India Postpones Cow Science Exam
India is home to 51 breeds of indigenous cattle (Pixabay).
The 500,000 university and public school students who planned to take the Gau Vigyan (cow science) exam in India on February 25 received an announcement from the Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog (RKA), notifying them of the test’s indefinite postponement due to administrative reasons. The RKA is India’s government-appointed advisory board that oversees the conservation and development of indigenous cow species.
The Gau Vigyan has garnered intense scrutiny following backlash from scientific organizations in India. The test, which emphasizes the importance of India’s 51 breeds of indigenous cattle, advocates for their protection, and lists the economic and cultural benefits of the cows’ products, was even endorsed by India’s University Grants Commission (UGC) Students in schools nation-wide were encouraged to take part in the exam.
However, the UGC’s endorsement led to widespread criticism from India’s scientific community, as many claims from the exam’s syllabus have little to no scientific backing. One portion of the test’s reference material reads, “There is a solar pulse [inside the hump of an Indian cow] which is known to absorb vitamin D from the sun’s rays and release it in its milk.” The test material also included claims that cow milk had healing properties which could fight diabetes, joint pain, asthma, and mental illness.
The Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad, an outspoken scientific council in India, demanded that the exam not be held on the grounds that the test material was scientifically invalid. A spokesperson for the organization said, “It's a disgrace that a government agency in a country with a constitution, which [emphasizes] scientific awareness, was associating in spreading superstitious propaganda.”
International critics have linked the scientifically inaccurate test, and the mere existence of a cow commission like the RKA, with the efforts to enforce Hindu ideology led by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling party. Modi’s administration has been accused of supporting anti-Muslim legislation and altering portions of history textbooks that include Muslim leadership in India. Since Modi’s victory in 2014, Hindu nationalists have lynched dozens of minorities in India in order to protect cows from being slaughtered; oftentimes, those involved in the lynchings are not held accountable.
Critics have also drawn attention to the UGC’s endorsement of the cow exam as a testament to the influence of Hindu nationalist groups. The Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad condemned the endorsement, saying, “It's shocking that the UGC, an apex body of university education in the country, is encouraging the students to take part in an exam based on an unscientific text full of blunders.”