Author: Julian West in New Delhi
Publication: The Telegraph, UK
Date: September 2, 2001
Hindu nationalists in India have
launched a marketing exercise to promote cow's urine as a health cure for
ailments ranging from liver disease to obesity and even cancer.
The urine, which is being sold under
the label "Gift of the Cow", is being enthusiastically promoted by the
government of Gujarat, one of three states in India dominated by Hindu
nationalists.
The urine is collected daily from
almost 600 shelters for rescued and wounded cattle set up by the Vishwa
Hindu Parisad (VHP), or World Council of Holy men, as part of a government
cow-protection programme to save the country's sacred, but often maltreated,
beasts.
Advertised as being "sterilised
and completely fresh" it is available for 20 rupees (30p) a bottle at about
50 centres run by the VHP in Gujerat, from 200 of their outlets in neighbouring
Madhya Pradesh, and at fairs and religious festivals throughout India.
It also comes in tablets or a cream
mixed with other traditional medicinal herbs. Demand is currently outstripping
supply.
Dr Jadi Patel at the VHP's headquarters
in Ahmedabad said: "It's very popular because the results are very good,
but we've got a shortage." He explained that the cow protection centres
had been formed after the last grand gathering of saddhus, or holy men,
to save cows from "unofficial slaughter by Muslims".
Killing cows is illegal in most
Indian states but there are an estimated 32,000 illegal abattoirs and 13.7
million cows are believed to be slaughtered by Muslims for the leather
industry.
Animal rights activists in India
also claim that the doe- eyed, hump-backed white Brahma cattle that are
to be found on almost every Indian street are subjected to various abuses,
including forced pregnancies to produce more milk.
The cow protection commission was
set up to protect the holy cows, and research conducted by doctors involved
in the project revealed that the cows' urine had medicinal properties.
The idea of using it came from the
central Indian headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the
powerful Hindu nationalist ideologues behind the country's Bharata Janata
Party (BJP), where five scientists are researching its beneficial effects.
Like all devout Hindus, RSS members
believe that all cow products are sacred. Ghee, or clarified butter, is
used in Indian cooking and to light lamps during temple ceremonies, and
milk is commonly poured over sacred idols as an offering.
The healing properties of cow dung
and cow's urine are also mentioned in ancient Hindu texts. The research
conducted by doctors at the cow-protection commission indicates that the
urine can cure anything from skin diseases, kidney and liver ailments to
obesity and heart ailments.
Although most Indian doctors view
the medicines as eccentric, several advocates of the treatment have come
forward in Gujarat, have come forward to support the doctors' claims.
They include Vidhyaben Mehta, a
65-year-old woman with a cancerous tumour on her chest who has been taking
cow's urine for the past three years. She says she is no longer in pain
and has survived in spite of medical predictions that she would die two
years ago.
So enthusiastic is the Gujarat government
about its cows' urine medicines that it has asked the Indian Institute
of Management to compile a database of traditional cures and verify the
Hindu nationalists' findings.
The academics have also discovered
that cow's urine is an extremely effective pesticide and plant fertiliser
and are now developing for human consumption new drugs that contain the
"gift of the cow".
Prof Anil Gupta at the institute
said: "This isn't just a religious thing. If it's useful we shouldn't stop
it simply because we think it has religious connections."
