Delhi’s stray cows and dogs

A recent remark attributed to Delhi Mayor Raja Iqbal Singh — suggesting that citizens would soon be “liberated” from cows and dogs — deserves serious scrutiny. They are manifestations of the same eternal soul as humans

A reported comment by Delhi’s mayor, Raja Iqbal Singh, on the issue of cows and dogs, deserves attention. According to an English translation of his comment in Hindi, he said that the problem would be discussed at the first meeting (presumably of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi) and the people of Delhi would very soon be “liberated” from these things.

While much would depend on the nature of the steps that would be contemplated, one needs to point out here that the use of the word mukti (liberation) was unfortunate. It tends to suggest that their presence among humans was undesirable, when, particularly the cow, is revered by an overwhelming majority of Indians as holy, being a manifestation of Divinity. She is referred to as “Gau Mata” or “Mother Cow” in popular Hindu religious discourse. The Rig-Veda refers to cows as devis.

Further, it says that everyone should ensure that cows are free from misery and kept healthy. It also says, “May the cows be [for our] affluence.” Beseeching Indra for the grant of cattle, it says that cows are Indra. The Sama Veda describes the cow as “being like our mother.” The Yajur Veda compares the dawn and twilight to “two great and generous mother cows.”

In the Aranya Parva of the Mahabharata, Dharma, in the form of a yaksha, speaks to the Pandava brothers in the voice of a crane in the lake at Dwaityavana. Rishi Chyavana said in the Anushasana Parva of the same epic, that cows received the worship of all the worlds and were regarded as the source of nectar. They were the stairs to heaven and goddesses competent to give everything and grant every wish. Nothing else in the world was as high or superior.

According to the Padma Purana, cows are homes of the Goddess of wealth. They are untouched by sins. There exists a fine relationship between men and cows. A home without a cow is like one without dear ones. Cows, which enjoy an exalted position in the Hindu worldview need to be treated with respect, to be cherished and cared for and not considered “things” from whose presence people in Delhi have to be liberated.

Stray dogs are covered by the values shaped by the Upanishads and the Vedas, the Ramayana, Mahabharata and the Puranas. Swami Vivekananda, one of the greatest religious leaders ever, summed up the essence of these values eloquently when he said in the course of his seminal speech on Vedantism in Jafna, Sri Lanka, in January, 1897,  “In every man and in every animal, however weak or wicked, great or small, resides the same omnipresent, omniscient soul. The difference is not in the soul, but in the manifestation. Between me and the smallest animal, the difference is only in manifestation, but as a principle he is the same as I am, he is my brother, he has the same soul as I have. This is the greatest principle that India has preached. The talk of the brotherhood of man becomes in India the brotherhood of universal life, of animals, and of all life down to the little ants-all these are our bodies. Even as our scripture says, ‘Thus the sage, knowing that the same Lord inhabits all bodies, will worship everybody as such.’ That is why in India there have been such merciful ideas about the poor, about animals, about everybody, and everything else.” The central message here is that there is no difference between humans and animals; in whom “resides the same omnipresent, omniscient soul.”

Also, the “talk of the brotherhood of man becomes in India the brotherhood of universal life, of animals, and of all life down to little ants.” Stray dogs, are animals and, if Swami Vivekananda’s words are not to be dismissed summarily, are our brothers and have to be treated as such. They too are not “things” from whose presence we have to be liberated.

 The view that humans and stray dogs have to be treated on the same footing is underlined by an incident narrated in the Uttarakanda (Concluding Book) of Krittibas Ojha’s Bengali rendering of Maharishi Valmiki’s Saptakanda Ramayana (Ramayan in Seven Kandas or Books), commonly known as Krittibas Ramayana. According to the account, one day, as Rama was holding court in Ayodhya and Lakshmana was guarding the entrance, a white dog, tired and hungry after a long journey, lame in one leg and with a thick clot of blood on his head, arrived weeping. He touched Lakshmana’s feet. On being asked about the reason of his coming, he said he would relate his sorrow to Rama if the latter permitted him to do so. Rama asked for the dog to be brought to his presence. Singing Rama’s praise with folded hands and weeping, he said that a sanyasin had hit him for no fault of his, and pleaded that the court asked the sanyasin what was his fault. Rama had the sanyasin brought to his presence. How could, he asked, a Sanyasin be so cruel to an animal? The sanyasin stated that after reciting prayers on the banks of the Ganga for the whole day, he was going to the city to beg for alms.

His whole body burning with hunger, he found the dog sleeping on the road occupying the whole of it. On his refusing to move, sanyasin got angry and hit him with a stick. On Rama asking the courtiers for their views, they said that the sanyasin was guilty as he could easily have walked on one side of the road. When it came to punishment, the dog suggested that the sanyasin be made the king of Kalinjar.

As this caused general surprise, the dog explained that he was the king of Kalinjar in his previous birth and, under a curse by Shiva, everyone who became Kalinjar’s king, was reborn as a dog. The incident underscored two important points. First, Rama, an incarnation or Vishnu, held that the dog, obviously a stray living in the streets, was entitled to justice not just against any human being but a sanyasin. In fact, going further, he made the sanyasi the king of Kalinjar at the dog’s behest. Second, according to Rama whose reign is held in the Hindu tradition as the best form of government there could ever be, being cruel to an animal was tantamount to abandoning one’s dharma. He had asked the sanyasin when the latter came, “Why have you abandoned your dharma and are cruel to animals?”

It follows that the obligation of moral conduct that human beings have towards one another, also extends to animals. This is most sharply underlined by an account in the Mahaprasthanika Parva of the Mahabharata. According to it, a small brown dog appeared from nowhere and began following the five Pandava brothers and Draupadi in their last journey.

To dwell on the account, which is widely known, briefly, he was the last one to remain with Yudhishthira while Draupadi and the four Pandava brothers fell dead on the way.  Yudhishthira refused to join Indra, who had come in his flying chariot to take him to heaven in his mortal form, without the dog.

As Indra argued, Yudhishthira said that all his punya would vanish if he abandoned the dog, who was dependent on him. It would be a crime worse than killing a brahmin. Finally, any plan of action relating to stray dogs has to be in accordance with the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023, enacted by the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying on March 10, 2023.

(The writer is consulting editor, The Pioneer. Views are personal)