Cow slaughter, or we can say cattle slaughter, has been the talk of the town in the past couple of weeks as the same issue has resulted in riots, deaths and even a constitutional change. However, it seems like the buzz around Cow slaughter isn’t going to end very soon as recently a community in Gujarat has come up with an idea of giving cows instead of trophies to the winners.
Now the question arises, which winners? Well, the Rabari community in Vadodara, Gujarat, who are predominantly pastoralists, came with this idea of organizing a cricket tournament and awarding the winners with a cow.
This unusual step comes in the wake of recent controversy related to cow slaughter and the PM Narendra Modi Led Government restricting the cattle trade via the Constitution, which again, has been the topic of several days in the last couple of days. However, despite cattle traders, especially from the Muslim community, being the ones that are going to get hit the worse from this decision, there are others who have displayed their support.
Vadodara: Cricket tournament presents 'cows' to winners instead of trophy
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One such is the Rabari community that is believed to have a close connection with the cattle and is completely backing the cow slaughter ban. They also want to send a nationwide message on the importance of cow in one’s life and has been planning this tournament for a year now.
Players of the winning team were given a ‘Gyr’ calf each and Prakash Rabari, the Organiser of the tournament said, “With this tournament, we want to send a message that cow is a very important component in our society. The Rabari community has always protected the cattle as it is our livelihood”.
And then came another controversial statement that we weren’t listening to the first time. Raju Rabari, a player from the winning team said, “We want the state to recognize cow as the national animal, only then can we save them and every player from our team is immensely have to receive such kind of present’.
Well, if you have not been living under a rock and fire is the only source of light for you, then you must have heard about the Peacock statement made by a Rajasthan High Court judge. According to the statement, which came amid the cow slaughter controversy, Peacock is India’s national bird because the animal never has intercourse and Peahens get pregnant by drinking a Peacock’s tears, making it a holy bird. He also added that a cow is also as pious as a Peacock and should be made India’s national animal.
While the statement clearly shows how deeply this judge is connected to his roots, so deep that the light of modern age failed to awake him despite him being a High Court Judge, the subjected cricket tournament, on the other hand, is a nice initiative to spread awareness about any topic like cow slaughter but ‘one should never let Superstitions take over reality’, at times.
As for the Cow Slaughter Controversy, none of the sides is wrong and our leaders do need to have a debate that results in an outcome in which both sides come to a meaningful conclusion rather than an abrupt constitutional change.
5th June 2017
Rohan Jailty