As is well-known, Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya was as orthodox in his beliefs as he was in his day-to-day conduct. He said that the cow is the maanbindu of Hindu sanskriti. Even as he addressed Malviyaji as parampujya (most respected), Savarkar chastised him for proclaiming this. The cow gives milk—that is its only significance. All the rest is shudh moorakhtaa (unadulterated foolishness). The cow is the dugdhbindu (symbol of milk of the Hindu Rashtra). It certainly is not the maanbindu. The maanbindu of devotees should be so much loftier than them, in the same way the maanbindu of the rashtra should be so lofty that it lifts everyone to the pinnacle of valour, that it ignites daring, one that transforms man into superman. A cow which every passer-by can twist and turn, any lallu-panju (any and every stray fellow) can eat up, is the symbol befitting our current weakness. Such a ghatiya (inferior) thing should not be the maanbindu of the rashtra—at least not for the future . . .The maanbindu of our rashtra should be Narasimha.
Therefore, instead of trying to fabricate reasons for looking away, we should—especially those who are appropriating him should—look at what Savarkar said.
The Abode of Gods?
The advocates of cow-worship get so carried away, Savarkar noted, that they proclaim that thirty-three crore gods reside in it. As the Vaarkaaries on the pilgrimage to Pandharpur are pushed and packed into the third-class railway compartment, in that very way, in the cow’s body, the devas ki ragdaa-ragdee hoti hai, and it becomes difficult for them to even breathe. The dhakkam-dhakkaa going on in this animal . . . Vishnu, Chandra, Surya, Yama—some in the throat, some between the teeth, some in the nose, each god stuffed wherever he can be fitted. The crowding on the rear part of the cow becomes so great that when some sanatani gets angry at the cow kicking the bucket as he milks her and for that strikes her with a staff, five–ten devas are dispatched for swargvaas (dispatched to heaven). The condition of the devas who are rolled into the malodourous secretions in the nose and mouth is pitiable. But even worse than their condition is that of Marut and Varun. Because of the difficulties and confusion about finding a place for them, in the end they have been consigned to live in silence in the remaining two places: ‘aaapney tu maru devi yonee ch varun sthitha/aur mootrey ganga.’ In the dhaandali of making an animal into a god, they have reduced god into a badtar animal . . . If anyone degrades our sanskriti in this scientific age, it is not our writing but the Sanskrit shlokas that place gods in conditions worse even than those of animals . . . It would be like calling Shivaji the . . . of Raipur and calling the . . . at home ‘Shivaji’—that would not be chanting a shloka, it would be hurling abuse . . . And none of these thirty-three crore gods are able to save the head of the cow in which they are residing as it is severed by the butcher. And why does not even one of the maai kaa laal step forth and punish the butcher? . . .
The sacred texts say that the cow is the abode of thirty-three crore gods. Well, the sacred texts also say that the Varaahaavtari devata became a pig. Then why protect only cows? Why not set up organizations to protect pigs also?
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Worthy of Worship?
Man becomes like the gods he worships, Savarkar explained. Believing the cow to be god, worshipping the cow, the entire Hindu nation has become a cow. And so, like the cow’s legs, it just collapses to the ground with a dhaddaam at the first stroke of danger. Let the Hindu nation be founded not on the feet of a cow but at the feet of a lion . . . I am not an enemy of cows, he explained. But we should look after it, not worship it. Continue to work to enhance the cow-wealth of the country, and simultaneously organize a massive campaign against the abattoirs. These abattoirs are being run to humiliate us, to cut off our noses, Savarkar said . . . But if you continue to just worship the cow, you will become a cow. Become lions. . . I look upon the cow as one that deserves to be protected. You look upon it as one that has to be worshipped . . . Yes, sometimes making an entity worthy of worship does lead people to begin looking after it. But in the case of the cow, having come to worship it, Hindus have forgotten to look after it.
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Eating Beef? Eating Pork?
Should one eat beef? Should one eat pork? This is a matter not of religion but of your stomach, Savarkar maintained. What the doctors advise, what you can digest, what will be best for your body as you recover from an illness, these should be the determinants, according to Savarkar, not what a book says or what has been the traditional practice. The life of all—cows, dogs, horses, parrots, donkeys—is equally precious. If the cows of Bharat are so sacred, what is the harm in eating the cows of America, a country where they eat their cows in any case? Savarkar reiterated such arguments on several occasions. The cow is a useful animal so we should look after it well. But—and here we see his ‘utilitarianism’, something to which we will have occasion to return as we proceed—when kindness to it entails cost to humans, we should not: when the enemy armies used to encircle themselves with cows, these should have been killed, got out of the way so that the enemy could be dealt with. The cows of the countries of enemies are not worthy of kindness just because they are cows, he wrote. By their milk, our enemies are strengthened and not us. The cow and bullock of our country, being useful to us, should ordinarily not be eaten, but there is no harm in eating their meat like the meat of any other animal in England or America . . .
This excerpt from The New Icon: Savarkar And The Facts by Arun Shourie has been published with permission from Penguin Random House India.