“Cow has four legs, two ears and one tail. It gives milk which we drink. From the milk we can make butter, ghee and curd.” the five-year-old kid was pestering his grandfather to hear his recitation. But the grand father was too glued to the TV news. The din blazing out on the TV screen soon caught the kid’s attention. Some people were thrashing few men mercilessly. The grandfather explained the news on Alwar thrashing to the quizzical child. The child left the room quietly and asked his mother, “listen to essay on cow. If I forget then will I also be thrashed like the person on TV?.”

The mother tried to dissuade her child from the effect of the Alwar news of thrashing by cow vigilantes. She made him rehearse repeatedly. Later in the day she took him out for a walk in order to give him a live demo so as to make a lasting impression on the tender mind and to make him believe that cow is not about violence. It is only about milk and the by products. The boy very dedicatedly tried to make a sketch which could be considered an innocent expression of a manifestation that meant cow to the kid but was nothing short of an amusement for the grown-ups. The child was happy because by now he knew what cow was all about and his mother was excited to see her child gain enough confidence to give a lecture on cow. The cow is so very holy. From time immemorial each child in this part of world must have recited similar lines in childhood.

Despite the notion of halo of ‘holiness’ which we lesser mortals tend to remember as per our convenience and suitability, cow/bull have been mostly looked upon as nuisance, roaming aimlessly on the roads, holding traffic and often gobbling up the polythene in search of food. But, all this has gone for a sudden change. Never before have we been as conscious of the four-legged holiness as of now. Switch on the TV and out pops a photo op not with a film star or cricketer but with a ‘sweet faced innocent looking’ cow. The cow is patted on the head, given fresh greens and jaggery to eat and held closely for that immortal click.

The poor cow must surely be wondering at the nowadays special handling: the cleanliness in gau shalas, the sudden abundance in food, the hundreds of cameras zooming on them and mobiles flashing may be a selfie even! The cow is happily munching a chara which not very long ago was devoured by the likes of Laloo Yadav in Bihar. Poor cow, the victim in the Chara gotala case is now at the centre stage of politics! It is a Cow 2.0 moment today.

 The usually foul smelling gau shalas have become the spots for bonding and power show. Mulayam Singh’s chote bahu scored a major point when she got the newly crowned Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath to visit her gau shala in Lucknow. While it took a great effort for her father-in-law to get his ‘rebellious’ son to meet PM Modi in the Yogi swearing-in ceremony, the cake seems to have been taken by the smart chote bahu who got the Yogi to play with her cow. May be this should be regarded as the smart ‘cow-politics’. She even made her rugged looking Lamborghini loving husband to stand tame for the photo op with cow.

No one could have foreseen the immense potential in cow politics. Modi and Amit Shah could and they merrily milked their way in the prestigious polls of Uttar Pradesh which has generated a world-wide interest.

Cow is the most reverential animal in the Hindu mythology. It absolutes Krishna’s image and the Nandi bull completes a Lord Shiva temple.  Cow transcends caste, creed, community divide. It forges emotional connects in the Hindu plethora. And it is the magic of this connect that Modi is trying to reinvent for his political furtherance.

All other parties have so far played a ball with the Muslims and have tried to fragment the majority Hindu community into caste and community divisions. Their success led to formation of the likes of BSP, SP and so many others. But now all this is set for a big change as the BJP is trying to bring the Hindu amalgamation as one forceful entity. Critics say this is the beginning of setting a stage for the establishment of Hindu Rashtra in the country.

If wishes can make horses fly then surely cow can turn India into a Hindu country. Till then, the cow is the new queen in the country. This means - drive on the road and your skills are put to the best test since you will have to zig zag around the holiness; in case the cow charges at you suddenly, don’t risk throwing a stone at it otherwise zealous mob will stone you back, and last but not the least make your child learn the essay so that he remembers cow-importance for posterity and does not end up writing: Gau meri mata hai, aage kuchh nahi aata hai.