Amidst the Congress government’s efforts to “desaffronise” government school textbooks, an AHINDA (Minorities-Backward Classes-Dalits) version of the popular Kannada folk ballad ‘Govina Haadu’ is being proposed by the movement representatives for inclusion in school lessons. The effort is to counter to an RSS version of the story introduced a couple of years ago.
The original ‘Govina Haadu’, or the ‘Cow’s Song’, tells the tale of a cow, Punyakoti, who promises the hungry tiger Arbudha that she will feed her calf and return to become his prey. The tiger lets her go after a dramatic promise of truth and honour. She goes to her cowshed, feeds her calf, tells him he is an orphan and returns to the tiger. Stunned by her act, the tiger refuses to kill her and, instead, commits suicide.
The song, originally part of the state’s oral tradition, has been part of Kannada textbooks for decades and and was further popularised by All India Radio.
In 2010, Hindi textbooks for Class 8 introduced another version as a story, which was in place till last year. In this version, the tiger does not kill itself, but swears that henceforth, it will not eat cows.
“This is the RSS stand on the issue on beef-eating and they have made a tiger say this! We have been protesting it and demanding its removal from the textbooks,” says activist and journalist Indudhar Honnapura. This has been amended by the Congress government in the 2013 textbooks with the tiger just praising the straight-forward and honest nature of the cow.
“Such a poem in textbooks affects children of Dalits, Muslims and Christians in Karnataka who eat beef as part of their routine diet. Why should the story be amended to suit the sentiments of those against cow slaughter?’’ asks former Backward Classes Commission chairperson C S Dwarakanath.
Dwarakanath is one of the originators of the AHINDA movement, which was later fronted by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
Poet-playwright K Y Narayanaswamy has now penned the AHINDA version of Govina Haadu, titled Huliya Haadu. “The best way to counter a move is to make another version of the same move,” he says.
In his poem, it is not a tiger, but a tigress who wants to feed her hungry cub, by claiming Punyakoti as prey. The cub persuades the tigress to let Punyakoti go feed her calf and return. In the end, the tigress and Punyakoti understand each other as mothers, and Punyakoti returns home. The tigress, however, is killed by the cowherd Kaliga, who shoots her while “hiding behind the Taati tree/like Sri Raama killed Vaali”.
The poem underlines the non-vegetarian point of view with: “A tiger that can eat grass/is not there in the world we see.” And it ends poignantly with the tiger cub asking: “Oh sisters and oh brothers/All you living, breathing beings/How can I live without hunting?/Answer now, the cub’s call.”
Narayanaswamy says he wrote this ballad in the background of intense discussions in the Legislative Assembly on the Cow Slaughter Bill passed by the previous BJP government. The Bill, pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, bans killing of cows under any circumstances. Karnataka’s existing Bill permits slaughter of old and ailing cows.
Dwarakanath says the Narayanaswamy ballad balances out the forces of nature and takes into account the welfare of both the cow and the tiger. “It reflects the cruelty of man, rather than criticise the animal kingdom.
