The Demand for a Ban on Cow Slaughter from the Go-raksha Samitis

- Our views on Cow Slaughter

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All Humans beings eat. We all have to eat if we are to live. Some of us eat Vegetable and meat, some eat only vegetables, there could be a few who eat only meat.

But the fact is that everything that we eat was a living thing before we eat it. Obviously we cannot eat anything while it is still living. Only wild beasts like tigers and leopards do that when they eat sheep, goat, bullocks which they have hunted but who are not yet dead. We the civilized humans do not do so.

But even we have to kill a thing before eating it. This is the cardinal fact of life. But veggies will say, "Sir we are non-violent and strict vegetarians, and do not kill anything. So we eat only vegetables and fruit."

Sounds fine! But we the rationalist Hindutva folks ask them: "What you say seems okay, but are not the vegetables that you eat also living beings? Do they not have life in them till you cut them or uproot them (harvest) them from the fields? So in all respects you too are killing and eating living things as the non-Vegetarians do when they eat chicken, pork or beef."

The only difference is that the non-veggies kill living beings that can cry in pain when they are being slaughtered, while a plant cannot do so. At least we do not hear the silent scream of a plant when it is killed.

But then my dear Vegetarian friends, please do not feel that you are doing a crime by eating vegetables which also have life and which you deprive of life when you kill and cut, before you cook and eat the vegetables. What you are doing is a Fact of Life, a Necessity of Life.

The point is that all humans across the length and breadth of our globe have to kill to live i.e. exist on other forms of life. So our non-veggie friends are not committing any crime if they eat Chicken, Goat, Pigs, or Cows. Vegetarian Hindus would say that the Gomata (cow-mother) is holy to Hindus, she is their mother.

But we ask "C'mon, don't kid us into believing that we humans can be children of a four legged animal like a Cow! We will not take that kind of crap from anyone!"

Also some others please don't tell us that the pig is unholy or impure, hence we don't eat it. (We eat only Kosher or Halal meat) What fault has the pig committed to be so impure. He is living the way nature has made him. Wallowing in the garbage and stink. Yet bacon and ham are really delicious. Try it if you are willing, it tastes superb. You can take our word on it!

Mind you we are not advocating that all of us start eating beef or pork. That is a personal decision.

We just what to underline the stupidity of asking for a ban on cow slaughter or a ban on pork.

And since we do not recognize the irrational opinion that any particular animal is either holy or unclean, there is no sense in getting upset whenever any fanatic throws a piece of beef or pork in front of or into a place of worship. This should be borne in mind by those who consider the cow to be holy or the pig to be unclean. The point is to decry the mentality that seeks to build animosity amongst humans by asking the followers of one religion to wage an (Un)Holy War on the followers of other religions and asks for its followers to butcher with impunity the followers of other religions or also the followers of other sects within the same violent religion!

We are well aware that this posting of ours will evoke a wild reaction from all the devout. But we too are devout or rather devoted to human commonsense. And all we ask from every visitor of this page is that he or she should think rationally about what we have said.

Use of Cows as a Shield by the Retreating Muslim Armies

Incidentally during the Hindu-Muslim wars in the One Thousand year period between 715 C.E. up to 1761 C.E. many a time, a victorious Hindu army was thwarted from pursing a retreating Muslim army by the Muslims using cows as a shield to cover their retreat and prevent the cow-worshipping Hindus from attacking the Muslim army; in the fear that they (the Hindus) would end up harming the cows which the Muslims used as a protective shield!

Because of such fickle-mindedness, the Hindus could not carry to its victorious conclusion a war in which they had defeated the Muslims. Such events have been recorded in the many wars that Prithviraj Chouhan fought with Mohammed Ghauri. Prithviraj won all wars except the last one which he lost and with it he lost, his eyes (which were gouged out by the fiendish Ghauri), his life and most importantly he lost for the country its sovereignty. And we owe these defeats to the feeling of considering the cow as Holy. Holy Cow indeed!

Swatantryaveer Savarkar's Thoughts about Cow Protection

The rational-minded Hindu leader, Veer Savarkar had asked Hindus to take up eating beef whenever there was a famine. Here are his words on Cow Protection:

"O Hindus, don't treat the cow as a Goddess. It is only an animal! Use the cow for your welfare. Do Gopalan and not Gopujan" (Breed cows, but do not worship them).

He also decried all forms of superstition. And above all he rejected casteism totally as unjust and inhuman. He never tried to defend the anomalies of the caste system as some proponents of Hindutva do today.

We posted this article as we think that the need of the day is to present these thoughts to the visitors of this site as a brief introduction of the Savarkariya or Savarkarist view on different issues.

-The Young Hindu Mahasabha team