By publishing Brother L.R. Balley’s remarks: “This animal, cow is not ‘allowing the Sikhs to constitute themselves into a separate ‘community…” (DV March 1, 1999 p.7), Dalit Voice has done a great service to Sikhism — nay to the Indian history itself.
Balley has rightly pricked the very aching spot in the Sikh polity and religion. Cow did divide the Sikhs as it did all other Indians into cow worshippers and beef-eaters, the exploiters and exploited respectively since the advent of neo-Brahminism. We have shown elsewhere that societies all over the world have taken care of those cattle that are of use to them.
REFERENCE TO GURU GOBIND
Agricultural economy in this part of the world was heavily dependent on the cow. For this reason, people were prone to take more care of them and be protective towards them even emotionally.
But a very different phenomenon took place in India. India did not remain protective towards the cow up to the sentimental level only. As the belief that cow is sacred gained grounds genuine feelings were replaced when religious rites and rituals took control of the cow. It is forbidden to contest it or criticise a “sacred” belief.
Not quite unlike upper caste Hindu nazis, it is this sentiment of holding the cow sacred beyond discussion and beyond criticism that has taken possession of all upper caste Sikhs including the Shudra Jat’s. Seen in this light the upper caste Sikh opposition to beef-eating by Guru Gobind Singh or participation in its preparation by his wife is to be understood.
COW DEFEATS BUDHISTS
Scientifically speaking every social phenomenon has a history and so is true of the cow cult in Indian society. Such a cow cult was not there in any other society even though cow was equally useful to many other societies outside India. It is for historical reasons that cow worship and abstinence from eating beef became a unique social phenomenon in India.
But statistics reveal that just like the people of the rest of the world cow is not considered sacred by the sane original inhabitants of India.
None other than Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar himself has proved it beyond doubt that India through the ages has been a hot bed of class struggle. Quite early in history when Brahminism was grappling with Buddhists (the present-day Untouchables), it had to declare the cow sacred as a strategy, as a tactic, to gain an edge over them. As Brahminism emerged triumphant it drove its enemies (the present-day Untouchables), the Buddhists, to the wall by declaring them anti-dharma itself as they did not adhere to the Brahminical cult of cow worship (Dr. Ambedkar W&S Vol. 7).
DALITS ARE BEEF-EATERS
Today’s outcastes and Untouchables were not born in this shape as outcastes and Untouchables as the followers of the varnashrama dharma want us to believe.
All the present-day “Hindu” SC/STs, product of what Babasaheb called as class struggle, are beef-eating sections of Indian society and were the ruling classes of yore giving Brahmins sleepless nights. Those who did not fall prey to the Brahminical strategy of cow and “Brahmin protection” at the fall of Buddhism were not only kept outside the Brahminical fold but were made Untouchables and in some extreme cases unseeable. (Dr. Ambedkar W&S Vol. 7).
That Guru’s Khalsa armed itself to regain the rights for the original inhabitants of India after centuries of helpless existence as outcastes is another part of the same story.
New entrants into the subcontinent of India, Huns and Saka tribes, were chosen to fill the ranks of the ruling class thus depleted with the ouster of the original inhabitants and Kshatriyas.
HOW JATS SERVED BRAHMINS
Sardar Jagjit Singh writes that legitimization of caste and thereby the social status of the ruling castes came solely in the hands of Brahmins (Sikh Revolution, p..148). Vaidik’s played with groups after groups of people constituted as tribes and clans by raising some and lowering others and this game continued for centuries long after the Muslim invasions.
Though legitimization by a recognized religion has always been decisive for an alliance between politically and socially dominant classes and the priesthood, it was much more in the caste society, says Jagjit Singh (p.148).
While the original Kshatriyas were being downgraded from their exalted caste status for launching a mortal fight against Brahminism, Sakyas, Huns and other foreign tribes were being inducted into this Aryan fold.
Rajput’s, Gujjars and Jat’s, also alien tribes like the Aryans, were anxious to devour political gains of a ruling class/caste status. The grateful Jat’s (Shudras) then served Brahmins with unparalleled loyalty. The duty of protecting the Arya (Vaidik) dharma in its new form e.g. Brahmin and cow protection was thus given/taken over by new entrants to the Aryan fold. Jagjit Singh says:
“The more one conformed to the established caste norms, the better the social position one got in the caste hierarchy”.
Jat’s and Rajput’s etc. were thus at pains to gain caste ascendancy and they conformed to the caste rules like abstinence from beef-eating by ritualistic and religious sanction. A mere sentiment of caring for a useful animal like cow then stopped operating. Protection of cow then became a matter of hard and fast caste rule under religious sanction.
DAUGHTERS EQUATED WITH COW
Kshatriya Rajput’s and Shudra Jat’s professing Brahminism besides caring for cow for economic reasons started worshipping it on religious grounds.
White Brahmins continued to enjoy beef they successfully passed this duty of cow protection to Shudras. While cow was raised, women were lowered and brought down to below the level of cow in social scale. We have shown elsewhere that the Shudra Jat (and also Rajput) elderly women vied with each other feeding cows on the expensive and rare food delicacies not easily available to even rich upper castes, not to speak of the SC/BCs and other lower castes spending their life time on this socially useless activity. (DV April 1, 1999 p.21: “Worship of cow is related to indication of Sikhs”, Mrs. K.K. Sidhu).
‘These well-fed cows were thus prepared to be donated to Brahmins side by side with the donation (marriage) of their daughters to the son’s in-law (if their daughter’s life is spared in her infancy).
For these very pious, very religious-looking elderly women, cow-lovers killing their infant daughters was not a crime but protecting the cow was more important.
Gory practice of female infanticide is in vogue till date among these ruling castes, made easy with the advent ‘of modern ultrasound and collaboration of Brahmin-Bania doctors.
WHAT GURU NANAK SAYS
If beef is so sacred and should not even be mentioned as one of the edible articles, as some upper caste Sikhs suggest, why the Brahmins take the cow as an offering from rich upper castes? How else one can explain the folk sayings and songs in Punjab where people are exhorted to donate cows to Brahmins just as they donate daughters to the sons-in-law? See the gory crime committed against humans by cow protectors. Guru Nanak says:
But they, who’ve abandoned meat and cannot stand even its flavour, devour men in the darkness of night”. (Guru Granth p.1231).
And the Guru has condemned this paradox of Brahmins taking cow as a gift while asking the devotees to worship it.
History is what moulds not only a society but even a personality. It is for these historical reasons that upper castes (Hindus) even after getting converted to Sikhism could not reconcile with the talk of beef eating among Sikhs:
WORSHIP OF COW DUNG
These Shudras are, however, kept in their place by assigning them all the duties keeping the rights for the upper castes. Even as the Vaidik’s continued to enjoy beef and accept cow as gift from their devotees, they made not only the cow but even its very excreta sacred for new entrants into neo-Brahminism — the Sakya and Hun racial groups (from Rajput’s downwards). While all the’ upper castes of India are seen celebrating their Diwali and its associated Govardhan Pooja, Jat’s of Harry: ana and adjoining UP villages are made to worship cow dung in the name of Hindu festival, Govardhan Puja, with a Brahmin priest presiding and accepting the offerings.
Cow worship thus further worked as a strategy to keep our people after defeating Buddhism. It further helped not only to befool the grateful new entrants into Aryan fold but the whole lot of Indians who had only duties but no rights.
COW WEAKENS INDIAN RACE
Nowhere else in any society in the world such an act of surreptitiously stealing the very rich food from the people’s mouth is done by any other religion or priestly class. Sikhism cannot be made to stand by Brahminism in° committing this crime.
The cow was consecrated as a sacred animal to take away the rich, cheap food from the mouths of our people in a bid to keep I as an exclusive preserve of the Vaidik and as a long-term strategy to physically weaken the avowed enemies of Brahminism. Cow was thus strategically used by a religion to rob the very right of taking food of one’s choice. Such a gory crime was committed only against Indians but not anywhere else in the world so blatantly.
One may not be able to procure food of one’s choice on economic grounds is one thing, but if one is forbidden from taking food within one’s reach on religious grounds is quite another.
Upper caste Sikhs think that calling the Guru a beef-eater is a great lie. But we may ask them whether robbing the people of the right to eat the most nutritious food of their liking and within their reach under the garb of religion is a greater lie or eating meat and allowing others in partaking in this a greater crime?
While disarming Indians was one strategy, weakening them by interfering in the intake of nutritious food was a more deadly sanctified strategy which only avowed enemies can deploy.
HAVOC PLAYED BY COW
When DV writes that this cow cult is playing havoc with the Indian society, it is absolutely correct (DV March 1, 1999 p.7). It is the sacred that inspires in an individual the sentiment of reverence and deference. When an individual gets saturated with these sentiments — sentiments regarding something sacred, beyond criticism and beyond discussion —then these become part of his being. He himself then becomes upholder of the consecrated belief, its protector. This is what has come to pass with these people, the ruling upper caste Sikhs. They can’t even tolerate the mention of beef-eating in Sikhism. All revolutionaries — lovers of humankind (not cows) like Khalsa are against death and killing but to serve humanity they had to perforce take up arms like Guru Gobind Singh and his Khalsa.
GURUS ADVOCATED MEAT-EATING
Guru Gobind Singh indeed had a colourful multi-faceted personality. To those from the “lower castes”, who are more rational not being made fools in the name of religion, Guru Gobind Singh was a meat-eater. He used to go hunting in the company of Sikhs and the food from animal source was cooked in Guru’s langar and named Maha prasad.
‘Guru Gobind Singh should not be isolated as beef and meat-eater. He like all other Gurus had never left Guru Nanak’s line both ideologically and in practice, as many brahminesses’ Sikhs would have us believe.
Meat-eating was advocated by Guru Nanak himself. Writes Jagjit Singh quoting from Janashakthi, Bale Wali, edited by Surinder Singh Kohala p.277, that Guru Nanak himself cooked meat at Kurukshetra. He further quotes from Mehta Parkash ii, pp. 49, 64, 609, that meat was served in the langar of his immediate successor, Guru Angad; and that of the other Gurus that followed (ibid p. 97).
WHAT GURU GRANTH SAYS
That Gurus were so rational that they did not differentiate between meat of one source from that of the other except on the grounds of availability is also well documented in the Guru Granth Sahib itself.
“One is first conceived in flesh, and then abides in the flesh (of the womb),
And when one is invested with life, one’s mouth feeds upon the flesh,
and one’s bones too are wrap in flesh. And, lo, when one comes out, one sucks the flesh of the (mother’s) breasts.
And one’s mouth and tongue are of flesh: yea, one’s life is tied to flesh all around:
And when one becomes young, one marries and brings home a bundle of flesh.
From one fish grows another; yea, alt one’s relationship is with the things of flesh.
When one Meets with the True Guru, one Knows the Lord’s Will, and then alone it comes right with man.
But they, who’ve abandoned meat and cannot stand even its flour, devour men in the darkness of night!
O Pandit, thou knowest not whence came all this flesh.
It is from water from which also come the foodgrains, the sugarcane, cotton and indeed the three worlds: :
Says the water: “l am purest of the pure”, but, verily, the water too assumes many forms, good as well as bad”.
The above is a quotation from the Guru Granth (English version Vol. 4). Translated and annotated by Dr. Gopal Singh. (World Book Centre, Indra Prakash, 11-UGF, 21-Barakhamba Road, New Delhi 110 001, 10th Edition, 1996 pp. 1230 and 31, Rs. 1,400 for full set of 4 Volumes).
This quotation from the Guru Granth should convince that there is no prohibition to beef-eating under Sikhism.
WHOLE WORLD EATS BEEF
But to these upper caste Aryans including the Shudra Jat’s and upholders and protectors of cow are misinterpreting and misquoting the Guru Grant because they are saturated with the sentiments of sacredness of cow. That is why they prohibit even the talk about beef eating.
Will such Jat Sikhs answer this question. The whole world eats beef and in what way are they less worthy than the Sikhs or those who claim not to eat beef?
It is not that I am saying this. Guru Nanak has himself said it in the above-mentioned verses from Guru Granth. But it is not the fault of these Jat Sikhs. For centuries before Sikhism arose, Jat’s strove to attain the Kshatriya status as they were kept balancing between the Shudras and Kshatriyas by Brahmins in whose hands it remained to legitimize their caste/social status.
The Jat’s thus served both the cow and the Brahmin religiously and ever relentlessly. Leave aside the rest of the world, more than half of the Indian population mentioned above whose unchallenged leader Guru Gobind Singh was, are beefeaters. But this does not seem to disturb our upper. Caste Sikhs.
