The Indian Government's move to form a review committee has been condemned as a sacrilege similar to disfiguring an Ambedkar statue. All the Constitutional articles and law would lead a stranger to believe that the agricultural country would be truly conserving the population of this agricultural animal. But India is a country of striking contrasts and paradoxes. India, that ostensibly worships its holy cow, butchers 28 cows every minute, by the time one turns the calendar datepage, over 30 thousand cows are slaughtered.

These shocking statistics are provided not by any vegetarianist Jain Muni working for cow-protection, but these figures are provided by the Central Government. Our freedom struggle is followed by the agitation for cow-protection in popular support. The Indian Constitution in its Article 48 lays down quite clearly that the State Governments are responsible to protect the cow, its progeny and other cattle used in agriculture. It even forms part of its Guiding Principles!

There is a plethora of laws and rules aimed at cow-protection and number of cases against torture and killing of cows pending even at the Supreme Court are a legion. Courts times and again instruct the governments to protect the animal—the word is Animal Husbandry! But ironically the governments act in cohort with killers of the cow and the Central Government shamelessly publishes figures of its proud promotion of beef exports, and figures of special mechanical plants imported to facilitate mass slaughter of the cow. Holy cow indeed! And proudly declares large rise in foreign exchange earned from beef export!

The more painful irony is : since Independence the mass-slaughter of this extremely helpless and docile animal has grown by leaps and bounds. In the beef-eating Britishers' raj, cow was killed on individual basis for the consumption of the Saheb, his Nabobs and some followers of religions that advocate beef-eating. But after Independence the Indians who profess filial love for their bovine mother, have turned cow-slaughter into a heavy industry mass-producing beef like any other heavy industry product.

The long-awaited nationalist government came to power at the Centre and the thousands of workers advocating cow-protection began looking forward to a day when cows' mass-destruction would be stopped. But they were in for a cruel rude shock. For this government too has turned cow-slaughter into a "forex" earning industry! In 1981 India was exporting 30900 tonnes meat (of all animals). Today the figure solely for beef crossed the figure of 10,000 tonnes! Eighteen giant slaughter "factories" are operative every minute of the day and the number of traditional Butcher-khanas has rocketted to 36,000. The NDA government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party pledged to Hindutva, is going to open 27 giant slaughter complexes very soon. The Circular 3-34/95 FIN of the Agriculture Ministry's Dairy and Animal Husbandry Department says that eleven sites were chosen in the eighth five year plan where Mechanical Slaughter Complexes would be opened. City Corporations, Municipalities and other semi-autonomous bodies would be granted cent per cent grants to operate such slaughter complexes.

The "Foreign Trade" bulletin in its February issue stated that these slaughter houses were exporting meat and over 230 crore rupees of "forex" was earned through this export. The Government's target by the end of the century (that is by December 31, 2000) is Rs 1000 crore a year! The Government ‘hopes’, when the nine meat-complexes become operative, the country's beef-export will cross the ‘proud’ figure of 35 lakh tonnes, and then India will be the foremost beef-exporting country, holy cow indeed! And the joke at the expense of this wretched animal is that this agricultural country conducts the slaughter industry under its Agricultural Ministry's Animal Husbandry Department, "Animal Husbandry indeed"! The NDA government encourages animal slaughter under the name of animal husbandry! It plans to develop agriculture by killing oxen and calves declared as agricultural cattle. And the proud sons and daughters of the holy cow are duped in this magic of nomenclature! The government should drop the sham and openly declare it as Meat Industry and pass the Department to the Industry Ministry!

Another very intriguing fact is that the Government also does not shy away from import of meat! The new buzz word "liberalization-globalization" is misleading! The Secretary of the US Commerce Department Susanne Emerson has written (ordered in fact) on December 16, 1999, to her Indian counterpart A.N. Khanna and instructed that the quota restriction would go by December 28, 1999. She adds a list of 1429 articles which Indian government is bound to import. In this list the items at No. 1 to 39 and 571 to 581 relate to pieces of frozen animal meat, i.e. beef, salted and fried meat and products developed from them. These also include meat from chickens, ducks, goats, rabbits and surprisingly pork. The list also includes fish, eggs, butter, cheese and ghee. The Indian government is bound to import these items.

One is sadly reminded of those passionate days when Indian soldiers in the British Indian Armies revolted because they were subjected to tear by their teeth the cartridge cases covered with tallow from beef and pork. The Hindus abhorred mouthing the beef tallow and the Muslims were revulsed at the idea of touching pork. The first War of Independence sparked off on this count! And after Independence the Free Government takes pride in beef export! Today's Hindus are not shocked at the heavy industry of mass-slaughter of their Gau-mata (mother cow)! And the Muslims are not averse to eat imported meat packed cheek-by-jowl with pork. Where is the Shariat taboo?

These imported items naturally would be demanded only by big hotels, and foreigners-catering restaurants often patronised by the brown sahebs both Hindus and Muslims. How can a Muslim eat delicacies made out of these imported items packed with pork also? It appears the government has gone secular with a vengeance! Will the Muslims not oppose this, as they in season and out of season cry foul and profess protecting the Shariat? Why should not the Muslim organisations ask the government to explain this step? Why should they not object to this frozen meat, which might be stale and also rotten? It is also a matter of hygiene! These frozen animal products can be contaminated and can spread diseases new and unknown to our population!

It is also doubtful how pure and hyeginically safe these items could be! The British beef of mad cows had generated international crisis in Europe! Britain had to kill 43 lakh cows and incinerate their carcasses because a grass-eating animal like the cow was fed the leftovers of the slaughter-houses turning these animals into cannibals. Hongkong also had to destroy millions of its chickens for the same reason. When in India the veterinary inspectors stamp and pass meat of sick animals, India also can be a victim of similar boycott of Indian beef-export, because the slaughter--houses would not shy away from exporting unsafe meat certified by our not-so-honest sanitary inspectors.

The foreigners will certainly examine our meat exports and eliminate the unsafe meat. But in India the government has no such inspection machinery to examine the forzen animal products imported from the USA under the above list attached to the US Commerce Secretary's letter. It is not only the duty of all the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch workers to oppose such compulsory import of frozen items fraught with contamination. But it also behoves every self-respecting Indian who is alive to the health hazards involved in such imports to lodge his strong protest against such imports and the cow-slaughter also.