Tattva

Vishwa Mangal Gou Gram Yatra was conceived by many sadhus, sants, and Hindu-minded organizations, including Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Some of the aims of the yatra include banning cow slaughter, declaring the cow as a national animal, and educating people about the usefulness of the cow.

India is on the economic march. However, how can it balance economic growth with environmental sustainability? According to the World Bank’s World Development Indicators, India has a per capita energy use of 510 kg of oil per capita. The same figure for the US is 7,778 kg of oil per capita. On one hand it shows the level of prosperity in the US in comparison to most developing countries. On the other hand, it is clear that it will be very difficult for the whole world to achieve development along the lines of the US without seriously endangering even more resources. As per the 2001 census, just over 72% of the Indian population lives in rural areas. This is drastically different than the US where over 81% of the population per the 2005 census lives in urban areas. Given these facts, is there a way for India to achieve sustainable growth while at the same time ensuring environmental sustainability?

Vishwa Mangal Gou Gram Yatra is one such attempt which hopes to combine the traditional Hindu respect for gou mata (Mother Cow) with the creation of a sustainable economic model that will make cow rearing a more economically viable activity and thus re-affirm the cow’s importance and status as a mother. Our ancient Hindu traditions and scriptures hold the cow in a very high regard. The cow is the giver of 5 unique “gavya,” i.e. ghee, milk, yogurt, cow dung and cow urine.

The usefulness of milk has been known from time immemorial as  the source of calcium. Fresh cow’s milk is especially good, though unfortunately, the homogenization of milk greatly reduces the nutritional value of the milk we typically buy in supermarkets. Even pasteurization, while increasing shelf life and being of some safety value potentially compromises the full value of milk. Ghee is highly regarded in Ayurveda. It has been claimed in the past that ghee increases cholesterol and is fatty. Dalda, or vegetable ghee, was marketed as a better substitute. However, recent research has vindicated the usefulness of ghee with some studies showing that ghee in fact helps reduce LDL cholesterol (i.e. the “bad” cholesterol).

Yogurt or curds is of course very good for the digestive system. The benefits of yogurt are widely documented. Most lactose intolerant people can take yogurt, and it has been used in many countries beyond just India, particularly in the middle-east and Eastern Europe.

Coming to cow urine, it may seem odd that something like urine can be useful for anything. After all, we are programmed to think that urine is a necessary evil and most likely something rather gross. However, there is research going on which shows that cow urine utilized in various forms to make different products can help treat a variety of diseases, including cancer. Truly there lies immense potential in this product. It is just a matter of further scientific investigation to reconfirm what our ancestors have said,  along  with  good  marketing  which can further I
popularize this. There are a variety of soaps, distilled cow urine, and related products which are sold.

Finally, cow dung’s importance cannot be overstated. Cow dung along with cow urine is an important component of an organic fertilizer and compost. It is a key element in the agnihotra fire ritual where the smoke from burnt cow dung adds oxygen to the air and reduces pollution. During the Bhopal gas tragedy where there was major leakage of MIC gas, many families suffered from the ill effects of radiation. However according to an April 7th 1985 report from The Hindu newspaper, 2 families who lived just 1 mile from the accident were unscathed because of agnihotra. Some atomic power centers in India and Russia use cow dung to protect against radiation.

Vishwa Mangal Gou Gram Yatra was conceived by many sadhus, sants, and Hindu-minded organizations, including Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Some of the aims of the yatra include banning cow slaughter, declaring the cow as a national animal, and educating people about the usefulness of the cow— not just in terms of milk, ghee, and butter, but also utilizing cow urine and cow dung to develop various organic products and thus emphasizing small-scale industries along this path. When the knowledge of the full benefits of cow as well as how to keep the cow economically viable is missing, farmers may often sell their cows to butchers in spite of the fact that cow slaughter is illegal in many states in India.

Currently, the high use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and genetically modified seeds has put many Indian farmers at the mercy of the companies who sell these products. While such products may initially increase agricultural yield, it often becomes addictive in terms of using ever increasing amounts of fertilizers and pesticides  to produce higher yields.  Often, even the yields start to decline after some time due to soil degradation.

This is perhaps a more manageable problem in places like the United States, where agriculture is dominated by large-scale agri-businesses that may have the flexibility to cultivate different tracts of land. However, Indian farmers are typically small-scale farmers who can suffer from severe economic damage if left to the vagaries of high input costs and volatile prices of agricultural produce. Further education of Indian farmers on how to utilize cow dung and cow urine to stay in or switch back to organic  farming is very important. This will help make farmers more self-reliant and encourage cottage industries centered around various cow products. Youtube has an excellent video on “biodynamic farming” which goes into detail about effective organic farming methods.

The Vishwa Mangal Gou Gram Yatra started in Kurukshetra on September 30, 2009 and will end on January 16th in Nagpur after having touched numerous parts of Bharat. The yatra has received a great response and has been supported by a number of eminent personalities, including Suresh Oberoi (father of film star Vivek Oberoi), Baba Ramdev, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and others. Various speeches, roundtables, and seminars have been organized.

Given that Bharat is the land of innumerable villages, development paradigms that are less energy intensive would seem to be the ideal way to curb excess migration to cities and thus reduce the carbon footprint. Model village development, as seen in places like Chitrakoot and Mohad, offer some examples in this regard of making full utilization of the 5 gavyas for food, medicine, fertilizers, pesticides, electricity generation, etc.  With the spread of this knowledge through Bharat, it can hopefully set an example for the rest of the world as to how to increase the economic well-being of the society without degrading our environment.

Here are a few websites apart from the Vishwa Mangal Gou Gram Yatra website (http://www.gougram.org) which give information on different cow based products and their relevant research.

http://www.goshala.com/
http://www.govigyan.com/index.html
http://www.govigyan.org/default.asp

Balakrishna Sastry is is an associate financial analyst at Edison Mission Energy in Irvine, California. He completed his MBA from UC Irvine. He spent one year as a full time volunteer for Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, USA. His interests include yoga, economics, sports, and traveling.

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 12:06 am and is filed under Current Events, India. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.