Cow protection movement
[1][2][3] While the opposition to slaughter of animals, including cows, has extensive and ancient roots in Indian history, the term refers to modern movements dating back to colonial era British India.
[9] The cow protection movement is most connected with India, but has been active since colonial times in predominantly Buddhist countries such as Sri Lanka and Myanmar.
[17] This practice was inspired by the belief in Hinduism that a soul is present in all living beings, life in all its forms is interconnected, and non-violence towards all creatures is the highest ethical value.
[17][18] Many ancient and medieval Hindu texts debate the rationale for a voluntary stop to cow slaughter and the pursuit of vegetarianism as a part of a general abstention from violence against others and all killing of animals.
[19] The hunter, in this ancient Sanskrit text, states that meat consumption should be allowed because animal sacrifice was practiced in the Vedic age, that the flesh nourishes people, that man must eat to live and plants like animals are alive too, that the nature of life is such every life form eats the other, that no profession is totally non-violent because even agriculture destroys numerous living beings when the plough digs the land.
[24][25] To the majority of modern Indians, states Alsdorf, respect for cattle and disrespect for slaughter is a part of their ethos and there is "no ahimsa without renunciation of meat consumption".
[28] Jains have led a historic campaign to ban the slaughter of cows and all other animals, particularly during their annual festival of Paryushana (also called Daslakshana by Digambara).
[29] Historical records, for example, state that the Jain leaders lobbied Mughal emperors to ban slaughter of cow and other animals, during this 8 to 12 day period.
[51] Cattle slaughter had been and continued to be an approved practice among the followers of Islam, particularly on festive occasions such as the Eid-ul-Adha, except the cows which are pregnant or ill or wounded.
Although goat slaughter is an available alternative for the festival, according to Peter van der Veer, Muslims [in India] have considered it "imperative not to bow down to Hindu encroachments on their 'ancient' right to sacrifice cows on Bakr-Id".
[53] There can be little doubt, states Peter van der Veer, "that protection of the cow already had a political significance in India before the [colonial era] British period".
Further, these societies stated that cow slaughter be banned in British India for public health and to prevent further famines and reduce price inflation in agriculture produce, and that such a policy would benefit Christians, Hindus and Muslims simultaneously.
[64] According to Śekhara Bandyopādhyāẏa, during Dayananda's time, cow protection movement was initially not overtly anti-Muslim, but gradually became a source of communal tension.
[62]: 68 After the 1893 major cow-related riots, the response of some Hindus to Muslim view on cow-protection was to blame "the unfortunate ignorance and fanaticism of the uneducated members of the Mahomedan community", states Tejani.
Numerous cow-related Hindu-Muslim riots broke out between 1900 and 1947, in different parts of British India, [68][69] particularly on Islamic festival of sacrifice called Eid-ul-Adha, killing hundreds[citation needed].
After the Partition of the Indian subcontinent into a Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan, one of the significant triggers of riots, the killings of Hindus and Muslims, and other violence in the 1950s and 1960s was cow slaughter.
[71][72] A Hindu had attempted to start the spring festivities of Holi by burning a public Holika bonfire, a celebration that his Muslim neighbors objected to.
[79] Riots triggered by cow-killings erupted in Lahore, Ambala, Delhi, United Provinces, Bihar and other places in the late 19th century.
Reportedly an inexperienced British officer (Henry Dupernex) ordered Muslims to register with the police, if they wished to slaughter cows for Eid al-Adha.
According to British colonial records, Hindu crowds as large as 25,000 attacked Muslims on Id day, violence broke out at multiple sites simultaneously, and local authorities were unable to cope.
[85] In 1946, rumors spread in Bengal that Hindus had secretly conspired to stop cow sacrifice on Eid-ul-Adha by bringing in Sikhs and arms into their homes.
Between 1948 and 1951, cow slaughter led to a spate of riots broke out in Azamgarh, Akola, Pilbhit, Katni, Nagpur, Aligarh, Dhubri, Delhi and Calcutta.
[88] According to Ian Copland and other scholars, it was the practical stop of cow sacrifice ritual as Islamic festivals after 1947 that largely led to a reduction in riots from the peak observed just before India's independence.
[89] However, they add, the riots re-emerged in the 1960s, when a new generation of Muslims born after the independence reached adolescence, who were less aware of the trauma of religious violence in India of the 1940s, began to assert their rights.
[93][94] According to People's Union for Democratic Rights, the Vishva Hindu Parishad and the Gauraksha Samiti have defended violent vigilantism around cow protection as sentiments against the "sin of cow-slaughter" and not related to "the social identity of the victims".
[101][12] More recently, the monks and Buddhist leader Wirathu of the Ma Ba Tha movement have lobbied Burmese authorities to ban ritual slaughter of cows for the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha.
The 969 vigilante Buddhists have conducted night raids into Muslim owned business to check compliance of cow slaughter restrictions in Myanmar.
The Bill was introduced by Wijedasa Rajapakse, who added that a ban on cattle slaughter "would affect about 300 to 400 people engaged in the meat business, but would generate thousands of new job opportunities for local youth in the dairy industry", states the Sri Lankan newspaper The Sunday Times.
[clarification needed] One of the leaders of the protest called for an attack the Lok Sabha, causing the sadhus to attempt to break the police cordon and commit acts of vandalism against public buildings.
Members of its Parliament such as Athuraliye Rathana Thero have called it a cause against a "sinful act" that is not only important to the religious sentiments of the Buddhists but also to the long term nutritional needs of Sri Lankan population.
