The movement to protect cows is known as the Cow Protection Movement
A broad word describing a grassroots conservative Hindu movement to outlaw the killing of animals, especially cows.
For more than a century, traditional Hindu devotion to the cow has been expressed in demands for a ban on cow slaughter.
Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of the reformist Arya Samaj, made the first call in 1875.
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Later orthodox Hindu-oriented organizations, including as the Hindu Mahasabha, the Ram Rajya Parishad, and the Vishva Hindu Parishad, continued to make this demand.
Even in modern times, the demand for this prohibition resurfaces from time to time, since it is backed by many religiously orthodox Hindus.
The desire for cow protection continues to have significant political ramifications.
Swami Dayanand Saraswati's activity in the late 1800s coincided with the emergence of Indian political awareness and the start of the fight to reclaim power from British imperialism.
Overt political opposition was severely restricted by the British administration, and open revolt was unthinkable.
The call for a ban on cow slaughter was a means for Hindus to establish and define their identity, and by implication confirm that India was a Hindu country, since the British did not usually meddle with “religious” matters.
The Hindu-Muslim divide was exacerbated by the Cow Protection Movement, since Hindus revere cows while Muslims consume them.
Muslims viewed the call for a ban on cow slaughter as a thinly disguised effort to maintain Muslim position as second-class citizens, while Hindus saw it as a blatant breach of their religious sensitivities.
Communal relations were especially tense during the annual Muslim holiday of Id, when it is customary for each household to sacrifice an animal, with cattle being sacrificed by many of the more wealthy Muslim families.
Cow slaughter (or rumors of cow slaughter) was often mentioned as the catalyst for communal riots in which hundreds of people were murdered when the relationship between these two groups worsened in the 1930s.
This tension still exists in contemporary India, but it has only rarely devolved into violence since the country was partitioned in 1947.
The government of modern India was established as a secular state that does not favor any one religious group.
Despite repeated demands from traditional Hindus, the Indian government has been hesitant to enact laws prohibiting cow slaughter.
Faced with the realities of being a minority in a Hindu-majority state, the Indian Muslim community has had to be much more circumspect about when and how cow slaughter occurs.
