indianexpress.com http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/elusive-holiness-of-the-cow/

How the story of the cow in India is riddled with puzzlesand paradoxes

The ritual killing of cattle was de rigueur among the Vedic people, who routinely sacrificed cattle and ate theirflesh.

The cow has been a political animal in modern India, but it has become more political under the present BJPgovernments at the Centre and in some states, which are obsessed with beef bans and cow slaughter. But theritual killing of cattle was de rigueur among the Vedic people, who routinely sacrificed cattle and ate their flesh.The Rigveda frequently refers to the cooking of the flesh of animals, including that of the ox, as an offering to thegods, especially Indra. In most Vedic yajnas, cattle were killed and their flesh eaten. Although some post-Vedictexts recommend the offering of animal effigies in lieu of livestock, ancient Indians continued to kill cattle and eatbeef, which was the favourite food of Yajnavalkya, the respected sage from Mithila. He made the obduratestatement that he would continue to eat the flesh of cows and bullocks so long as it was tender (ShatapathaBrahmana). The practice of cattle-killing on sacrificial and other occasions, attested to by a number of post-Vedictexts, possibly continued for centuries.

However, post-Mauryan lawgivers are either ambivalent or generally reticent on the issue or, more often,disapprove of cattle-killing. The Manusmriti (200 BC-200 AD), the most representative of the legal texts, allows theconsumption of the flesh, among others, of all domestic animals with teeth in one jaw, the only exception beingthe camel, not the cow. While the text remains noncommittal on the issue of beef-eating, it tells us that one doesnot do any wrong by eating meat while honouring the gods, the manes and guests, for eating meat on sacrificialoccasions is a divine rule. The commentator Medhatithi (9th century) interprets that passage to mean that theeating of cattle flesh was in keeping with the Vedic and post-Vedic practice, which included the killing of cattle.Another law book, Yajnavalkyasmriti (100 AD-300 AD), also discusses lawful and forbidden food and endorsesthe Vedic practice of killing animals and eating the consecrated meat, but unlike the Manusmriti, it clearly statesthat a learned Brahmin should be welcomed with a big ox or goat, delicious food and sweet words.

Thus, unlike earlier normative texts, post-Mauryan law books either restrict cow-killing to guest reception or arereticent about it. Interestingly, they try to cover up the issue by approving of all sacrifices having Vedic sanctionbecause, according to them, Vedic killing is not killing. This obfuscation was accompanied by the almost-simultaneous development of the idea of the Kali Yuga, first described in the Mahabharata and the early Puranas.During the Kali age, the brahminical texts tell us, a number of earlier practices, including the killing of kine, wereprohibited and came to be known as kalivarjas. Repeated assertions that the cow should not be killed in the Kaliage tended to make the cow unslayable and led to the disappearance of beef from the Brahmin’s menu. Thekilling of cows now came in for condemnation in the dharmashastra texts and the cow killer was doomed tobecome an untouchable. The Vyasasmriti categorically states that a cow killer is untouchable and that one incurssin by even talking to him. Beef-eating thus seems to have become a criterion of untouchability. Earlier a part ofthe brahminical haute cuisine, beef now gradually became an important component of the food culture of theuntouchable castes, whose number proliferated over time.

During the medieval period, cow-killing became the basis of religious differentiation between Hindus and Muslims,who were stereotyped as beef-eaters. This led to occasional tensions; two such clashes in the 17th and 18thcenturies are well documented. It may have been in response to this kind of conflict that Akbar (1556-1605),under the influence of Jains, issued firmans ordering his officials not to allow the slaughter of animals (includingthe cow) on specific occasions — a policy followed by Jahangir (1605-1627). Obviously both were trying to controlinter-religious tensions. Even the will of Babur, which advised Humayun not to allow the killing of cows, may havebeen a response to the views of the Brahmins. Although the will itself was a later forgery, it does indicate thestate’s willingness to respect the view that was gaining ground. There is no doubt that during the medieval period,the cow was emerging as an emotive cultural symbol in brahminical circles. It became more emotive with the riseof Maratha power in the 17th century under Shivaji, who was often viewed as an incarnation of god, descended

on Earth for the deliverance of the cow and the Brahmins. It was first used for mass political mobilisation by theSikh Kuka (Namdhari) movement, which rallied Hindus and Sikhs against the British, who had allowed the killingof cows in the Punjab. At around the same time, Dayanand Saraswati founded the first Goraksini Sabha in 1882.He made the cow a symbol of the unity of a wide range of people against Muslims and challenged the Muslimpractice of its slaughter, provoking a series of Hindu-Muslim riots in the 1880s and 1890s. This was accompaniedby an intensification of the cow-protection movement following the decree of the North-Western Provinces HighCourt that the cow was not a sacred object. The cow now emerged fully as a mark of Hindu identity.

So the story of the cow is riddled with puzzles and paradoxes. In Vedic and post-Vedic times, when the ritualkilling of this animal and eating its flesh was in vogue, it was considered to be an item of wealth and was likenedwith Aditi (mother of gods), the earth, the cosmic waters whose release by Indra established the cosmic law,maternity, and to poetry, which was the monopoly of the Brahmins. Subsequently, if it was killed according toVedic precepts, it was not killing, because Vedic killing was not killing. Even when the slaughter of bovines cameto be forbidden in the Kali age, cow-killing remained a minor sin. When the dharmashastras assigned apurificatory role to the cow’s five products, they considered its faeces and urine as pure but not its mouth; andfood smelt by it needed to be purified. Yet, through these incongruous attitudes, the Indian cow has struggled itsway to sanctity. But its holiness is elusive. For there is no cow goddess, nor any temple in her honour — though itshould not surprise us if some disgruntled elements set up one.

business-standard.comhttp://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/i-ll-have-the-holy-cow-medium-rare-115100200223_1.html

I'll have the holy cow, medium-rare

Present-day India is the sort of ancient, proud, powerhouse society that couldbreak down your door and kill you because it doesn't like the sound of yourdinner

I have been having this vision problem lately. I’ll be out in the world, among civilised smiling people, well-dressed,well-educated, well-spoken, going about their business, sipping cocktails, or working diligently, or buying soap orwhatever. Suddenly it’s as if the skin of the world slips a bit and all I see, underneath the pleasant smiles, is abunch of savages with bloodstained lips and murderous intent. Then they’ll say something very normal, like “I justgot promoted, so I’m donating lots of money for the welfare of the girl child,” and the skin realigns.

Ha ha! Just kidding. Nobody says that.

Anyway, this is why I love watching toddlers at play. There’s no deceptive civilisational veneer in the way: whatyou see is what you get. They’re just nodes of primal emotion and instinct, nakedly violent and power-hungry.They gang up two against one to snatch a toy, then fight each other for the toy, then regroup in an entirely newconfiguration to repossess the toy. They howl, kiss, kick each other, and break stuff. They waddle off to tattle oneach other with a highly doctored history of what happened. Then they make up by collaborating sweetly onpulling the wings off a fly or torturing a puppy.

Objectively speaking, we’re looking at instinctively manipulative, double-crossing opportunists with no principles.While they can be tender, they show almost exalted imagination and creativity when it comes to inflicting pain. Theexalted part is that they don’t need a reason, let alone a good one. If kids weren’t designed to look unbearablycute, adults would exercise rationality and snuff them out. Rationality is moot, however: it turns out that adults arejust taller toddlers in more expensive clothes. William Golding told us so, but who has got time to read Lord of theFlies when you’re busy spreading lies about your neighbours and sticking knives into your friends’ backs?

Under the cologne and the small talk, we’re savages. There’s no better time to remember that than whilesavouring the creamy pink flesh of a medium-rare beefsteak. I ordered it for Mohammed Akhlaq, who wasmurdered by a mob because someone said there was beef in his fridge. But mostly I ordered it because I likebeef. You are entitled to be upset by this, and I’m free to not give a flying cow’s carcass. That is how theConstitution works. (I regret that my steak was not actually cow, but then neither was the meat in Akhlaq’s fridge.)

So I chomped on my juicy and delicious steak, had a few drinks, and listened to some music, and felt, well, tired. Ihope very much that when the rest of the world looks at us, they too will see the skin of India slip a bit. We canbrag all we like about our youth, our economy, and our rightful place on the Security Council, but when the digitallyforward, commercially vibrant, Bollywood-obsessed, philosophically sophisticated, ancient, charming skin of Indiaslips, it is a truly nasty sight.

So, world, come Make in India. You will make hills of money. The only thing is, you might actually have to livehere. You should know that present-day India is the sort of ancient, proud, powerhouse society that could alsodecide to break down your door and kill you because it doesn’t like the sound of your dinner. Then the police andthe politicians will say tut-tut, your mistake. That’s how they think the Constitution works.

While you’re deciding whether or not to come, please re-read Lord of the Flies, and evaluate your appetite for risk.But if you do come, I’ll take us both out to a fabulous steak dinner. It would be my absolute pleasure.

Mitali Saran is a Delhi-based writer mitali.saran@gmail.com

livemint.com http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/rSDYoi2HtSdeTDXte9EtEL/Holy-cows-or-cash-cows.html

Holy cows or cash cows?

Cattle investments in India seem to be influenced more by economic considerations than by religious ones

Do Indian villagers purchase cows because they hold them sacred, or do they make economic calculations whileinvesting in cows? Over the past couple of years, several economists have mined data on livestock costs andreturns to answer that question, leading to a lively debate on the issue.

The debate was ignited by the surprising findings of a 2013 National Bureau of Economic Research workingpaper authored by three economists, Santosh Anagol, Alvin Etang, and Dean Karlan. Anagol and his co-authorsanalyzed data on costs incurred and incomes generated by those owning cows and buffaloes in two districts ofUttar Pradesh to come up with startling results: cows and buffaloes generated large negative returns for theirowners, at negative 64% and negative 34%, respectively, once labour costs were factored in. The authorsconcluded the villagers did not behave according to the central tenets of capitalism, and offered a variety ofexplanations, including cultural and religious ones, to explain the seemingly irrational choice.

As an earlier Economics Express column pointed out, the findings of the study were challenged by two othereconomists, Orazio Attanasio and Britta Augsburg, in a 2014 NBER working paper. The duo pointed out that thesurprising findings of the 2013 study had a simple explanation: drought, which affected milk production, andhence the returns to cattle adversely in the year of study.

“In computing the return on cows and buffaloes, the authors used data from a single year,” Attanasio andAugsburg wrote. “Cows are assets whose return varies through time. In drought years, when fodder is scarce andexpensive, milk production is lower and profits are low. In non-drought years, when fodder is abundant andcheaper, milk production is higher and profits can be considerably higher. The return on cows and buffaloes, likethat of many stocks traded on Wall Street, is positive in some years and negative in others. We report evidencefrom three years of data on the return on cows and buffaloes in the district of Anantapur and show that in one ofthe three years, returns are very high, while in drought years they are similar to the figures obtained by Anagol,Etang and Karlan (2013).”

The latest economists to join the debate are Esther Gehrke and Michael Grimm, who argue in a recentlypublished research paper that low average returns to cattle investments mask huge variations in returns amongowners. Villagers with large cattle holdings and those with more productive breeds have significantly higherreturns compared with those owning only a few cattle of poorer breed. Just as weather drives variations in returnsacross years, economies of scale drive variations among cattle owners even in the same year. Raising morecattle lowers average costs for big farmers, driving up margins. Gehrke and Grimm say raising more cattle ormore productive breeds is an expensive proposition for most small farmers, which is why they are trapped in alow-level equilibrium, and earn low returns on investment. “Overall, we believe that the findings give little reasonto speak of a paradox of cattle accumulation,” Gehrke and Grimm say.

Gehrke and Grimm’s conclusions raise one obvious question. If investments to cattle are subject to increasingreturns, why don’t rich Indian farmers rear cattle on a large scale? The answer perhaps lies in the absence of aready market for milk and other dairy products. The lack of ready buyers or the absence of modern storagefacilities tends to deter such investments. Indeed, in areas such as north Gujarat, where such constraints havebeen taken care of by well-functioning milk co-operatives and the availability of regular power, a new generationof cattle farmers have taken to large-scale cattle farming, as a recent report by Harish Damodaran published inThe Indian Express pointed out.

The current debate over the rationality of cattle investments in India evokes an old debate on the same issuenearly half a century ago, which involved some of India’s leading economists such as M.V. Dandekar, who helpeddefine India’s first calorie-based poverty line, and K.N. Raj, the doyen of Keynesian economists in India. At thattime, many commentators, in India as well as in the West, viewed India’s huge stock of low-productivity cattle as

a sign of economic inefficiency. Indian farmers were thought to purchase cows because of religiousconsiderations (cows are held to be sacred by most Hindus) rather than economic calculations. One of the mostinfluential studies to dispute such a view was a 1966 research paper by the American anthropologist MarvinHarris.

Harris argued that cows had many unique functions in India, such as their use in ploughing activities, whichrequired farmers to retain their own draught animals for such activities. Harris went so far as to argue thatrestrictions on cow slaughter were tied to economics, and that religious norms that led to such restrictions wereactually grounded in sound economic rationale.

In a scathing attack on Harris on the pages of the Economic and Political Weekly, Dandekar rubbished Harris’thesis as an elaborate defence of cow worship “garbed in pseudo-science”. Harris had argued Indian breeds wereunder-sized precisely because other breeds could not survive the atrocious conditions (including lack of properfeed) they face here. Dandekar objected that Harris was avoiding the central economic question: could moremilk, traction and dung be produced by fewer but better-fed animals than was the case then? Dandekar arguedthat the answer was in the affirmative, and that the practice of cow worship actually stood in the way of a morerational utilization of India’s bovine resources.

Raj took a more empirically grounded view of the matter than either Harris or Dandekar did in his 1969 researchpaper on the subject. Raj pointed out that while Western observers commented on India’s large cattle to landpopulation and attributed it to spiritual values, India’s cattle to land ratio was actually similar to comparabledeveloping countries such as Pakistan, where the majority did not subscribe to Hindu spiritual values. Raj alsoshowed that the large inter-state variations in the nature of bovine population could be explained by economicconsiderations.

In three Indian states—Kerala, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh—where pressures on land were the highest, farmersseemed to be compelled to choose between having male animals for draught purposes (for preparing land forfarming) and female animals for milk, wrote Raj. In Kerala, draught requirements were relatively less importantbecause it had relatively less land under food grain cultivation, which required such land preparation. The patternof bovine population therefore was markedly different in Kerala as compared with Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. InKerala, cows outnumbered bulls by far while the converse was true for the two north Indian states.

“It is interesting to observe that it is in the Indo-Gangetic valley (particularly in the States of Uttar Pradesh andBihar), where Hindu orthodoxy is deeply entrenched and the sentiment against the killing of cows is strongest,that the pressure of human and bovine population on resources makes it most necessary to get rid of cows inpreference for bulls for traction purposes and she buffaloes for milk,” wrote Raj. “It is also significant that two ofthe States where cows are preferred relatively to bullocks (namely, Kerala and Kashmir) have higher percentagesof non-Hindus among their population than any other State. Obviously, religious sentiment has not much to dowith the actual preferences of the people and the treatment meted out to cows in India. The recurrent agitationsagainst cow slaughter appear to be based on such sentiment and on the desire of political parties to exploit it fortheir own purposes, in either case not on any realistic understanding of the economic interests and actualbehaviour of the people who would have to support the unwanted cattle.”

The only role religion played in the cattle economy was in determining the method of getting rid of unwantedcattle. Rather than sending cows to slaughterhouses, north Indian farmers preferred a method of slow deaththrough deliberate starvation.

“How does the table get turned so dramatically against the cows in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh? Obviously, killingmust be taking place, but perhaps the main technique adopted for getting rid of the cows is infanticide anddeliberate starvation. For it is clear that, in the cattle population below 3 years of age, the number of female tomale animals is much higher than in the adult cattle population in both Bihar and Uttar Pradesh,” wrote Raj.

Raj also pointed out that while cattle farmers living close to urban settlements were likely to keep more and betterbreeds of cattle because they could sell dairy products in nearby markets more easily, villagers in remote areaswere likely to invest in fewer, less productive, and cheaper cattle as the milk generated would largely be used forself-consumption.

The latest findings by Gehrke and Grimm seem to complement Raj’s insights in explaining why so many Indiansfarmers invest in low-yielding cattle. Evidently, economics rather than religion dictate such choices.

thehindu.com http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/holy-cow-unholy-violence/article7727157.ece

Holy cow, unholy violence

The cow has been converted aggressively into a symbol for a religious orthodoxydemanding its place in a secular nation state.

If you love cows and care for them, you have three choices:

Choice A: Build goshalas or cow shelters where the animals can be taken care of. But this is an expensiveproposition. There is heavy investment and no returns whatsoever, despite all the talk of the great medicinal valueof cow urine and cow dung.

Choice B: Ban beef, stop farmers from selling cows and bulls to butchers, outlaw the culling of cattle, punish cowsmugglers, declare all slaughter houses illegal, lynch people who eat beef, and justify all this using complexarguments. This results in a large number of cows (which can no longer give milk) and bulls or oxen (that are tooweak to be draught animals), being abandoned to simply wander the streets eating garbage and plastic or juststarving to death since Choice A is unavailable. It also destroys industries and creates widespread unemployment.

Choice C: Build local slaughterhouses near farms so that commercially unviable cattle can be humanely cullednearby, without their having to endure great suffering while being transported in horrible conditions to distantslaughterhouses. This controversial suggestion was made by none other than N.S. Ramaswamy, founder-directorof the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, and noted animal rights activist.

Guess which is the preferred option of the rising multitude of go-raksha vigilantes? Not A, as it is too expensiveand tedious, and involves too much work. Not C, because we are conditioned to believe that violence can do nogood. So it is Option B, which has the advantage in that it gives people power. It allows them to terrorise anddominate Muslims and liberals. It gives them global attention and makes them the focus of a controversy-hungrymedia. It is this rather than cow protection that the go-rakshaks really seek.

There is no love for cows in the go-raksha brigade — an idea systematically and meticulously unravelled in theessay ‘Why is the Cow a Political Animal?’ by Sopan Joshi , a Research Fellow at the Gandhi Peace Foundation,published in Yahoo! in May this year. It is all about power, a yearning to dominate. So, all the talk about theeconomic reasons for saving cows, and the importance of cow milk, cow urine and cow dung are just arationalisation for that one single goal: to dominate and reclaim masculinity, following the perceived emasculationby the Muslims, the British and now the liberals.

Devdutt Pattanaik

New form of Hinduism

A new form of Hinduism is emerging around the world: one that is tired of being seen aspassive and tolerant, like a suffering docile wife. It wants to be aggressive, violent. So itprefers Durga and Kali to the demure Gauri; Shiva as Rudra and Virabhadra and Bhairava rather than as theguileless Bholenath or the august Dakshinamurthy; and the Krishna of the Mahabharat to the affectionateBhagavata Krishna. It visualises Ram without Sita. It wants its Ganesh to lose that pot belly and sport a six-packab. All this while insisting, with violence if necessary, on the values of vegetarianism and seva and ‘giving up theego’, which is the principle of ‘sanatana dharma’ — not just a religion but a way of life.

This new form of Hinduism is what we call Hindutva. We can call it a sampradaya, a movement within the vastocean of Hinduism that has many such movements, traditions, forces and counterforces. Hindutva sampradaya,like all sampradayas in history, insists it is the true voice of Hinduism. Like all sampradayas, it rejects allalternative readings of Hinduism.

And so, when you direct them to an article, ‘The Hindu View on Food and Drink’ by S. Ganesh and Hari

Ravikumar on IndiaFacts.com, which draws attention to the fact that while Vedic scriptures do value the cow, theyhave no problem with the consumption of bulls and oxen and barren cows, members of the Hindutva brigade willquestion the credentials of the authors and their Hinduness, invariably in language that is hyperbolic, rhetoricaland violent. There is no room for discussion or nuance here. The only language is force and bullying. Where isthis coming from?

It comes from institutionalised paranoia: a belief that innocent Hindi-speaking rural Bharat needs rescuing from anevil English-speaking India that favours Nehru, from the liberals who equate Hinduism only with casteism, andfrom Euro-American scholars who insist Shiva is a ‘phallic’ god. And, to be fair, there is a modicum of truth in theirargument.

In his book Rearming Hinduism, Vamsee Juluri expresses outrage at the way Hinduism is being projected in theU.S. That outrage and anguish is genuine, and can be felt in the NRI community that has increasingly becomemore and more vocal, even aggressive. When ‘liberals’ deny this outrage and anguish, it seems to consolidate theparanoia of the Hindutva sampradaya. When the liberal press dismisses the book by Sita Ram Goel, HinduTemples — What Happened to Them, as right-wing propaganda, and gleefully declares that the Hindu memory ofMuslim kings destroying thousands of Hindu temple is just not true on the basis of Richard Eaton’s TempleDesecration and Muslim States in Medieval India, you start wondering if the scientific and historical method issimply designed to mock all things that a traditional Hindu simply assumes to be true. When the banning of radicalliterature does not meet with the same outrage as the banning of Wendy Doniger’s Hindus: An Alternative History ,a section of the population starts feeling that they are alone, isolated and rejected, by the people who claim to befair and just and liberal.

How do you strike back at those who simply invalidate your memories and beliefs by constantly quoting scienceand facts? You simply create your own narrative and dismiss theirs. And this is what is happening in the beef-eating discourse. It is a symbolic attack on the ‘educated Indian’ who did not stand up for Hinduism in theinternational arena. And the Muslims, sadly, are the tragic collateral damage.

In the 1980s, we saw how the then Congress government tried to appease the Muslim orthodoxy in the ShahBano case by diluting even a Supreme Court judgment that gave maintenance rights to divorced Muslim women,but did not bother to appease the Hindutva sampradaya in the Roop Kanwar sati case when the court declaredsati a crime and not a religious act. In these cases, women were simply symbols in a fight where religiousorthodoxy was demanding its place in a secular nation state. Now, it is the turn of the cow to be that symbol.

When the secular nation state tilts in favour of one religion and seems to be persecuting another, there is bound tobe a backlash. And that is what we are facing now: a karma-phala (karmic fruit) of karmic-bija (karmic seed) sownby the Congress on the one hand, when it unashamedly appeased Muslim religious orthodoxy, and the liberals onthe other, who endorsed their secular and rational and atheistic credentials by repeatedly projecting Hinduism asonly a violent and oppressive force. Let us ponder on our contribution to the rising tide of ahimsa terrorism, whilethe still starving ‘rescued’ cow wades through garbage in Indian towns and villages, eating plastic.

(Devdutt Pattanaik writes and lectures on the relevance of mythology in modern times. www.devdutt.com)

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nytimes.comhttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/18/opinion/sunday/manil-suri-a-ban-on-beef-in-india-is-not-the-answer.html?_r=1

A Ban on Beef in India Is Not the Answer

The sacredness of cows in India might be a cliché, but it is deeply felt, rooted in the history of Hinduism. InMumbai, one often encounters women selling grass to feed the cow they have in tow — for a few rupees, thedonation affords not only a blessing, but also a chance to feel connected to the country’s farmland roots. The cowis divinely associated with Krishna, the cowherd, and considered a mother figure because of the milk it gives. Onedoesn’t go into an Indian branch of McDonald’s expecting to order a Big Mac.

And yet, beef has long been available at various Mumbai restaurants — from the burger at the iconic LeopoldCafe to the marrowbone curry popular at eateries in Muslim neighborhoods. This reflects the accommodationnecessary in a city — and country — with such extraordinary diversity of religion, culture and wealth.

Last month, however, this changed. Beef dishes were forced off the menu when Maharashtra, the country’ssecond most populous state, which incorporates Mumbai, extended a ban on cow slaughter to bulls and oxen,and made the sale of beef punishable by up to five years in prison. A few weeks later, the state of Haryana passedsimilar legislation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office has suggested that such bills are models for other statesto emulate.

The laws have affected more than just restaurants. Thousands of butchers and vendors, their livelihood abruptlysuspended, have protested in Mumbai. The leather industry is in turmoil. Beef is consumed not only by IndianMuslims and Christians, but also by many low-caste Hindus, for whom it is an essential source of affordableprotein. The poorest waste nothing, from beef innards to coagulated blood, while their religion pragmatically turnsa blind eye. Low-caste Dalit Hindu students, and others, have organized beef-eating festivals to protest theinfringement on their culture and identity.

With the recent re-criminalization of gay sex, bans on controversial books and films and even an injunctionagainst the use of the colonial-era name “Bombay” instead of “Mumbai” in a Bollywood song, the new laws join agrowing list of restrictions on personal freedom in India. Already, the police in the city of Malegaon have arrestedthree Muslim men accused of calf slaughter, and ordered livestock owners to submit mug shots of cows and bullsto a cattle registry, to create a record in case any of them go missing.

The Maharashtra law had been in limbo, awaiting the Indian president’s signature for 20 years, but wasresurrected only after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party came to power last year. This suggests its realpurpose is to play to the party’s political base.

Some Hindu hard-liners insist the idea of eating beef was introduced by Muslim invaders, despite references to itsconsumption in ancient texts like the Vedas, written more than a millennium before the time of Muhammad. Byeradicating this “alien” practice, they hope to return the country to values they hold dear as Hindus. “Our dream ofban on cow slaughter becomes a reality now,” Maharashtra’s chief minister tweeted upon passage of the new law.

Another problem with such bans is that aged or unwanted cattle must be looked after at great expense(presumably by the state) if they are not to waste away.

The only practical reason advanced by Maharashtrian officials for their law is that it will help farmers hold on totheir cattle in hard times, when they might otherwise be tempted to sell. This motivation actually does havehistorical standing. In fact, it fits in perfectly with a theory on the origination of the beef taboo that the Americananthropologist Marvin Harris proposed almost five decades ago.

Mr. Harris observed that more important than their value as milk producers, cattle in India formed the backbone ofsmall-scale agriculture. They were used to plow fields, provide dung for fuel and fertilizer and produce calves tostock the herd. He noted that a family that consumed its cattle during a time of drought and famine was not ableto recover afterward: They had lost the means to work the land. Over the years, farmers who preserved their

cattle were the ones who survived, leading to this practice’s being gradually codified into religion.

This drama is still being played out in Maharashtra, which in recent years has experienced persistent anddevastating drought. Although religious rules ensured that a farmer would no longer eat his cattle, he could stillsuccumb to the modern equivalent — selling it for slaughter, usually at throwaway prices. The beef ban, then, canbe interpreted as an extension of the religious proscription: Thou shalt neither eat nor sell thy cattle.

Unfortunately, the situation in Maharashtra has deteriorated past the point where such a ban will help. Previousgovernments have squandered billions of dollars on failed irrigation schemes, while encouraging water-intensivecrops like sugar cane in drought-prone areas. Farmers are desperate: On average since 2011, there have beenfour suicides of Maharashtrian farmers every day. Rather than ancient proscriptions, they need a financial safetynet and responsible agricultural policies in order to deal with the current situation and probably worse climatechange effects to come.

Indian civilization has evolved over the centuries to include multiple diverse communities with competinginterests. Despite its secular Constitution, India remains strikingly unequal. The government must make everyeffort to balance majority sentiments with minority needs. This is what the previous rules that restricted cow, butnot bull, slaughter did.

Imposing ideals from a mythic past is not the answer. The true lesson to take away from history is how utilitariangoals can shape religious custom. Hinduism has always been a pragmatic religion; what today’s India needs isaccommodation.