Speak out, Veterinary and Animal Scientists, Against the Non-Science Surrounding the Cow

I am annoyed and ashamed at just how much longer the neighborhood of veterinary and animal researchers to which I belong will continue to stay quiet, passive and unquestioning of the utter non-science, fallacies and impracticality being spouted by our nation’s leading animal husbandry and veterinary science policy makers, in the name of ‘cow security’. The most current example of this was the “appeal” from the Animal Welfare Board of India provided on February 6, to ‘hug cows’ and state Valentine’s Day’ Cow Hug Day’, mentioning Vedic customs presumably being changed by Western culture as the basis for this proposition. This was quickly withdrawn on February 10. No factors were pointed out. Is it that the federal government was all of a sudden grasped by intense pain at having been quickly and successfully exposed and torn apart by residents of this nation, in front of a galaxy of worldwide dignitaries presently in various parts of India going over the G20’s “One Earth, One Family, One Future” prepare for science, education, environment modification, energy, farming, tourist and what have you? Whatever the factor might be, it is entirely condemnable that the Department of Animal Husbandry, of which the Animal Welfare Board belongs, far from promoting clinical mood and reasonable thinking among India’s people, utilizes its executive position to provide state patronage to sustain the growing Hindu conservative vigilante groups’ vicious yearly attacks versus Indian people commemorating Valentine’s Day (which they too think about to be Western culture attacking and changing Indian culture aka Vedic cow culture) and/or lynching people, usually Muslims, Dalits or Adivasis, for being “anti-cow”. What do they so dislike about Valentine’s Day? It has absolutely nothing to do with stopping Western culture, however whatever to do with policing the bold and brave girls of this nation, whose choices on love obstacle the caste and patriarchal codes of the Manusmriti and the incorrect limits of faith. Paradoxically, the latter was just recently valorised by a high court judge, for being the only methods by which females can advance in the STEM disciplines. Over a century back, it was Dr B.R. Ambedkar who determined how the recreation of caste depend upon the stringent Brahminical patriarchal guidelines of endogamy and control over ladies’s sexuality. And when it comes to the love of the holy cow by means of federal governments policies on cow security– it’s the fantastic unholy lie. Information, not cow-hugs, matter. Throughout the cow belt of India, which has rigid anti-slaughter laws, livestock populations are on the decrease. Farmers have actually reacted to the unrelenting concentrate on mechanising farming, combined with strictures on massacre and inter-state transport of livestock, by letting loose onto the fields their ineffective bullocks and cows, choosing to restock with buffaloes. Growing roaming livestock populations attacking farms and streets are repelled by pestered farmers, and these stressed out normally docile animals are really then in self-defence switching on human beings. The federal government’s ‘Atmanirbahar’ dairy policy is to double milk exports through broadening domestic milk production and processing capability. It was just recently offered a fillip by developing a nationwide level multi-state cooperative export society. Almost 95% of this year’s animal husbandry spending plan is directed towards this industrialising dairy job. Farmers respond by moving their production far from multifunctional livestock types to high milk producing crossbred dairy livestock. This spells problem for cows and their well-being, as cows wind up being raised simply as milk producing devices, without rest. Farmers, under pressure for their animals to produce more, wind up likewise being pressed into embracing more damaging management practices. The greater producing animals are likewise genetically more vulnerable to illness such as Mastitis, re
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