polling in Bihar, when it issued official print ads that questioned Bihar CM, Nitish Kumar on his ‘silence’ over beef and cow slaughter.
While campaigning for the 2014 general elections, then PM contender Narendra Modi spoke against a ‘pink revolution’ that the UPA government had brought in the country that turned India into one of the largest exporter of buff in the world. The political campaign against cow slaughter had taken an ugly turn in September 2015 when a mob entered the house of a villager in Bisara, near Dadri in UP. They killed 52 year old Mohhamed Akhlaq Saifi on the suspicion of having eaten beef.
This was followed by an incident in Una, Gujarat in July, 2016, when a group of Dalit men were flogged by cow vigilantes for skinning a dead cow. The video of this incident went viral and shocked the country.
In 2016, 11 months after this incident, PM Modi chastised cow vigilantism and said, ““I feel really angry at the way some people have opened shops in the name of cow protection. I have seen that some people commit anti-social activities through the night, but act as cow protectors by day”.
The Rajasthan minister’s remark that cows exhale oxygen is only the latest in a long list of remarks that RSS, BJP leaders have made about cows and their protection. Earlier the BJP government in Haryana made possession of beef a non-bailable offence with cow slaughter attracting a punishment of 10 years rigorous imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 1 lakh.
