The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi
[ Encyclopedia of Gandhi's Thoughts ]

Chapter-82: Co-operative Cattle Farming

IT IS quite impossible for an individual farmer to look after the welfare of his cattle in his own home in a proper and scientific manner. Amongst other causes, lack of collective effort has been a principal cause of the deterioration of the cow and hence of cattle in general. The world today is moving towards the ideal of collective or co-operative effort in every department of life. Much in this line has been and is being accomplished. It has come into our country also, but in such a distorted form that our poor have not been able to reap its benefits. PARI PASSU with the increase in our population, land holdings of the average farmer are daily decreasing. Moreover, what the individual possesses is often fragmentary. For such farmers to keep cattle in their home is a suicidal policy; and yet this is their condition today. Those who give the first place to economics and pay scant attention to religious, ethical or humanitarian considerations proclaim from the house-tops that the farmer is being devoured by his cattle due to the cost of their feed which is out of all proportion to what they yield. They say it is folly not to slaughter wholesale all useless animals. What then should be done by humanitarians is the question. The answer obviously is to find a way whereby we may not only save the lives of our cattle, but also see that they do not become a burden. I am sure that co-operative effort can help us in a large measure. The following comparison may be helpful: Under the collective system, no farmer can keep cattle in his house as he does today. They foul the air, and dirty the surroundings. There is neither intelligence nor humanitarianism in living with animals. Man was not meant to do so. The space taken up by the cattle today would be spared to the farmer and his family if the collective system were adopted. As the number of cattle increases, life becomes impossible to the farmer in his home. Hence he is obliged to sell the calves and kill the male buffaloes or else turn them out to starve and die. This inhumanity would be averted if the care of the cattle were undertaken on a co-operative basis. Collective cattle farming would ensure the supply of veterinary treatment to animals when they are ill. No ordinary farmer can afford this on his own. Similarly, one selected bull can be easily kept for the need of several cows under the collective system. This is impossible otherwise except for charity. Common grazing ground or land for exercising the animals will be easily available under the co-operative system, whereas today, generally, there is nothing of the kind for individual farmers. The expense on fodder will be comparatively far less under the collective system. The sale of mild at good prices will be greatly facilitated and there will be no need or temptation for the farmer to adulterate it as he does as an individual.

It is impossible to carry out tests of the fitness of every head of cattle individually, but this could easily be done for the cattle of a whole village and would thus make it easier to improve the breed. The foregoing advantages should be sufficient argument in favour of co-operative cattle farming. The strongest argument in its favour is that the individualistic system has been the means of making our own condition as well as that of our cattle pitiable. We can only save ourselves and them by making this essential change. I firmly believe too that we shall not derive the full benefits of agriculture until we take to co-operative farming. Does it not stand to reason that it is far better for a hundred families in a village to cultivate their lands collectively and divide the income therefore than to divide the land anyhow into a hundred portions? And what applies to land applied equally to cattle. It is quite another matter that it may be difficult to convert people to adopt this way of life straightaway. The straight and narrow road is always hard to traverse. Every step in the programme of cow service is strewn with thorny problems. But only by surmounting difficulties can we hope to make the path easier. My purpose for the time being is to show the great superiority of collective cattle farming over the individual effort. I hold further that the latter is wrong and the former only is right. In reality, even the individual can only safeguard his independence through co-operation. In cattle farming, the individual effort has led to selfishness and inhumanity, whereas the collective effort can abate both the evils, if it does not remove them altogether.

(H, 5-2-1942, p. 39)