Thread by @entropied

History of cow protection in India with focus on the modern period.

The special status of cow in India has a long history which goes back at least to the vedic period.
Notwithstanding the various claims that beef eating was prevalent in the vedic society,there is no doubt that cow had acquired a special place in the minds of vedic Aryans.

Cows were donated to priests who conducted Yajnas and goddesses were praised by comparing them with the cow.
The cow had become one of the most common vedic symbols for maternity and fertility and its products came to occupy a central place in various vedic yajnas.

With time, the significance of cow got magnified and we see, between 5th century B.C. to the 4th century A.D, many texts alluding to the inviolability of the cow.
Arthashastra mentions that cow slaughter was illegal. Manu Smriti too lists govadha or cow slaughter as a crime.

The two great epics also reiterate similar views about the cow. One passage in Mahabharata states that one who kills a cow lives as many years in hell as there are hairs on the cow's body. In Anushasan parva, a long section is devoted to inculcating worship of cow.

Both Ramayana and Mahabharata describe the divine qualities of Kamdhenu, the cow belonging to rishi Vashishtha.
Mahabharata mentions another cow Nandini whose milk is said to make men immortal.

The doctrine of the cow's sanctity is well elaborated in the Puranas too.

Veneration for cow had increased further by the medieval times. Although the stages through which the idea of the cow's sanctity spread are not very clear, there is little doubt that the notion of cow's sacredness had become very widespread and deep rooted by medieval period.

However, this notion was challenged and attacked with an unprecedented severity with the arrival of Muslim invaders who inspired by their iconoclastic spirit not only destroyed temples and idols but also took to slaughtering cows on a massive scale.

While for Muslim invaders, these slaughters were a way to spite the vanquished Hindus and assert the superiority of their own faith, the Hindus saw this as an assault on the very roots of their Hindu identity. As a result, they became even more attached to their Gau mata.

Gau raksha or cow protection became a matter of highest importance.
It became a major symbol of Hindu fightback and resistance against Islamic rule.

Many prominent Hindu kings, across geographies and centuries, were seen asserting their credentials as protectors of the cow.

Kings of Vijayanagara empire which was described as “a Hindu bulwark against Muhammadan conquests”, took the title of Gobrahamana Pratipalanacharya, or the protector of cows and Brahmins.
Even for Shivaji, cow protection was an issue of utmost importance.

However, the task of cow protection wasn't limited to Hindus kings. In a few cases, pragmatic Muslim rulers made laws for cow protection to garner the support of Hindus.
Akbar, for instance, made cow slaughter an offence punishable by death.

As the Mughal empire started weakening, Hindu powers such as Marathas, Sikhs and Dogras replaced Muslim rulers and made cow slaughter illegal. It became a crime that often invited severe punishment such as life imprisonment, as in case of Kashmir and death, as in case of Punjab

In general,the decline of the Muslim power in India resulted in political and legal framework becoming more favorable to the cause of cow protection. However, the rise of the British power acted as a check on the this trend as new set of complications arose from this development

In the pre British phase, where the contours of the cow protection issue were defined by expansion of Muslim power and population, the conflicts around cow protection were resolved by direct conflicts or negotiations between the 2 conflicting parties viz. Hindus and Muslims.

However, the new reality of British rule meant that Hindus not only had to deal with the Muslim opposition but also had to seek the support of their new political masters who were going to act as arbiters on the disputes surrounding cow protection.

The British policy towards cow slaughter was ambiguous and inconsistent from the start. While they agreed to continue the ban on cow slaughter in some of their treaties with Indian rulers, they refused to do so in some other cases.