Valentine Vows : From Thrashing Couples To Kissing Cows !

 BY R.K.MISRA

“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”, said an American astronaut  as he set foot on the moon in 1969.

Decades later in far-off India near similar sentiments seemed struggling to bubble up when officialdom decreed that the country progress from thrashing courting couples on Valentine’s day to kissing cows.

Humour apart, the official appeal issued by the Animal Welfare Board of India was to observe February 14 as Cow Hug Day. It will bring emotional richness and increase individual and collective happiness. Vedic traditions are on the verge of extinction due to the progress of West culture and the dazzle of western civilization has made our physical culture and heritage almost forgotten, the advisory noted. Subsequently another statement followed from the Board’s secretary S.K.Datta which read .”As directed by the competent authority and ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, the appeal issued by the Animal Welfare Board of India for celebration of  Cow Hug Day on February 14 stands withdrawn”. The Animal Welfare Board comes  under the  union Animal Husbandry ministry headed by Parshottam Rupala, BJP MP from Gujarat.

The  average Indian venerates the cow cutting across caste, class and even religious divides and it does not require an official advisory to teach him its virtues. In fact  the ingrained belief for its well-being spans the entire panorama from the emotive to the ludicrous. It begins with  homes cooking an extra ’roti’ for it to the business model perfected for the person in a hurry. Not uncommon to see a cowherd park himself on  roadsides with both the bovine and the fodder while passers-by seeking instant salvation for everyday sin stop to pay him for feeding his own fodder to his own cow and move on contented for the celestial credit !

In a world where all manner of  days and nights  are celebrated with equal commercial aplomb-from rose day to propose day and kiss day to hug day-showering love on a selected bovine breed could never be an issue. It is however the devil in the detail that  raises suspicion of intent. A cow day has the intrinsic strength to stand on its own four feet, why inject forced religiosity to super-impose it on a day-Valentine’s day- that the young celebrate with verve and joy. A tech-platform has been quoted  in an American magazine as saying that Indians spent between $100 to 200 million in Valentine day’s gifts and experiences in 2020 alone. Romance is not alien to India and if the mere name Valentine raises the heckles of the orthodoxy, it would do well to remember  Aryan origins.

The super-imposition tried earlier replacing Valentine’s day with ‘matr-pitr diwas’ in Rajasthan and subsequently overturned failed and neither did  the moral policing by the right wing inspired vigilantes have more than a momentary impact. Soft emotions and primal instincts, particularly among the willing, cannot be contained by blandishing carrots or brandishing sticks.

What the latest attempt and backtrack has done is fill the social media  with jokes and banter. So we have Congress leader Sashi Tharoor asking whether the government was "cow-ed" by the jokes made at its expense or was it merely "cow-ardice". My guess is the original appeal was an oral instruction; Valentine’s day: let them hug their guy” and the last word was misheard by a hindi Rashtravadi as gaay !....numerous take-offs on the theme continue to hog social space.

As for the state of the cows. union minister Rupala said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha that cattle deaths due to the Lumpy skin disease in the country during 2022 stood at 1,55,366.This viral disease transmitted by blood-feeding insects which affects cattle largely cows took the country by storm last year though the government  sought to play down the impact, with elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh on the anvil. In Gujarat where over 90,000 heads were affected  milk output was down 50,000 litres per day but a reprimand from the right quarters soon saw R.S. Sodhi ,MD of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing federation(GCMMF) making amends with a rejoinder of sorts stating milk production would not be affected . Whatever be the reason, it could not save his job in the long run.

 The Food and Agriculture Organisation(FAO) of the United Nations is on record that LSD causes grave economic losses. In India where underplaying is the norm unless politically expedient, no such calculations have been carried out. The outbreak in the Balkans in 2016-17 ,for example cost  the affected countries more than EUR 20 million. A quick response to the virus is critical to control spread including culling ,vaccination and movement restriction. Minister Rupala has made it clear that while preventive care  and symptom-specific antibiotics are there, no specific anti-viral drugs are presently available to cure the illness. And culling cows would be fatal for any political ruler in India.

Then off course the bang and whimper which went  with the BJP government’s decision last year to licence, regulate and prohibit cattle movements in urban areas through a bill . Passed with a bang in the State Assembly , it was subsequently withdrawn with a whimper before the 2022 elections in Gujarat in deference to electoral considerations. Now cows move on the roads with abandon and not a day goes by with some or other road user finding himself fatally gored.

Who cares. Ugliness can be fixed ,stupidity is forever!

http://epaper.lokmat.com/lokmattimes/main-editions/Nagpur%20Main/2023-02-14/6

http://odishapostepaper.com/edition/4396/orissapost/page/9