time to give up milk even in India?

[Guest guest]

Dear Friends,

 

It is well known that by tradition the cow is given unparalleled

respect in our country. Aside from the traditional prayer

seeking "eternal good for all cows and holy people", I understand

that in days of yore the relationship between cows and humans was

symbiotic -- my father tells me that the cows in his village

would give warm milk of their own accord to those who desired it.

Such used to be the loving relationship between cows and people

in India.

 

In the U.S., however, the more I find out, the more I become

disillusioned with the dairy industry. Milk is heavily marketed

as a wholesome, good for the body, drink. Since Hindus and

Vaishnavas in particular have a nostalgic, religious attachment

to milk, these marketing statements hit home and we are very

large, unwitting consumers of dairy products. We don't give a

second thought to it and consider it part of our pure

vegetarian lifestyle. After all, Sri Krishna Paramatma was

himself a cowherd. What could be more appropriate for a Vaishnava

than to drink milk?

 

But, is milk really that "vegetarian"? Cows here are treated

like machines, confined to stalls and connected to machines

without the fresh air, proper food, and loving kindness any

creature deserves. Despite being double in price, I thought

milk from organic farms was a viable alternative, with their

non-hormone fed cows and grazing pastures, until I discovered

that even in organic farms, aged and diseased cows which no

longer produce milk are sold to beef factories (see

http://www.strausmilk.com/faq/after.htm ). Male calves, useless

to the dairy industry, are invariably sold off to veal and

leather producers at birth. The excuse given is that "these

cows eat too much food and drink too much water to make it a

viable option to keep them alive."

 

I was under the impression that dairy cows in India would

be treated better. Cows wander the streets freely and all cow products

are considered sacred. Traditionally, concern for the cow

and calf extended so far as to wait until a calf was completely

done suckling before milking a cow for human purposes. In fact,

I understand it was considered a sin to forcibly remove a

calf from its mother. Only after the calf was satisfied was the

leftover milk to be used for humans.

 

Given all this, imagine my horror to hear how dairy cows are

really treated in India:

(from

http://members.tripod.com/~bwcindia/compfriend/summon00/vegan.htm)

 

Popular conception among Indians is that in our country the

animal (cow or calf) is not killed, the calf is not deprived,

and that there is enough milk left over for us to wallow in, so

everyone can be happy and drink as much milk as he or she

wants. In this land where milk is considered as amrut, people,

especially the `pure vegetarians,' react with disbelief and

sometimes scorn to hear doubts being cast over the ethics of

consuming milk. Expression of open disbelief over reported

accounts of conditions in milk production is followed by

lengthy, multi-dimensional justifications of milk

consumption. It is the purpose of the next section to show the

assumptions of these people to be WRONG...

 

The reality of milk: male infanticide

 

Killing of calves happens all over India, from rural cooperatives

to urban dairies that supply milk to customers. People unwilling

to believe this fact are referred to a 1987 report[4] produced by

the government itself, in which is admitted on page 30 that

"Rearing male buffalo calves, and calves born in dairies, now

being killed off soon after birth ...", and on page 100 that

"...5 to 8 million buffalo calves are done to death immediately

after birth." These figures are for 1987. With the Jersey cow

population explosion nowadays, the number of `worthless' calves

produced and killed has increased manyfold. There is even a

morbid term, kaTra, (kTra) now, coined for the unwanted male calf

condemned to be `cut up' by the butcher. Figure 1 shows such

calves being led to slaughter.

 

The killing is done by a host of methods: starvation (being

"allowed to die"), crude methods like burying the calves in a

dung heap (reported in a buffalo dairy outside Pune), feeding

them contaminated water after one week's starvation following

birth, or, most commonly, by selling them off to the butcher. And

why does it happen? Because we compete with the calf for its

mother's milk. We, who do not need the milk of cows, get to drink

it for our taste and our mistaken beliefs of its necessity for

our health. And the calves, for whom the milk was made and

intended by nature, are starved of it!

 

Male calves of buffalos and Jersey cows, in particular, are

uniformly condemned to death since they are not useful later for

either tilling the soil, drawing loads, or milking, and

therefore represent only a drain on the dairyman's wealth if

raised and looked after. Feeding milk to the male calf doesn't

fetch any return. He becomes a kTra. Such are the shocking

realities of our culture of ahimsa: to call the cow our gomata

and consider her body to be the abode of 33 crore gods but to

simultaneously feel nothing in doing her children-our foster

siblings, the calves-to death by fighting over her milk.

 

The customer puts his taste buds above everything else. The

milkman puts his commercial interests above everything

else. Between them, the loser is the animal, who the customer

likes to believe is not harmed, simply because he cannot see

blood in his milk like is visible on meat.

 

The situation in India today is that there is hardly any milk

available in the cities that can be described as obtained

without killing the make calf and causing deprivation to the

spared calf. If the animal is a cow, the offspring has a good

chance of surviving, since the cow fortunately enjoys a special

position in the hearts of Hindus, and farming (livestock and

agriculture) in India is mostly done by Hindus. Therefore he

would not usually kill the calf of a cow unless under

life-and-death economic compulsion. Unfortunately the buffalo

enjoys no such privilege and is invariably condemned to death.

 

 

What do you all think about this? Is it time to give up drinking

commercially produced milk? Is it not a violation of the

Vaishnava dharma to participate in such injury?

 

It pains me to no end to read how we torture our fellow beings.

 

"ahimsA prathamam pushpam ...

sarva-bhUta-dayA pushpam ...

vishnoH prItikaram bhavet"

 

"Non-injury and compassion to all living creatures

are two of the flowers which truly please Vishnu."

 

aDiyEn,

Mani