The Animal Welfare Board of India, a body under the ministry of fisheries, animal husbandry and dairying, has urged the public to celebrate February 14 as “cow hug day”, calling the bovine the “backbone of Indian culture”.
In a circular issued on January 6, the board asked the public to caress cows on February 14, celebrated globally as Valentine’s Day, to “make life happy and full of positive energy”. On the day, veneration of the cow will be undertaken in camps to be organized across cities and villages, an official of the ministry said, requesting anonymity.
The board, in its notice, said the decision was taken on instructions of the ministry of fisheries, animal husbandry and dairying.
Vedic traditions are “on the verge of extinction” due to the “dazzle of western civilization”, the circular said, leading Indians to forget “our physical culture and heritage”. Describing the cow as a “giver of all providing riches to humanity”, the board said it “sustains our life and the rural economy”.
Set up in 1962, the animal welfare board is a statutory advisory body that oversees implementation of laws on animal well-being. It is tasked with ensuring compliance of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. “Hugging a cow will bring individual and collective happiness to all,” said SK Dutta, the board’s secretary.
The Modi government carved out a separate ministry for animal husbandry from the ministry of agriculture, which implements a Rashtriya Gokul Mission for development and conservation of indigenous cow breeds. According to the latest breed-wise report of livestock and poultry in India, released by the ministry in May 2022, population of 23 breeds of indigenous cattle declined by 1.08% to 93.48% between 2013 and 2019.
The country has seen a rise in self-styled cow vigilante groups, which have been implicated in violent crackdowns on alleged illegal slaughter and transportation of cows, outlawed by at least 20 Indian states. In a televised speech in August 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi slammed these groups, saying: “I have seen people who indulge in antisocial activities for the whole night but wear the garb of cow protector during the day.”
The government, in its Budget presented on February 1, allocated ₹600 crore for the Rashtriya Gokul Mission in 2023-24, the same amount it had provisioned for the ongoing fiscal year.
