The Myth of the Holy Cow, Books and Documents, NewAgeIslam.com

Books and Documents

14 Aug 2011, NewAgeIslam.Com

The Myth of the Holy Cow

Reviewed by: Yoginder Sikand, NewAgeIslam.com Name of the Book: The Myth of the Holy Cow Author: DN Jha Publisher: Navayana, New Dehi Year: 2009 Pages: 207 ISBN: 978-8189059163 Price: Rs 200 ‘The central fact of Hinduism,’ wrote MK Gandhi ‘is cow protection’. Gandhi was not alone in making such a claim. Like him, most Hindu ideologues insist on the centrality of the cow to Hinduism. For them, the cow is not just a four-legged beast but, rather, the goddess Gau Mata, or even, for some, the repository of all the millions of Hindu deities. Worship of the cow, so it is argued, is a cardinal principal of Hinduism, along with vegetarianism. The supposed holiness of the cow and the Hindu ban on beef-eating, Hindu ideologues claim, go back all the way to the period of the Vedic Aryans. The belief in the sanctity of the cow is routinely marshaled by right-wing Hindus as a symbol to distinguish Hindus from others, particularly Muslims, who are treated with disdain on account of their supposed penchant for beef and their alleged constant readiness to slaughter ‘the mother cow’. In this way, the myth of the holy cow serves as a powerful tool to create and consolidate a powerful sense of Hindu communal identity transcending caste-class divides, which is premised on relentless hostility to the beef-eating Muslim ‘other’. http://www.newageislam.com/books-and-documents/the-myth-of-the-holy-cow/d/5255