India’s elections spark debate on beef exports
BBC News – SHILPA KANNAN – May 4, 2014
Narendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has attacked the current government over India’s position as one of the world’s biggest beef exporters.
Indian exports account for about 20% of the global supply and while economically this might seem to be a good thing, in India, the cow is revered as holy by Hindus, and so the consumption and sale of beef always sparks fierce political and religious debate. Go to story
[The news article points out that most of the beef coming out of India is in fact buffalo meat, but fails to report the numbers of cows sold for slaughter. Dairy herds are culled, and cows disappear from the streets and fields to the abbatoirs, and from there to local and global markets. Back in 1973, Srila Prabhupada lamented Indian government’s failure to stop cow slaughter, and observed:]
excerpt from Room conversation, London, August 24, 1973:
India at the present moment, they have lost their culture. In India, five thousand years ago, when Maharaja Pariksit was there, one black man was trying to kill a cow. He immediately took his sword, the king. So “Who are you? You are killing cow in my kingdom?” The same India, the government is sanctioning ten thousand cows to be killed daily. So India is not the same India. India has lost its culture. You see? Therefore they are suffering.
