Mahatma [On Hold]

The Cow

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The Cow

The cow is a poem of pity. One read pity in the gentle animal. She is the mother to millions of Indian mankind. Protection of the cow means protection of the whole dumb creation of God. The ancient seer, whoever he was, began with the cow. The appeal of the lower order of creation is all the more forcible because it is speechless.

The cow is the purest type of sub-human life. She pleads before us on behalf of the whole of the sub-human species for justice to it at the hands of man, the first among all that lives. She seems to speak to us, through her eyes: 'You are not appointed over us to kill is and eat our flesh or otherwise ill-treat us, but to be our friend and guardian.

I worship it and I shall defend its worship against the whole world.

- M. K. Gandhi

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