What do Hindu Nationalists Smell Like?

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Several news organizations including ABC News, report the story captured in the Reuters picture shown here. cowurine.jpg

Alongside life-size posters of Hindu nationalist leaders, Indian political activists can now buy lotions, potions and pills to cure anything from cancer to hysteria to piles – all made from cow urine or dung.

A new goratna (cow products) stall at the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) souvenir shop is rapidly outselling dry political tracts, badges, flags and saffron-and-green plastic wall clocks with the face of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

“You won’t believe how quickly some of the products sold out,” Manoj Kumar, who runs the souvenir shop along with his brother, Sanjeev, said.

“The constipation medicine is a hot seller.”

But the biggest seller is a “multi-utility pill” that claims to cure anything from diabetes to piles to “ladies’ diseases”.

But what business does the BJP political party have in selling cow piss?

BJP spokesman Siddarth Singh says the stall aims to promote village industry, one of the biggest employers in India.

“If you go back in the history of India, this belongs to our culture,” he said.

“There’s no commercial value to us. Village industry in this country needs to be promoted.”

Who would have ever suspected that cow piss could be used to garner votes? If U.S. politicians ever find out… This also brings me to the topic of the sacred cow. So many questions about cow worship were hurled at us Indian Americans while growing up. This bottle of urine just causes the memories to come “leaking” back into my mind. It doesn’t help that there is so much misinformation when it comes to the place of the cow in Hinduism.

…during the Second World War, American soldiers were given the following advice [As I see India, Robert Trumbull, London, 1957, p.241] –

“American servicemen in Calcutta were instructed that if a traffic situation arose in which the driver had a choice of striking a cow or a human, hit the human and proceed without stopping to a police station.”

Beliefnet.com attempts to shed light on the topic:

This might as well be cleared up now. The Hindu does not worship the cow, has never worshipped the cow, and is not likely to ever worship the cow. To continue to propagate this delusion is only indicative of ignorance and laziness, but the Hindu has nothing to do with it. The cow is not even sacred, in the way it has been misunderstood by Europeans. The cow is literally taboo, a very different animal indeed from the sacred cow of popular delusion. Taboos in sociological terms are both positive and negative, as in taboos that must be respected and deferred to, as well as taboos that deal with what is abhorrent.

The cow is Aghanya–that which may not be slaughtered. It is true that later sects began to call the cow “the mother” and even wrote some dubious scripture to support this, but it was a rather childish transference of reverence from the mother to the cow because both provide milk! The “milk-debt” was culturally a very strong more, and it was felt that it would not be fair to leave the cow out of its share of respect for contributing to your health. Nevertheless, the cow was originally only Aghanya.

This set of circumstances arose for many reasons. Strange as it may seem, the Vedic age was a beef-eating one, and animals were constantly being slaughtered. The reaction against flesh foods set in with the advent of Jainism and Buddhism, and a remarkable cultural revolution took place, in that, a predominantly flesh-eating country became a predominantly vegetarian one. The many pastoral tribes that inhabited India could not afford to sacrifice their cow wealth for meat. In fact, that is the real reason it became Aghanya. The norms of the time dictated that you sacrifice your best animal, usually the stud bull, for the feast when a distinguished visitor came by. As these worthies multiplied in numbers, the quality of the herds began to decline. You could not escape this obligation, as substitution of another animal would be regarded as a deadly insult. To save animals thus marked out, as well as in deference to the new trends, the inviolability of the cow came into being.

And you linguists out there will appreciate the following:

The scriptural reason for this obsession with cows and their protection is even stranger. Vedic Sanskrit is not the classical Sanskrit that exists today. It is an older, more difficult form of the language and one of the words for “light” that is used there is “Go.” Now Go primarily meant “light,” but it also meant “cows.” In classical Sanskrit, the word means only the bovine friend. Thus, on the basis of a forgotten meaning of a word, Indian culture has wrapped itself round the protection of the cow and rendered it a sacred taboo. “Protector of the Go,” in the Vedas meant the keeper of the light–not a cowherd! And all the admonitions about protecting the Go mean something else altogether, and makes a great deal more sense, too. However, it was too late, and the word came to mean, with all its nuances, cow protection and cow reverence! A change in language renders a single word archaic, but the impact on a society is amazing.

18 thoughts on “What do Hindu Nationalists Smell Like?”

  1. Oh my. I should not be drinking anything when I read one of your posts … I almost had a meltdown with this one …

  2. Abhi, Nice to see you went and collected rebuttal information about the mis-information about the Cow that persists. Dr. Subhash Kak of Lousiana Tech had a great article about the linguistic background of the word “gau” (which is what a cow is called in Sanskrit).

  3. Deja vu vis-a-vis PM Desai’s urine-drinking confession [to Dan Rather] in 1978.

    Urine therapy , by the way, not that odd:

    The ancient Indian text Shivambu Kalpa Vidhi suggests using old, boiled-down urine for skin massage, with 75% of the water boiled off. But research has shown that fresh urine, as well as urine which is boiled down to 25% consistency, and also unboiled urine which is at least 4 days old, are all excellent for use on the skin. The smell of ammonia in the old urine is not toxic, and is actually beneficial. Do not drink old urine. Use old urine only on skin.

  4. “Gorantha After Shave?” They’d have gangbuster sales with lonely new agers if they called it “Ayurvedic Golden Shower.”

  5. Too bad it don’t cure idiocy.

    But then, what does, other than SM (or BI…plug plug)?

    I always suspected as much. There are numerous references even in Amar Chitra Kathas of sacrifices, and I know desis well enough to know they don’t waste anything. So you know they were chowing down on cow. Amongst other things. Still are, since animal sacrifice is pretty widespread in India today, even.

    I’m waiting for the new PR campaign for “Baby. The Other Brown Meat.”

  7. Owing to a recent hair crisis, I started using Dabar Amla Kesh Thel, which, for the record, smells infinitely worse than anything distilled from cow urine and reminds me of Aunties at Indian Arts Circle meetings. Dabar Thel + Garnier Fructis Mousse = Interesting “Fragrance”

    Why be offended by the use of cow urine as aftershave or cold drink when gobar patties are used to smoke food?

    Nice set of sites, BTW. Didn’t even know there was such a thing as a Desi blog presence. (Silly girl, don’t you know Indians are the first to set up chaat stalls anywhere, even in the blogosphere?)

  10. That’s really disgusting!how could people use these stuff when they know that it comes from cow’s shit and urine.

  11. ” Too bad it don’t cure idiocy.

    But then, what does, other than SM (or BI…plug plug)?

    I always suspected as much. There are numerous references even in Amar Chitra Kathas of sacrifices, and I know desis well enough to know they don’t waste anything. So you know they were chowing down on cow. Amongst other things. Still are, since animal sacrifice is pretty widespread in India today, even.

    I’m waiting for the new PR campaign for “Baby. The Other Brown Meat.” “

    This myth buster website is full of shyte. First off, the vedic sacrifices have nothign to do with animal sacrifices. Sacrifice has a more subtle meaning than to go slaughter an animal and shove it in the pyre. Unfortunately, ignorant people have translated sacrifice to mean animal and human sacrifice, as opposed to the true sacrifice which is one’s attachments to the senses.

    As far as the use of cow products, it is well known that cow dung is useful as fuel, and that urine itself is not disgusting in any sense. If you look at many of the traditions associated with indian culture, you will find that they have a deeper meaning behind them. The practices, though ancient, are not necessarily without merit. In fact, most ancient practices in India have more merit than most modern practices.

    I’d love to know what the mass consensus on blowjobs (or oral sex in general), and how one can be so hypocritical in one’s views when it comes to medicine – be it modern or folk.

    In general, it is good policy to look in the mirror for the first idiot, then worry about the rest.

  12. @Above

    Are you trying to justify that act using excuses? No one cares what was actually written in the ‘holy scriptures’ of the vedic era.The fact remains the same….that these ignorant fools are using shit and urine for cure.

  14. Who gave you this Stupid Idea that Muslims drink camel urine. In fact if urine from any animal dirties ones clothes, that person is not supposed to pray with those clothes on. I think “doodie” you’ve written this to divert the attention of the readers or just create mischief. I have been living with Muslims in the Arabian Gulf for over 30 years & have never come to know anything like this. All I can say is, “This is absurd.”

  15. I am a Muslim and consider it my duty to clarify the fact that Muslims donot drink camel urine or urine from any animal. In fact, if a person gets animal, or human urine, or other waste, or even alcohol on his/her clothes he/she cannot pray before washing his/her clothes. I always knew something was fishy regarding hindus and cow – piss, but hindus actually drinking cow-piss. No wonder these guys smell weird.

  16. First of all, I have heard from a muslim that drinking camle urine is mentioned in quran. Its even mentioned in most islamic threads online. So ali bugti, no reason to be ashamed of it and trying to deny it. Nothing wrong with muslims drinking camel piss 🙂 What is wrong is the terrorism emanating from muslim heartland. Anyways coming to the point, cow dung has been used since centuries in the indian subcontinent as a wall and floor plaster by hindus and muslims alike. Urine has been scientifically been proven to be a liquid containing nutrients and not waste material. It’s composition is similar to the fluid around the baby in a mother’s womb. Its just that people think that if FDA hasnt approved it, its gotta be a hoax. Well, FDA approves anything that makes money for the american medical industry.