To talk about cow protection is considered amongst educated Indians as something odd, backward and antiquatedly religious. Vinoba looked at cow-slaughter both as an ethical and an economic menace. He was. not a ritualistically religious person. He believed in God, he believed in prayers, but there were no other rituals, no idol worship in his daily life. He was basically a Vedantist. He attached great importance to the cow as a symbol of human compassion for fellow life forms. He used to say that his socialism extended to cows and did not allow him to exploit and kill them.
Being basically tuned to village India, Vinoba knew the importance of the cows in village economy. If you give land to a landless person, but if he has no bullocks, what can he cultivate? Cows provide milk, manure and traction power in the form of bullocks. A recent study by the Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore has estimated that the energy generated for traction power by bullocks in India is equivalent to the energy generated by all other means put together; oil, hydro, nuclear etc. That is the importance of the cow as a giver of Food, and a renewable source of traction power. It is often the only asset a poor man has in India.
Poor farmers cannot resist the temptations of market forces. They sell their cows for slaughtering. In other words, they sell their renewable source of an energy generating asset. The land becomes meaningless without bullocks. The only choice for a poor villager is to become a landless labourer dependent on others, or migrate to city slums. Vinoba could not accept this. He, therefore, started a campaign for Goraksha (Cow Protection).
Realistically speaking, it need not have been necessary to organise a campaign. Cow protection is enshrined in the Constitution of India as a Directive Principle. The Supreme Court has given a judgement that Anti-cow-slaughter laws passed by some states are constitutionally valid. Many States: have passed such laws. Beef does not have much market in India, as it is not acceptable to Hindus. Still, very large scale cow-slaughter
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