Tuesday 12 January 2016

The Badmash Peepal: Saving cows with a little help from Lord Krishna

An ex-Silicon Valley entrepreneur and an American community worker are doing something new to save cows from the wrath of earthlings.
Robin Singh and Joellen Anderson are not passionate cow protectors with a Hindutva agenda. But two apolitical beings trying to help cows with a little help from Lord Krishna.,The saviour of cows.
Singh and Anderson are trying to put the fear of god into farmers guilty of harming cows.

Singh and Anderson call themselves the Badmash Peepal. And their project to save the cows of Dharamsala is CultureJam#01.
"Like the miscreant Peepal tree which takes root and dismantles existing structures, we subvert the cultural status-quo to foster compassion and good work," says Singh.
"Cows enter fields and get beaten by farmers. Farmers do have a choice to chase them away with water and that is the only legal choice. Still, they use sticks and sickles and cows lose horns and get fractures and maggot wounds. This is not right. We thought if they are not afraid of the law, maybe they will be afraid of the Lord."

On January 3, Singh and Anderson made cows sport jerseys of gunny sacks with markings of Lord Krishna and a quote, "This cow is mine", in Hindi.
"Hopefully, when the farmers are chasing away stray cows from their fields, they won't at least hit them with rocks or sticks or sickles."

Singh and Anderson believe in not only doing good, but enabling people to do good. Culture Jamming is one of the ways to bring about change.
"It's poor man's advertising. It gets the attention of 95 percent people that awareness does not. Our work on the ground, helping one animal at a time, only goes so far. It has inherent benefit to the animal being treated and sets a good example of compassion."

Image/News source- Catch News

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