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Cow has a very important status in India. People get bone, hide, flesh, milk and manure from the cow. You may find a good number of bulls engaged in plowing the fields in India even today. Even bullock-carts may be noticed providing transport services in the villages of India. In this way cow is very useful. The other advantage with this animal is that a cow is herbivorous and that it is very calm and quiet by constitution. Another significant feature of this animal is that you can domesticate it easily and happily.
The important status that a cow enjoys in India is nothing new. The people of the Vedic age, about 4000 years back, have realized that this animal is really all for benefit only. Hence in the agrarian civilization of the ancient India people have decided to worship this animal. Cow has been worshiped since then. Cow has been called “Gomata”. “Go” means cow and “mata” means mother in Sanskrit language. In Sanskrit language there are many words with “go” as the prefix. This indicates that the Aryans of India have accepted this quadruped as part of their life. Yes, cow has a property value. The society has barter system in the economy and people have used cow as a thing with exchange value.
In the Indian literature and religious practices cow has a glorious position. You will, of course, never find any research works on the cow in ancient texts. But there is a person named Krishna whose association with the cows has been immortalized in literature. He has been projected as a Shepherd lad and also an ardent lover of a woman named Radha. Krishna has also been projected as a god and there are sites in India where his idol has been worshipped by large number of men and women belonging to the Hindu community. Again, there is another god in the same community and his name is Shiva and a bull is his carrier.
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There is reason to believe that modern India carries the same tradition. You may learn about an organization named ‘Goraksha’ Committee or cow-saving committee in India. Still all is not fine with this committee. The leaders of this committee do not have minimum love and respect either for the cows or for anything secular in the society. They are responsible for preaching hatred against another religious community which holds faith in the Islam. The Goraksha Committee is a frontal organization of Rastriya Sayamsevak Sangha or RSS in short. This RSS claim that they are the savior of Hinduism. This is highly controversial and the claim has never been accepted by the larger mass of the Indians. Most of the people consider RSS as the most venomous body in modern India. Thus people who do not share the tenet of non-violence of the Buddha or even of Mahatma Gandhi demand their exclusive right over the cow although you will find hardly any violence in this animal.
