Notes from the Field: Hinduism and Livestock in India
Correspondence with Dr. G. K. Karanth, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, India, and field work in South, West, and North India by Ingolf Vogeler .
Relgraph.jpg (30372 bytes)Click on the map and graph for more details. An ancient Hindu verse says that he who kills, eats, or permits the slaughter of a cow will "rot in hell for as many years as there are hairs on the body of the cow so slain!" In Jainism practicing ahimsa, the sacredness of life, is very distinctive. India has 250 million cattle.

What functions do cattle play in rural India? Read an interview with Marvin Harris, author of the chapter on the Sacred Cow Complex in your Reader.

Draft power
Bullocks (castrated "Brahmin" bulls) are the most common animals to pull plows for growing crops for human consumption. Bullocks also pull carts and wagons in rural and urban settings. Cows (female cattle) pull plows in the semi-arid regions of India, even though they are sacred. If the number of cows were decreased by government decree and action, what would small-scale, one-cow farm families do without their cows. Who would pull the plows to grow grain for human consumption? Could they afford tractors? Look what happened in Switzerland as late as the 1970s on small farm operations.

Water buffalo are used to plow in the wet-climate and heavy-soil regions of India.

Dung
Cattle manure is dried, in this example on a brick wall, and used for fuel to cook food for people. The shortage of wood and the lack of income to buy fuel results in dung being used for fuel rather than for fertilizing fields. European pioneers on the Great Plains of the United States at first also used dried animal (buffalo) manure, called buffalo chips, for fuel because of the lack of wood.

Milk production
The bulk of commercial milk in India comes from water buffaloes. Cows are important for milk products for small-scale farmers for home consumption. In Europe, dairy products, especially butter, also played an important role in religion, the Protestant Reformation.

Cattle worship
Both sexes of cattle are sacred, although most southern Indian villages have a temple dedicated only to the sacred bull! Cattle (in Nepal, the only official Hindu country in the world) are commonly seen walking on streets and in public places, such as temples, and even in stores. Read more. Professional and middle class Indians "bless" their new homes by bringing a cow into their homes for religious ceremonies.
Killing livestock: examples of water buffalo and cattle in Cochin, South India, where over 75 people of the people are Christians.
Under Hinduism all animals, including livestock (cattle and buffaloes), are sacred and must not be killed because this results in ill health or bad luck for individuals and is an offence to the village community. Hindu farmers avoid the quilt of killing livestock by selling them to non-Hindu (essentially Muslim) buyers who slaughter the cattle. The Dalits, or better known as "untouchable" castes, can and do eat meat. Examine the photos from Kathmandu, Nepal, to the left.

Optional: take a trip to India and learn more about India religions and other aspects of life here.

 

Class structure in rural India
80% of India's population lives in rural areas and there are 90 million poor households. The richest 10% of households own 81% of all land assets; the poorest 10% of households own 0.1% of all land assets.

Food Preferences and Religion in Western Europe
In the 14th century, the Roman Catholic Church prohibited butter eating on fast days, a decision which did not please the butter-eating nations of northern Europe. They felt they were being forced to eat inferior oil, and many of the wealthy paid, grudgingly, for dispensations that allowed them to eat butter on fast days, providing revenue for the Church in the oil-eating south. This practice, among others, outraged Martin Luther in 1520 when he wrote: "Eating butter they say is a greater sin than to lie, blaspheme, or indulge in impurity." It is no coincidence that the countries where butter was preferred broke away from the Church during the Protestant Reformation.

The Role of Religion in the USA
Max Weber, the founder of sociology, claimed that the Protestant Ethic -- emphasizing thrift and hard work -- made northern European and the USA rich. Niall Ferguson, a British-born historian at a USA university, argues that today's economic stagnation in Germany and other European countries owes much to the decline of religious beliefs and church attendance during the last forty years. He thinks the Protestant Ethic is dead. Yet more prosperous countries have lower rates of church attendance; the USA being a notable exception. More urbanized countries tend to be less religious as well. Religious beliefs (in the afterlife, heaven and hell), not necessarily behavior, such as church attendance, seem to motivate people more. Then there is Japan with its many sects but no fear of hell and it grew faster after World War II than Catholic Philippines. Officially, atheist China grew very rapidly in the last ten years, but not earlier! Religion like other explanatory variables is used by different ideological perspectives to make their case respectively.

Read Barbara Ehrenreich's take on religion, ideology, and current affairs.