Cow Hug Day

Over the past decade, as India’s economy has opened up, Valentine’s Day – which originated as a Christian feast day – has become an increasingly popular occasion among young people, boosted by vigorous mass marketing campaigns featuring bouquets of flowers, teddy bears, heart-shaped gifts and flamboyant romantic gestures. However, after 2014 there has been a more vigorous and muscular form of nationalist politics that has taken hold in India, where westernised holidays and traditions such as Valentine’s Day have increasingly drawn a backlash for promoting “corrupt” values. Decisions with regard to deifying the religious practices of the majority community and which have often caused serious concerns of law and order as these only give a handle to fringe elements to “impose” a Taliban like code. In India, February 14 has been declared as “Cow Hug Day,” as announced bythe Animal Welfare Board of India. The AWB called cows the “backbone of Indian culture and rural economy” and also “the giver of all, providing riches to humanity” due to its “nourishing nature.,” The AWB, a statutory body that advises India’s Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying has said the push to hug cows was part of an effort to promote “Vedic” or sacred Hindu traditions, which it claimed have been eroded by Western influence. Someone sitting in the AWB had perhaps dreamt that the new Valentine’s Day involving cow would spur a new India. Indeed, so revered are the cows that the Board had planned to rebrand this Valentine’s Day as “Cow Hug Day”, hoping the move would both boost citizens’ “emotional richness” and strike a blow for local heritage over what is seen as a western cultural import. According to the Board, hugging a cow “will bring emotional richness” and “will increase our individual and collective happiness”. The newly declared Cow Hug Day is intended to offset the “dazzle of western civilisation”, which the government said had come at the cost of the older traditions of India. However, better sense perhaps prevailed and thankfully so, when the move appeared to have backfired and abandoned after it prompted a flood of internet memes, cartoons and jokes by TV hosts about the importance of consent. This is not the first time the government has caused a stir with its policies towards cows – the killing or eating of which is considered a sin by many Hindus, who account for about 80% of India’s 1.3 billion people and considered a serious crime inviting imprisonment which may extend to a term of 7 years or with a fine which may extend to Rs. 50,000 OR with both. In practice it has also provided some legitimacy for self-acclaimed cow protectors to assault or even lynch even any person suspected of eating beef or transporting cows.The sale and slaughter of the animal is banned in much of the country and the animals are often left to roam free in the streets and roads looking emaciated, where motorists must take care to avoid hitting them. There have been many laws and schemes made in favour of cows and as years pass, it is hoped better sense will prevail and that logic and respect for human values and rule of law will remain uppermost.