Goshalas : A look into RSS- BJP Cow protection

Cows are integral part of Indian culture since a very long time. Cattle has been worshiped, celebrated owing to its importance in farming and food production across India for many centuries. Indigenous farming techniques that were prevalent in India before 1950s relied on cow. Cow dung acted as natural fertilizer. Farmers relied on cows rather than chemical fertilizers. Even today, many sustainable organic farming requires cattle primarily for cow dung due to its rich biological aspects that it adds to the soil.

There were diverse indigenous cattle breeds across India. These cattle breeds were breeded by local communities that suited their local needs. After Green revolution in 1960s, Cow was replaced by tractor while cow dung was replaced by synthetic chemical fertilizers leading to extinction of many indigenous cows. It was a time when India's indigenous farming techniques were disregarded by Agri- Universities across India.

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Throughout the past century, RSS and its affiliates including BJP, ABVP and other Sangh parivar has been staunch in cow protection campaigns across India. Goshalas have been open by them to conserve cattles across India. Particularly, these Goshalas can be found intensively in BJP ruled states like Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

Organic farming experts like Dr.G.Nammalvar, who pioneered organic farming in Tamil nadu, tells increasing cows in farms will revolutionize Indian farms. That is just by replacing chemical fertilizers with cow dung and other bio fertilizers like Panchakavaya that are made from cow dung, one can replace synthetic fossil fuel based Chemical fertilizers that are sold throughout India. This method is cost effective localized, decentralized and can help farmers to handle agrarian crisis. But, on the other hand, RSS affiliate BJP Government has been promoting chemical fertilizers since Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 leading to vanishing cow population across India.

BJP's Union Government of India's agriculture budget for 2026-27 is estimated to be 1.7 lakh crore for chemical fertilizer subsidy. Under this, Urea and other synthetic chemical fertilizers that are distributed to farmers under subsidized price. This is more than 50% of India's Agri budget. Experts urge if farmers are subsidized to grow cow their fertilizer use could be reduce which would increase the quality of food by reducing the chemical fertilizer usage and help farmers also. But practice of chemical agriculture promoted by Agri Universities fails to understand diverse Agro-ecological and other local factors involved in agricultural food production and food security leading to toxic chemical footprint on human food chain.

On the other hand, Cow protection by ruling ruling BJP RSS can be view as a weapon to create artificial religious divisions between people. The same divide and rule policy has been used by Britishers. Cow protection in 10 years of Modi - RSS rule is used more to create religious tension between Hindus and Muslims rather than real cow protection as the ground data shows us.

If this money spent on subsidizing chemical fertilizers be diverted towards researching India's indigenous farming practices, protecting indigenous cows, Indigenous seeds, India would have been self reliant in food production and food secure. Athamanir bhar bharat. But, India is now in phase were India US trade deal where we import food from USA. Now, after India-US trade deal, US Agri products can enter India without any restrictions. This will crush India's poor farmers who are already in crisis now. 50% of Indians directly depend on agriculture for their living. Pushing this population into crisis will trigger social crisis across the society. Yet, farming communities voices is not heard in India's public policy dialogues.

The author of this story Karthik, working on indigenous seed conservation and organic farming for past 8 years.