India’s ‘sacred’ cows suffer at shelters

Dear Readers: In India, dozens of Muslims have been killed, and many more injured, by extremists calling themselves “cow protectionists” while the police simply stand by, according to the recent BBC TV documentary, “India’s Cow Vigilantes.”

Traditionally, Muslims and low-caste Hindus (Dalits) ate the meat of cows and working bullocks; the dominant Hindu populace does not consume beef for religious reasons, but consumes a lot of cows’ milk. Now, spent cows and exhausted bullocks, food for many people, instead go to “cow shelters.” In many of these shelters — as my wife, Deanna Krantz, and I documented in our book “India’s Animals: Helping the Sacred and the Suffering” — the animals slowly starve to death or die from injuries and infections due to a lack of proper veterinary care.

The government that claims to provide feed for all these impounded animals is riddled with corruption, the shelter cattle being worth only their skin and bones. Poor people cannot afford feed for their family milk cows or goats.

The Hindu veterinarian whose work we help fund (and whose name we will not give, for his own safety) writes:

“Humane slaughter is highly preferable and must be practiced. Changing food habits by enforcing law is unacceptable and will jeopardize the very secular nature of the country, constituted as a ‘Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic with unity in diversity.’ Many Muslims and others are vegetarian, and many Hindu men eat beef when away from home.”

This is the first instance to my knowledge where animals regarded as sacred have been made to suffer on such an enormous scale because of politico-religious fundamentalist bigotry. The Indian government should outlaw violence in the spurious name of cow protection, and recognize the ecological and economic good that comes from recycling the cows who gave them milk and meat. After all, India is the world’s second-largest exporter of beef (primarily from water buffalo). For more details, visit drfoxonehealth.com.

I should add that vegetarian Hindus and Jains caring for captive carnivores, from lions to eagles, have crippled and starved them, forcing them to accept a lactovegetarian diet. Imposing such dietary restrictions on obligate carnivores because of religious beliefs and customs is clearly unethical and culturally absurd.

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