Plight of Go:ma:tha in Bharath Today and the Urgent Need to Protect Her

Today cow is badly neglected and is in a sorrowful state of existence:

  • Because of lack of forests and pastures due to human population explosion, stray cows live and roam on the roads in cities and towns in pitiable conditions eating plastic bags and other vegetable trash around garbage dumpsters.
  • Large-scale slaughtering of cows and even calves to export meat to other countries, etc.
  • Some westerners have preference for meat of calf called veal and therefore young calves are being killed for meat before they even grow up.
  • Meat of goat and sheep have become expensive over the years. Also, since the prices of cow calves at the moment in the market is lesser than goat and sheep and also since they are yielding more meat than goat and sheep, the butchers are preferring to slaughter cow calves over goat and sheep.
  • Today, the existing cows are fed with green and dry grasses laced with chemical pesticides and fertilizers, artificial feeds that may even contain processed meat and waste of other animals, genetically modified feed grains and grasses, etc which are slow-poisoning the cows. And in the end, when we make cow sick using such wrong and unnatural feeds, chemicals, medicines and inhumane treatment, it in turn makes us sick with mutated milk making it a slow poison that can cause illnesses, the effects of which may only be recognized by the society in the long run.
  • The greed to get more produce is resulting in the destruction of original breeds with hybridization.
  • Products from a indigenous cow are extremely healthy and medicinal. But, lack of knowledge and modernization have resulted in losing the precious medicinal knowledge and thereby resulting in the loss of indigenous cows.