Do India's Cows Have Special Powers? Government Curriculum Is Ridiculed - The New York ... - 0 views
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Indian students were hitting the books hard in preparation for a big test on cows, reading that India’s cows have more emotions than foreign ones, and that their humps have special powers.
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But facing widespread ridicule, this weekend the government abruptly postponed the first exam based on a new curriculum, pushed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.
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Critics said the curriculum, devised by the National Cow Commission set up by Mr. Modi’s government, was an especially bold move by his ruling party to push its ideology and undercut the secularism that is enshrined in India’s Constitution but seems to be increasingly imperiled with each passing day.
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“This is very weird, this exam,” said Komal Srivastava, an official for the India Knowledge and Science Society, a nonprofit educational group.
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India is 80 percent Hindu, but it is also home to large Muslim, Sikh, Christian and other religious minorities. Since Mr. Modi came to power in 2014, his party has embarked on a steady, intense and divisive campaign to make India more of an overtly Hindu state.
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Cows have become a special flash point. Since Mr. Modi came to power, Hindu nationalist lynch mobs have killed dozens of people in the name of protecting cows.
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The study material in the new course was designed by the cow commission, which falls under the Ministry of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, and was widely circulated online in several languages, including English.
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In 2019, Mr. Modi’s government established the National Cow Commission with the express purpose of protecting cows. Its website lists, among other objectives, “proper implementation of laws with respect to prohibition of slaughter and/or cruelty to cows.”
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The material that students were asked to absorb for the exam, however, made baseless claims, like one that inside the hump of the Indian cow “there is a solar pulse which is known to absorb vitamin D from the sun’s rays and release it in its milk.”
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The test was not made mandatory, but India’s University Grants Commission, a federal agency, encouraged students — in fact, all citizens — to study the material and take the exam as an extracurricular activity.
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Nivedita Menon, a professor of political theory at one of India’s premier educational institutions, Jawaharlal Nehru University, said the government was trying to “completely undo research and critical thinking.”