Is this type of cruel death Justified ?

Seven Judge Constitutional Bench of Supreme Court of India headed by Chief Justice R.C. Lahoti, in its judgement upholding the ban on cow slaughter on 26-10-2005 has discussed and noted that In India’s 6.30 lakh villages, five crore employment opportunities can be generated by cow.

Nethrakere Udaya Shankara

First of all I must thank all readers of this blog, like Jayakishore Bhat, Dr. Jayagovinda (Sahasraksha Vaidya Shala Ukkinadka), Shree Padre, Shreevatsa Joshi, Shreedhar Nayak, Ganadalu Shreekanta, Rajesh Hegade, Radhakrishna Bhadti, Girish and others who responded through E-mail, Telephone or by recording their feelings in the comments section of the blog. Dr. Jayagovinda has recorded his appreciation saying that ‘a great work, let the farmers find solution to their severe problems they are facing now a days, through Paryaya.’ I thank all of you once again for your responses.

Mr. Jayakishor Bhat has recorded his valuable thought provoking comment on the article "Manavanaguveya Illa Danavanaguveya?'. Definitely such comments will lead us to think deeply on the issues which our society could take note of and act suitably.

I will give the comment of Mr. Jayakishor Bhat here and record my opinion on the subject. I also request you to join the discussion:

Dear Nethrakere, Article is indeed thought provoking. But there are some other issues as well; that you might have known if you are into cow rearing...The management of "unproductive" animals itself is a big issue with small farmers. Some times it accounts for heavy loss rather than profits...When you say about nature, natural living and all, one should live as per the laws of nature and all...More precisely according to me rearing cow is itself against nature. Coz you just do not have right to tie ropes to these innocent animals in a shed and...Using them for our own personal needs...and indeed you must have to drink milk only if cow gives it to you..!!!Is this practicable?Similarly, what you are saying is also impractical. It’s just ideal kind of situation which doesn't exist at all...What do you say?

-Jayakishore


Yes. Mr. Jayakishor, What you think is correct. But who is responsible for this? Is this problem man made or animal made? Why animals should suffer for greediness of human beings? Why they should be killed in such inhuman way as shown in the picture above?

If you go to the root, definitely one can realize that the whole problem lies with human being and his greediness and not with any animal whether it is a cow, calf, bullock, sheep, chicken or fish.
It is man who is making use or misuse of these animals and nature’s gifts like tree and water. Primarily, Developments or what we 'human beings' call 'Progress' were started with the agriculture and animal husbandry. For cultivation, transportation and to feed milk to our children, we started animal husbandry long ago.

In the early stages, man considered these animals as members of the family and not as slaves. He fed them with all love and affection. He utilized not only the milk of cow but also used cow dung and cow urine as fertilizers to his crops. Cows and bullocks left free to wander in the gomalas and return to homes in the evenings. (They were not tied in a shed for the whole day as you explained, in those days.) People worshipped the cows and trees to express their gratitude towards them. As senior journalist Mr. Nagesh Hegade rightly said in his article in Adike Pathrike (December 2007), at that time farmers had no responsibility of feeding the entire nation. He used to cultivate land just to feed his family and he never considered it as business to gain profit.

But problem started when people became greedy and wanted to gain more. It affected farm sector also. Farmers were forced to cultivate more and produce more. In the name of progress farmer was forced to adopt modern techniques for cultivation. Tractors came to the place of bullocks to plough the fields, and motor bikes, cars came to the place of bullock carts. Animal husbandry or cow rearing also became the business. Foreign/ Jersey Cows came to the place of Indian Cows as they gave more milk and these foreign/ Jersey cows were tied in the sheds for whole day and became the milk giving machines.


These developments led the farmers to think that bullocks are useless and unproductive. They forgot that they treated these animals as their family members since ages! And they started to sell these bullocks to slaughter houses. They began to sell old cows too to slaughter houses as they felt they are useless after becoming old. In the name of development we finished the gomalas also and converted them to sites for constructing buildings or converted them to horticultural farms with the object of gaining more profit.


Due to modernization, our farmers forgot the use of cheap natural fertilizer made of cow dung and urine and started to use chemical fertilizers to their farms. This increased the cost of cultivation. I need not tell more as all of us seeing the impact of this. More than 1.5 lakh farmers committed suicide since a decade due to heavy debt and not getting fair price for their crops. We must note that though the cost of farming increased due to modernization, prices of agricultural products didn't rose proportionately and naturally farmers failed to repay their debts which led them to commit suicides.


Just think, in the process of progress we lost the affection towards the animals which served us for their entire life and we resort to slaughter the cows and bullocks after they become old and if we felt that they are ‘unproductive’. What will happen if same yardstick applied to human beings also?


We claim, old people though they are physically weak, could enrich us by their experience, isn't it?


Then why should we send the cows or bullocks to slaughterhouses? Plenty of researches have shown that Cow / bullock urine has high medicinal properties and cow dung is the best fertilizer to our farms. Getting Bio gas from Cow dung and urine is well known fact to us.

Then why can’t we make use of this? Cow or Ox gives urine and dung till its death. Then why should we think that they are unproductive after certain age?

Don't you think effort of Shree Raghaveshwar Bharathi Swamiji of Ramachandrapura Math to protect and conserve Indian Cows is appreciable in this context?

We can’t go back from the process of development which started with the cultivation making use of cows and bullocks. And after using them as ladder to reach this height of progress, slaughtering them in such a crude way could never be considered as humane. In the changed situation, at least we can use the bullocks to generate electricity using generator, to get natural manure to our fields and to get urine for medical purposes instead of sending them to slaughter houses. (Seven Judge Constitutional Bench of Supreme Court of India headed by Chief Justice R.C. Lahoti, in its judgment upholding the ban on cow slaughter on 26-10-2005 has discussed and noted that In India’s 6.30 lakh villages, five crore employment opportunities can be generated by cow. I will write more about this and some other information on such successful efforts in future to enlighten readers and to carry forward this discussion further.)

Such innovative thinking and works though start in a small way could bring a massive change in the society, because all of us know that every river has the humble beginning.