Along with the stray dog menace, urban settings now have to also cope with a new nuisance that threatens to turn the whole expanse into a grazing ground for cattle. Feeding on large garbage dumps that characterize any modern dwelling these days, the ruminants are at home burrowing waste food material out from the huge mounds and then lying back to regurgitate the cud.
However, the exercises which enable the natural digestive process in them are virtual nightmares for the travelling public who are put into a lot of inconvenience.
Fatorda and its by-lanes have been having the perennial problem of cattle squatting in the middle of the roads posing problems for commuters, sometimes with disastrous consequences.
The ‘happening-place’ by virtue of it being the TCP minister’s constituency, as developmental works embraces Fatorda in all its magnanimity, the ‘wandering- cattle’ hazard continues to taunt it, leaving a blight difficult to erase.
A Gauliwada within its limits should not be an excuse for the adjoining areas in the constituency to smell and appear like a cattle-farm all through the day. The gay abandon with which cowherds are seen marching their cattle along public thoroughfares unmindful of the teeming traffic speaks for the audaciousness that characterizes the community in Fatorda.
This cheekiness has rubbed off on neighbouring areas which have been witnessing similar parades of cattle on busy roads by those tending cattle.
But when one gets to espy related scenes in the heart of Margao city, it is more than obvious that the ‘cattle variance’ has reached unmanageable levels and needs the immediate intervention of authorities to set things right.
It is however dismaying to note the irresponsible ways of cattle-owners who have had no botheration over their ‘ownership rights’ extending to the roads and highways of the state with their livestock occupying vantage positions on the tarmac.
Straying beyond their ‘ranch’ limits to take up irritating postures on the thoroughfares of cities, they have further worsened the traffic bottlenecks that have made commuting a horrible experience overall.
As if the sight of herds having settled comfortably in the middle of the roads is not disturbing enough, the cow-dung littered streets lends further insult to one’s civic sense.
In view of the current lawlessness happening under the rubric of cow-protection, it needs to be impressed upon the vigilantes that protection of cows go much beyond the perceived notions of ‘beef-eaters’ who have been bearing the brunt of their violent acts for their presumably ‘sacrilegious’ deeds.
Beef-eating has become a reason to lynch, or so it seems.
For a nation that enjoys the hype over the unity in diversity that furthers the concept of communal harmony as being sublime among all other virtues, it is a huge let-down to have sections of the society ‘punishing’ others for acts that are made out to be profane in their order of belief. This portends a dangerous trend.
The expression ‘Gau Rakshak’ literally translates toprotector of cows. Considering the spate of violence over the matter, it becomes pertinent to have efforts made to explain the entire idea of ‘Gau Rakshaks’ to clear misconceptions over the issue that allows people to turn into sentinels to punish their own countrymen over their eating habits.
Already the uniqueness of the country is being argued over for being the only nation in the world to have laws that protect one animal and its progeny even if it means the death of human beings!
Rather than view ‘cow vigilantism’ as an expression that bestows a measure of social, moral and legal legitimacy to those who take it upon themselves to safeguard the sacredness of the cow in the country, it is necessary that the welfare of these animals top the priorities.
For this to happen, India should first get its cows off the streets! Without exception, the country’s biggest cities are filled with urban wildlife. If the millions of stray dogs living on India’s streets has been a cause of concern, the ‘settlement’ of stray cows in various urban and suburban thoroughfares have not been a healthy sight either!
Suggestions that the cattle required to be tended to in a manner that allows them sufficient grazing time, besides the comforts of a cowshed, have however not translated to mean an ease of life for the bovines.
If cattle cannot be reared in a befitting manner that subscribes to all norms of animal care, how has ‘cow vigilantism’ ensured the betterment of the bovine class?
Considering that protection of cows has become a matter of paramount importance, it is equally essential that the authorities have a system to deal with the nuisance of stray cattle. The issue of impounding and penalties can only be decided upon when the authorities are able to establish the identities of the erring cattle-owners.
As elsewhere in the country, should we in Goa also endorse the view that cows in India seem to get more attention when they are dead than they do when they are alive!
