Holy cow! Who shall I hug next?

Today is apparently Cowlentinersquos Day the day sincere Hindus were urged to express their deep love for cows by erm hugging themNot easy to hug a large beast Hugging is ldquothe act of squeezing someone tightly in onersquos arms typically to express affectionrdquo Example ldquoHe hugged the Holstein closerdquo Thing is you need to get your arms all the way around your loved one before you can deliver that tight hugWhat if the loved one has horns What if the hugger got skewered by the huggeeThe Animal Welfare Board of India guardian angel of all living beasts in the country and advisor to the Ministry of Fisheries Animal Husbandry and Dairying didnrsquot think this should be a dealbreaker ldquoIt is known as lsquoKamdhenursquo and lsquoGaumatarsquo because of its nourishing nature like mother the giver of all providing riches to humanityrdquo they said in an awed press release which was later withdrawn ldquoHugging with cow sic will bring emotional richness hence will increase our individual and collective happinessrdquoEven if it has horns And what about informed consent Is one allowed to have nonplatonic feelings towards a nourishing motherYes I realise Irsquom not the first person to be sarcastic about HugaCow Day But perhaps Irsquom only the second after B R Ambedkar to ask What is it about Hindus and cowsAlso Read The loss of our markersLetrsquos first deal with the ldquogiver of all providing riches to humanityrdquoThe cow doesnrsquot give anybody anything We take what we want from cows when and how we wish and the cow has no say in the matter We feed them fatten them take away the milk they produce for their calves and feed it to our children Itrsquos not the cow that is benevolent itrsquos the human being that is greedyWhen she becomes too old and unproductive she becomes a burden The cows are then let loose on the city streets to forage in garbage dumps eat plastics grow skinny and die The law no longer lets them be slaughteredSome cattleowners quietly herd them to a real cowloving countryA few years ago workshopping in Jeypurhat a border town in Bangladesh I learnt that our border security soldiers take an extended tea break every evening For about 45 minutes a section of the IndiaBangladesh border remains unpatrolled During this period several thousand ageing Indian cows quietly cross over into Bangladesh a country that relishes beef and makes lovely leather productsTo facilitate this Indian law has kept definitions usefully flexible Only native Indian cows apparently meet the exacting standards of Hindu purity and therefore need protection There is nothing divine about the rest including buffaloes Holsteins Jerseys and crossbreeds No need to hug themCow slaughter is still only legal in Kerala West Bengal and a few northeastern states but in some others beef from buffaloes is not illegal Each of the remaining states makes up its own rules some banning buffalo slaughter and some penalising consumption Suspicion is enough to convict no proof required Itrsquos easy to get put away for life especially if you have a certain kind of beardLuckily for cowhuggers a beef curry doesnrsquot tell you whether it came from a cow or a buffalo and so anyone eating beef is fair game especially if they also happen to worship at a mosqueThis is why Mohammed Akhlaq 52 was lynched and killed in Dadri in 2015 based on rumours that he had been storing beef Later the court concluded it might equally have been mutton who can tell with cooked meatBanning cow slaughter but doing it sloppily creates confusionmdashthe perfect pretext for going after Muslims However with your permission let me shed some inconvenient light on the matterIn 2022 India was second only to Brazil in beef exports logging 185 lakh metric tonnesSome will argue that it was buffalo beef but slaughtering any bovines is illegal in Gujarat Madhya Pradesh Punjab Rajasthan Maharashtra Himachal Pradesh Jammu and Kashmir Haryana and DelhiMumbai and Delhi which lead in Indian beef exports both fall under blanket slaughter bansTherersquos more Though the companies have Muslimsounding names here are the names of their ownersmdashSatish Sabharwal al Kabeer Sunil Kapoor Arabian Exports Sunil Sood al Noor Exports and O P Arora AOB ExportsSay hello to Indiarsquos top beef exporters all Hindus All cowhuggersFor next yearrsquos Valentinersquos Day I am pleased to propose a new candidate for hugging the chicken Our fine feathered friend is truly divine Its cockadoodledoo wakes us up in the morning after which its eggs give us a hearty breakfast Their glorious droppings contain phosphates which fertilise our fields When they get old they gladly let us make butter chicken and kebabs with their succulent fleshBest of all they donrsquot burp or fart methane like cows do and thus have a zero carbon footprintI nominate February 14 2024 as Murgentine Day Everyone is invited to hug a chickenYou can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper