What’s With the Cow Vigilantism for Bags, Hainji?
A rich aunty writes how the cow vigilantism on carrying cow hide bags has left her confused and angry.
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Dekho ji, you cow vigilantes have really upset me with all this nonsense, of heckling a 24-year-old man in Mumbai who was suspected of carrying a leather bag made of cowhide.
You know, you guys are threatening to take away my right to flaunt cowhide bags on my sleeve – my lovely rust grain bag with off-white Nappa finish, designed by my friend, that I got for a discounted price of Rs 9,000 and my Fossil tan brown pouch, that I get so many compliments for, every time I take it out.
Frankly ji, now every time I pull out my wallet, I am going to be scared for my safety. Will these vigilantes reach GK, too? Why can’t they just let the rich live in peace!
But God swear ji, before being a South Delhi babe, I am a devout Hindu first. So I, too, will feel bad that our dear cow mata is being slaughtered to make bags. Rest of the animals I can tolerate... but cow? No, ji.
But my designer friend says that cowhide bags are nice and sturdy and perfect for travel and daily use. She’s also trying to assuage my guilt by telling me that most of the hides that are used by designers are taken from cows already dead.
But I smell something rotten (not the chemicals used to treat the hides, silly!). Never mind, I will get to the bottom of this. So to get down to investigate whether my bags’ mama was alive or dead while she was being skinned, I rang my designer and asked where and how she sourced her leather from? She told me she gets hers all the way from Kolkata. She also added that she tries to source genuine leather, with proper authentication and all, from places where it is sold as a byproduct of the meat industry, which means that the animal is killed for meat first and its skin sold as an after-product later.
But my other activist-friend, from PETA-sheta, showed me a disgusting documentary that shows how in the tanneries of Kolkata and other Indian cities, cows are driven to slaughter and left for days without food or water. And how those who become too exhausted to walk are smeared with chilli peppers in their eyes to keep them moving. Haaye ram, tauba tauba! This is horrible.
Technically speaking, since cow slaughter is banned almost everywhere in India, cowhide can only be taken from those cows that died a natural death. But given how we have such a robust export vyapaar of cow leather products, surely people aren’t so honest that they will wait for an animal to die in order to skin her and sell her hide, right? The export numbers, and the number of cows that die every year, simply don’t match – a fact observed by PETA. That means, to meet the demand, many more cows are being killed for their hide.
Ab main kya karoon, I am stuck in the worst moral dilemma ever faced by a fashionable Hindu. All I wanted was genuine leather. Ek to waise hi I can’t afford crocodile skin bags like Mrs. Gupta. And now you’ll take away my cow skin, too?
Chalo, I hope at least the designer boutiques where I get my bags from, get their leather from acchha wala tanneries, where the animal is used for food first, and her leather sold as a byproduct later. I could live with that. I am a little environmentally conscious, but not rabid about it, you know!
But these *Guardian people say that to think that your leather bag was made from a dead animal is largely wishful thinking.
Now, I straight away go to my designer friends, and ask them point blank, ki bhai maamla kya hai? Am I ethically buying my bags or no?
But oh meinu kende hain, ki they all try. Bada mushkil ho jaanda hai, they tell me, to go over to the source of the leather and check for the ethical part. And they say that often, tanneries also pay bribes to get the required authentications in place. Though they are all good companies on paper, the site, they say, is different on the ground. Either these designers and big brands are casually feigning ignorance, or they have something to hide.
But say whatever ji, aakhir dil hai 100 percent Hindu only ji. I would much rather prefer that my friends make me bags where the cows are not killed. But other animals are starved to death so that their skin can be sold to ahinsak tanneries, who in turn sell it to ahinsak designers, who in turn sell it to ahinsak people like me.
Regards,
Pummy
(*The Guardian’s Don’t Hide From the Truth.)
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