Is this the final blow for desi cows? After initially claiming that the milk from Indian cows contains “traces of gold” and is superior to the milk from foreign cows, the government now has disavowed those claims.
In the chilly bureaucratese of a parliamentary answer, the government pronounced, “as per the information received from ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research), there is no conclusive information available regarding the difference between the quality of milk of foreign breeds of cows and indigenous cattle.”
The bad news was delivered by Sanjeev Balyan, minister of state for fisheries, animal husbandry and dairying. It contradicts the extravagant claims made by the Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog (RKA)which is part of Balyan’s own ministry, about the virtues and superior quality of Indian cow breeds.
The RKA, which is the body established for cow welfare, had planned to hold a massive online exam last month to educate the public on the virtues of Indian cow breeds and how they were far superior to “exotic” beefier imports like the Jerseys and Holsteins. Nearly half a million people in India and around the world had registered to take part. But the exam was called off at the last moment, reportedly because of opposition within the ministry to the “unscientific” claims being touted by RKA in the syllabus for the exam.
Relying on a study from Junagadh University, a blog on the RKA website asserted that experiments had “successfully identified more than 752 compounds found in cow urine having immense medicinal value.”
The RKA also claimed that a host of illnesses could be cured by the milk from Indian cows, including “obesity, joint pain, asthma, mental illness”. It added that, conversely, the milk from foreign cows could trigger these illnesses. The syllabus took particular aim at the Jersey cow which it described as “lazy” and prone to disease. Indian cows, it said, followed hygienic practices being “hardy and clever enough not to sit at dirty places.”
The Kamdhenu Aayog was set up in 2019 and its specific goal was the “conservation, protection and development of cows and their progeny.” However, it appeared to have interpreted its mission as being the salvation of Indian cow breeds like the Red Kandhari and the Kasaragod dwarf cow.
Agricultural experts call most of the RKA’s claims far-fetched. They point out that the real problem for Indian livestock is that artificial insemination over the last four-to-five decades has created a situation where it is impossible to find pure cattle breeds. “Breed surveys show 80 per cent of cattle is unidentifiable. You have a complete mix of breeds,” says Vikas Rawal, who’s a professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning at Jawaharlal Nehru University. So even if the milk from Indian cow breeds were superior to foreign ones, pure desi cows are thin on the ground.
Rawal says that cross-breeding and artificial insemination have been done mainly to increase milk yields. “With an eye to increasing milk yield. Artificial insemination has helped to increase milk production. This means the identifiable cattle population has shrunk hugely,” says Rawal.
Balyan’s dismissal of the virtues of Indian breeds came in response to a question from YSR Congress MP Magunta Sreenivasulu Reddy.
Still, desi or not, BJP leaders are still keen to extol the cow’s virtues. On Sunday, Madhya Pradesh Culture minister Usha Thakur declared that a mix of ghee made from cow milk and added to cow dung cakes during a havan at sunrise or sunset can sanitise a home for 12 hours and prevent Covid-19. Thakur also advised adopting a Vedic lifestyle to be protected against the coronavirus.
BJP leaders have drawn much attention for their ideas for combating the coronavirus. At the height of the pandemic last year, West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh advocated drinking cow urine to ward off Covid-19. In 2019 he also claimed that “desi cows have a hump on their back” and that “the hump has a ‘Swarna nari’. When sunlight falls on the hump, it produces gold.”
