“If the cow is truly our mother, and we all believe that it is, then how can we tolerate practices which are akin to rape?”
AMN /NEW DELHI
India’s Gau Rakshak might have been fighting over beef, but a group of people in the country are even concerned over milking a cow.
A New Delhi-based NGO, Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organizations (FIAPO) -working for animal rights believes that drinking milk is exceptionally cruel to cows, and – as a beverage – completely unnecessary for the health of adults.
According to timesofindia.com the NGO will launch ‘Don’t Get Milked”, an online campaign next week, that will seeks to question, and reverse the “exploitative” relationship between modern dairy consumers and animals.
“Let’s begin with the birth of a calf. No sooner than the baby is born, it’s separated from its mother – a devastating trial both for both animals. While female calves are allowed to live, most male calves – which won’t grow up to produce milk – are simply sold to slaughterhouses or abandoned on the streets,” said Arpan Sharma, a director at FIAPO, to timesofindia.com.
With her offspring gone, the mother doesn’t have a psychological trigger to help her lactate, that is, produce milk. “The only way to get milk out of her then is to inject her with the hormone oxytocin. It’s illegal to do so , but all dairies use the hormone,” Sharma said.
As for the female calves that are spared the trip to the abattoir, when they grow old, they’ll be forced to become pregnant through artificially insemination – a process that Sharma says involves forced vaginal penetration. “If the cow is truly our mother, and we all believe that it is, then how can we tolerate practices which are akin to rape?” he asked.
Life on a dairy farm is no picnic either. Animals aren’t allowed to move around freely and are tethered using short leashes or confined in extremely small spaces. And since they spend most of their time on concrete floors, up to 95% of them become lame.
Aside from humans, no other mammal species consumes milk produced by another mammal species, Sharma said. “Humans do need to consume milk – their mothers’ – but only up to a certain age. If they needed it after that, nature would’ve done something about it,” Sharma believes.