Anti-Hindu hate, disdain for feminine representation in Sanatan and more: Why do Muslims want to slaughter only the cow despite not being mandatory in Islam

India is home to diverse religions and cultures. Constitutionally secular, India, that is Bharat, is rooted in the Hindu Sanatan consciousness. Our country has long covered up confrontations emerging from contradictions in religious beliefs with ‘secularism’ and ‘tolerance’. Cow slaughter exemplifies confrontation. Muslims in India ‘celebrate’ Eid by slaughtering certain animals, mainly goats, on this occasion. However, there have been incidents of this ‘minority’ slaughtering cows and even reaching courts to seek permission for the same, despite knowing that cows are sacred for Hindus. Recently, the Calcutta High Court dismissed a batch of petitions, including the petitions filed by ‘secular’ political parties, Trinamool Congress and the CPIM, challenging the notification issued by the Suvendu Adhikari government, which prohibited Qurbani of cows and bulls on Eid-ul-Adha or Bakrid. The High Court upheld the notification issued by the BJP government in West Bengal and stated that the sacrifice of a cow was neither a part of the festival of Eid-ul-Adha nor was it a requirement under Islam. A similar ruling was also delivered by the Madras High Court on 27th May. Constitution on cow protection and landmark court rulings Under Article 48, a Directive Principle of State Policy (DPSP), the Constitution of India mandates the State to endeavour to prohibit the slaughter of cows, calves, and other milch and draught cattle. Although as a DPSP, Article 48 is non-binding, it is fundamentally meant to guide the government in policymaking and legislation. While several states have enacted cow protection laws, Kerala, some northeastern states, and West Bengal (until now) do not enforce a blanket ban on cow slaughter. In the Mohammad Hanif Quareshi & Ors. Vs. State of Bihar (1975) case, a five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court decided on the challenge to a ban on cow slaughter in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. The challenge was put forth on the grounds of a violation of fundamental rights. The Supreme Court held that since cow slaughter is not an essential practice in Islam, there is no question of a conflict with the right to religious freedom under Article 25. In the 2005 State of Gujarat v. Mirzapur Moti Kureshi Kassab Jamat case, a seven-judge Supreme Court bench ruled that the Bombay Animal Preservation (Gujarat Amendment) Act, 1994, which imposed a complete ban on the slaughter of cows and bulls, was constitutionally valid. Constitution and courts believe cows should be protected from slaughter, but Muslims don’t Eid al-Adha commemorates the Islamic prophet Ibrahim’s supposed willingness to slaughter his son Ismail, as an act of submission to Allah. While Ibrahim performed Qurbani of his son, Muslims don’t follow his example exactly. As per the Quran, Muslims can slaughter goats, sheep, cows, buffaloes, and camels for Eid al-Adha. However, there is no Quranic mandate requiring cow slaughter specifically for Qurbani, although cow meat consumption is considered ‘Halal’ (permissible). While the Constitution’s DPSP and court state that cow slaughter should be prohibited, a significant section of Muslims take delight is disregarding what the Constitution, which they brandish when convenient, and slaughter cows to deliberately hurt Hindu sentiments. What is Aghnya for Hindus is ‘Halal’ for Muslims In the Hindu Sanatan Dharma, the cow is revered as Gau Mata, symbolising motherhood, nourishment, purity, non-violence, and a life-giver. Vedas describe cows as “Aghnya” or “not to be harmed or killed”. In the Hindu scriptures, particularly the Rig Ved and the Atharv Ved, cows are directly equated with abundance, purity, divinity, and sustenance. Cow milk and other derivative products are essential to Vedic yajnas and other rituals. The Rig Ved 1.164.27 hymn, “Aghnyeyam sā vardhatām mahate saubhagāya” says he aghnya cow (not to be killed) brings us health and prosperity. The Vedic texts even mandate punishments, including banishment or execution, for those who slaughter cows. However, after centuries of Islamic invasions, British colonialism, and decades of Congress rule, Hindu beliefs, traditions, and pride have all been suppressed to appease Muslims for political gains, emboldening the otherwise ‘oppressed’ ‘minority’ to slaughter cows, consume cow meat, and even approach court seeking reversal of cow slaughter bans in the name of ‘religious freedom’. The Islamist demeaning of feminine representation in Sanatan In November 2023, the Amreli Sessions Court sentenced three Muslim men, Kasim Haji Solanki, Sattar Ismail Solanki and Akram Haji Solanki to life imprisonment for slaughtering cows. During a raid by the Amreli Sessions Court, a house in the Motakhatkiwad area of Baharpara village was raided following a tip-off. The police recovered 40 kg of animal meat from the residence of the three named Muslim men. In March 2025, a police team found the remains of a calf in a field in a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Shamli district. A man named Sameer was sentenced to life imprisonment under the National Security Act, for killing two calves and a cow in the forest during last year’s Holi season.  In February this year, a Muslim mob attacked Hindu gau rakshaks and police with sharp weapons during an operation to stop cow slaughter in Gujarat’s Surat. The Muslim butchers wanted to slaughter cows during the Islamic month of Ramzan despite the fact that cow slaughter is strictly banned in the state. On 27th February, the Allahabad High Court upheld the detention of Sikandar, Saiyyaj Ali, and Hasnen for slaughtering cows during the Hindu festival of Navratri in Uttar Pradesh’s Jalaun. The accused trio was arrested on 31st March after the police seized approximately two to 3 quintals of beef, knives, and other materials.  There have been numerous such cases wherein remains of cows have been found dumped in drains and in secluded areas, eventually leading to Muslims who butchered cows. In fact, in recent years, there have been incidents wherein Muslims have deliberately slaughtered cows and thrown their remains inside Hindu temples to mock and provoke Hindus. Over the years, there has been a significant increase in incidents of throwing meat pieces in front of temples, with Muslims being the culprits in most cases. In Assam’s Muslim-dominate Dhubri a cow head was found near a Hanuman temple on Bakrid in 2025. Similarly, a cow was slaughtered near a Hindu temple located in a Hindu-majority area in Assam’s Sribhumi district on Bakrid or Eid-ul-Adha. In Goalpara, Hazrat Ali and 4 others dumped the severed head of a cow near Kali Mandir. In June 2025, 7 Muslim men were arrested after cow skulls were recovered near a prayer hall in Assam’s Lakhimpur. In October 2024, Islamists hurled meat pieces at Hindus during a Navratri procession. In 2021, 4 cows were slaughtered in Delhi’s Kalindi Kunj and their remains were thrown near the temple OpIndia documented similar incidents from Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and other states in recent years, wherein cow meat, severed heads, and other remains have been thrown inside Hindu temples, in a clear act of mocking Hindus and their religious beliefs. Besides slaughtering cows on Eid and throwing cow remains inside Hindu temples, there have been cases wherein Muslims were caught selling samosas stuffed with cow meat to unsuspecting Hindus. In April 2024, Gujarat Police raided a Vadodara-based samosa shop, ‘Huseni Samosa center’, and arrested six persons, including eatery owners Imran Yusuf Qureshi and Naeem Sheikh, for selling samosas stuffed with beef (cow meat). In April 2023, an eatery run by Ahmad Mohammad and Chacha Ajim Bhai in Gujarat’s Navasi was found to be selling cow meat-stuffed samosas, calling them chicken and mutton samosas. Over the years, there have been thousands of reported cases of love jihad, wherein Muslim men would lure Hindu women by feigning love and sometimes faking religious identity, establish sexual relations on a marriage pretext, blackmail, impose Islamic dressing like Hijab or Burqa, and eventually force them into converting to Islam and marrying them. A common practice found in most such cases is the force-feeding of cow meat to Hindu women. Be it cow slaughter or the force-feeding of cow meat of Hindu women, these acts by Islamists are essentially meant to mock and humiliate Hindus and violate the sanctity of Hindu femininity. From Durga Puja, Navratri, and Chhath to the worship of holy rivers like Ganga, Yamuna, and Saraswati, among others, as deities or Devi, Hindu Dharma places special significance on divine feminine representation. In Islamic tradition, on the contrary, women are treated as second-class subjects, whose identities revolve around their male ‘protectors’. Islamic texts prescribe that Muslim women fully cover their bodies, perform namaz at home, go out only when accompanied by a male Mehram, and men are allowed to take four wives and even lay down the procedure of wife-beating. While Muslim men are mandated to protect and almost hide their women, Islamic texts allow Kafir women as spoils of war or Maal-e-ghanimat. In fact, many contemporary Islamic scholars have also commented on how Islam allows Muslims to take women as sex slaves and rape them as acts of humiliation during Jihad against Kafirs or infidels, essentially, non-Muslims. This reminds one of how Pakistani Islamists sat on podcasts and national television in May last year, to discuss how they would take Hindu women, particularly, specific Bollywood actresses as ‘Maal-e-Ghanimat’ after ‘defeating’ India in the war. This perverted mindset that kafir women are tools of humiliating kafir men and their religion is shared by fundamentalist Muslims across the world. From individual rape jihad cases, Muslim rape gangs in India targeting Hindu women, to Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs in the UK, Islamists use weaponised rape as a means of religious conquest and supremacy establishment. The love jihad cases in Kerala, and the recent TCS Nashik conversion jihad case, show how even Muslim women sometimes aid their male coreligionists in targeting Hindu women for rape jihad and conversion to Islam. Slaughtering cows or raping Kafir women, Islamists consider it a religious duty to insult non-Muslims, especially the idol-worshipping Hindus, since idol-worship is described as the worst of sins in the Quran. On social media, Muslim men have created highly derogatory hashtags wherein they publish their rape fantasies involving Hindu women in India and non-Muslim women across the world. These are some contemporary examples of how fourth and fifth-generation descendants of the Hindu victims of Islamic invaders exhibit their hatred for Hindus. In fact, even during the medieval era, when Islamic barbarians invaded India, they would often place cows before their armies as a war tactic, knowing that Hindus revere cows and won’t attack them.