Govt team dishes out 1,500 pages of bull in the name of cows

Sprawled over 1,500 pages and four volumes is ‘‘one of the biggest in the history of reports on speechless, deaf and dumb cattle’’. Guman Mal Lodha, the 16-member commission’s acting chairman, told The Indian Express, ‘‘We have come to the conclusion that unless cow protection is made a fundamental right and there is central legislation to enforce this right with a Central Rapid Cattle Protection Force, cow slaughter will never be controlled.’’

The report, which has no less than 51 recommendations, exhorts Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani to accept the report ‘‘in toto’’ and thus be counted among the greats.‘‘We hope that Atalji would create history and bring his name and that of his government in golden letters as Ashoka the Great so far as last voyage of cow slaughter prohibition is concerned and accepting this report.’’

In the preface itself, the report ticks off the Government’s ‘‘inability’’ to deal with the problem ‘‘with iron hands’’. Among its 51 recommendations:

• Prohibition of slaughter of the cow and its progeny should be made a Fundamental Right.

• The Constitution should be amended to empower Parliament to make laws for prohibition of slaughter of cow and its progeny as well as on its transport from one state to another.

• Cow slaughter should be made a non-bailable and cognisable offence with a minimum three-year jail term and maximum 10 years rigorous imprisonment with a fine.

• POTA should be amended to detain smugglers and gangs that transport cows to Bangladesh and Kerala.

• Cross breeding from imported cattle should be prohibited.

• The Centre should constitute a permanent National Development Commission on cows with an annual budget of at least Rs 100 crore.

• The Animal Welfare Husbandry department should be re-organised to preserve and develop animals rather than animal food.

• A Central Cattle Protection Rapid Task Force should be set up with offices in each state. A special force should be tasked to patrol the Indo-Bangla border and Kerala.

• The subsidy on tractors and mechanical appliances for agriculture should be stopped; use of the bullock encouraged.

• A Fodder Corporation of India should be set up on the lines of Food Corporation of India.

• Farmans issued by Mughal emperors, which prohibited cow slaughter, be widely advertised.

• Panchgavya therapy and the concepts of cow milk and urine should be introduced in the school & university. An national university should be set up for this purpose.

The cow commission was initially set up under the chairmanship of Dharmpal, who resigned protesting that ‘‘it was an error on the government’s part to constitute the Commission under the auspices of the Department of Animal Husbandry’’.

Lodha, a retired chief justice and BJP leader, took over as acting chairman earlier this month. Lodha was proud to point out that ‘‘I have completed the report in record time without asking for an extension. It’s now upto the government to implement the report’s recommendations.’’