“Atithi Deva Bhava” meaning “Guest is akin to God,” is a philosophy core to Indian values and tradition. If a foreign visitor were to make its way out of the #IGI Airport into the country’s capital, they would be greeted by many of the numerous smiling faces of the 3 crore residents (UN Report, 2022) bustling in #Delhi’s chowks and gullys.

The 20-lakh foreign tourists who arrive in Delhi every year as a gateway to India’s rich history, architecture, and diverse culture, in no time get accustomed to a second population of inhabitants residing in the same localities; residents usually elevated to the status of Godliness and core to Indian society and sentiments…a being so powerful that it can nonchalantly live and roam around the streets, disobeying traffic rules, undeterred by honking casually camouflaging into the urban landscape. These are the special citizens of India, popularly recognized as Kamadhenu, GauMata, or simply..Cows.

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Cows are worshipped across the country and hold a sacred status in #Hinduism, the majority religion of India. Ancient Hindu scriptures considered cows as the source of prosperity, Rig Veda’s mention them as ‘Agnya’ -one that may not be killed; Lord #Krishna one of the supreme deities of #Hinduism was depicted as a cowherd. So, do the privileges of these special citizens just limit to the country’s religious sentiments? No.

Though historically significant, the economic impact started to take shape as a second revolution in the 1970s, only this time to flood the country with white. Operation Flood or The White Revolution was the world’s largest dairy development initiative that transformed #India from a milk deficient nation into the world’s largest producer. It created a national milk grid via modern management and technology linking producers throughout #India to consumers in over 700 towns and cities, thus acting as an instrument of development, generating employment and alleviating poverty for the millions of people in rural India. Over a very short period of 30-40 years, the age-old reverence transformed into a deeper and more impactful our economy.

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In present day, capturing a 23% share of the global milk production, India is the world’s largest milk producer hosting a herd of over 30 crore bovines (FAO, United Nations, 2022). The total dairy market in India stands at USD 173 Billion with exports of over 378.8 million USD (Sishodia, 2021). Being a more labor-intensive than land-intensive activity, the Dairy Industry guarantees a higher share of income for marginal and poor agricultural households. The industry provides nutrition, draft animal power, organic manure, supplementary employment, cash income, and a 'cushion' for 'drought proofing' the nation (Jaiswal, 2018). All Indians, regardless of caste and creed, have a long history that links them with a sense of gratitude and reverence for cows.

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Presented as this wholesome and humane industry, the real picture of Indian dairy farms do not match up to its marketing message. If one were to have a peep into the city’s gaushalas, it would look like something straight out of a horror film. Forced to wade through their own waste, most of a cow's day is spent confined to narrow and filthy stalls. The cows—whose sensitive noses can smell odors from a 10km (about 6.21 mi) distance—are jailed in the stench of their own waste with no escape. The lack of hygiene in the gaushalas also causes a serious food safety threat. The manure splashes onto cows’ udders moments before they are milked. They stick to their limbs, and it is beyond the bounds of possibility to clean the flanks and udders of cows before milking (PETA, 2022). As if these cramped conditions were not enough for the cows to survive alone, co-living in these same quarters are the swarm of flies that keep them constantly entertained, acting as the consummate breeding house of several communicable diseases.

The cows are impregnated artificially as soon as they hit puberty, and then injected with Oxytocin, an illegal drug that causes them to produce unnaturally copious quantities of milk and suffer severe stomach cramps. While the cow is seen as a metaphor for motherhood, she is rarely given a chance to experience its joys for very long. Female dairy cows have their first calf roughly two years of age. After the birth, the cow produces milk for ten months before being given two months resting period before the next calf is born (Butler, Hutchinson, Cromie, & Shalloo, 2014). Despite contributing to the livelihoods of millions, the plight of cows is such that after repeated pregnancies for 6 years, they are usually retired due to a decrease in milk yield (Kedia, Garg, & Mishra, 2022).

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Cows, bulls, oxen, and buffaloes that roam freely without any owner to claim ownership are considered as stray cattle (Law Insider, 2022). Once a cow stops lactating, feeding and maintenance of the cow becomes a financial burden on the farmer or the owner due to economic constraints, resulting in them abandoning these non-milching cows. Each newborn calf stands a 50% chance of being born male. According to the 2019 Livestock Census, the GOI reported a population of 136 million female bovines compared to the 166 million male bovines in the country (NDDB, 2019). Most farms in India no longer need bulls, because the rampant mechanization in the farming industry has also put cattle out of use as working animals, further alleviating the number of cattle abandonment cases (New Indian Xpress, 2019). Around 80% of all strays are bulls and the remaining are old or sick cows that dairy owners abandon after they stop giving milk (The Indian Express, 2021).

Ramnath Patel, a 47-year-old farmer from Sarai Dangri (village in UP) in a 2019 Economic Times article says, “I could barely feed my children. Keeping the cows and the calves was beyond my means.” (Katiyar and Layak, 2019).

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The sight of “Gods” roaming as stray cattle on the streets of Govindpuri, Greater Kailash, Sadar Bazar, Ghazipur, Patparganj, causing nuisance to traffic, and hovering around garbage bins feeding on plastic bags has therefore become a common sight.

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In a 2019 Times of India Article, Rajdeep Datta Roy, a gaushala owner, noted, "It is extremely sad how these bovines are made to starve and suffer immense pain. Unlike dogs, cows do not have claws to tear open packets. On finding food in dhalaos (garbage sheds), cows consume polybags full of food. This keeps collecting in their rumen till they can't eat anything." Often blamed on the lack of enforcement in capturing stray cattle and shifting illegal dairies to the city’s outskirts, the menace of stray bovine choking arterial roads is no longer just Delhi’s story, it has become India’s reality. 

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Abandoning unproductive cattle is not very unusual in India, it is a tradition called Anna Pratha in some parts of the country. Even young cows, when not producing milk, are released with the expectation that they would graze on public land and return to their owners when pregnant (Katiyar and Layak, 2019). Adding to that population are the numerous illegal dairies already rearing their livestock in harsh conditions which unleash their cattle on the streets every morning.

In this new India, we are stuck with a catch-22 situation where this balancing act between poverty and beliefs is taking its toll on humans and animals alike.

 

To be continued...

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