Among the rituals and cultural practices that India possess, one of the most unusual practice is the way the Indians pay reverence to the inhabited cows. The Hindus give more priority to their spiritual beliefs than their own lives. For example, in the famine of late 60’s people were seen begging for food whereas the cows were seen passing by them undisturbed. Hindus have certain devotion for cows, they praise them and worship them. They are reactionary to any discrimination against cows. This practice has not come from any religious belief because the early Hindus have not prohibited the eating of beef. The evolution of the cow worshipping has come with the recent development of the Hindu religion. In 200 A.D, the slaughtering of cows and the beef consumption has been made restricted and the prohibition of these has been enforced by 1000 A.D. The cows do not have much contribution to the dairy food of India. The main source of investment for the farmers are the female buffaloes. Zebu calves are also important as oxen comes from bulls and these bulls play an active role in the agricultural system of South East Asia. Indian farmers are highly dependent on their bullocks and so are they very much concerned about all other preparations required for a better production. The cow is considered to be a sacred species because it produces oxen as well as help in farming land. The arrival of the monsoon is always very uncertain and during droughts the cows do not reproduce and stop lactating, and so the law against killing cows and keeping them alive so that they can later produce oxen have brought back the recovery of the agricultural system from the failure of the monsoon. Western cattle farming is very different than that of the Indians. The Bengalese cattle only live by eating the inedible remains of the available crops, whereas in United States, it is found that the livestock takes 91 percent of human consuming food. The Indian cattle produces manures of which 70% is used as fuel for cooking and the rest is returned to the fields as it acts as a good fertilizer. When a cow dies, an Untouchable, a lower ranking caste in India handle it, they sell the leather in factory and cook the meat and eat it despite the prohibition in the Hindu religion. The Indians violate the laws but still worship the cows, as it is a revered animal as far as their culture is concerned. Thus as centuries go by, Hindus keep themselves away from eating beef and now it has become a taboo. The beef is a taboo and the cow has thus become sacred to the Indians and their society.

Mores: Mores are strongly held norms with moral and ethical connotations that may not be violated without serious consequences in a particular culture. The killing or the slaughtering of cows is strictly prohibited in Hindu religion and the people are severely punished if they violate this law. For example, in Nepal, a US official accidentally killed a cow while driving the car on the road, and he is supposed to be arrested for murder according to the law, but in order to avoid it, as it is an international accident, the Nepalese magistrate avoided it by saying that the cow has committed suicide.

Ethnocentrism: Ethnocentrism is the practice of judging all other cultures by ones own culture. Western agronomists and economists think that the zebu cattle can improve the farming better if there is organised breeding, programs, cultivated pastures and silage. They think of adopting new technologies in Indian agriculture so as to get higher production. But it has been found that in a study of Livestock production in US, that 91 percent of food consumption is used by the livestock whereas in the other hand cattles in South east Asia are going far ahead with consuming only inedible remains of crops with almost no cost. This is how ones culture is justified by comparing it to another cuture.

Taboos: Taboos are mores that are very strong and their violation is considered to be extremely offensive and even unmentionable. Books like "The earliest Vedas", the texts from the first millenium B.C, says about the strict taboo in beef consumption as well as the ritual slaughtering of cows. By 200 AD, the ritual of slaughtering and the consumption of beef has been made restricted and the Brahman priesthood exhorted the people as well to worship the cow and pay respect to them. By 1000 A.D, Hindus are all forbidden to eat beef. Henceforth, the cow taboo has taken its modern form and from then on, the Hindus follow by this ritual.

Hindu customs are nonetheless strange but starving to death leaving food by your side and not having them, is something very irrational. Moreover, when Hindus are working in the underworld with the Muslims by trading business like selling cows for slaughtering, especially during the "Eid-ul-azha" (where muslims sacrifice cows and have feasts as it’s a holy day according to their traditions) is very defaming to ones religion. Culture, as the meaning is unveiled from the word itself, means the rituals, traditions, knowledge, beliefs, style of expressing one’s views and opinions, in other words, it is the way of living in a society. The rituals that Indians have followed and are still following now are something very bizarre indeed but as a matter of fact, taking into account of all other benefits that they are getting out of those are something to be appreciated of.

As I have gone through all these writings on Indian culture, the most eye catching paragraph is the one where they mentioned about Islam, Hindus have found it expedient to prevent the slaughtering of cows, their sacred animals at one time, so as to set themselves of the invaders (muslims) which I have found very interesting as their customs are related to politics as well. They also talked about West Bengalis cattles and their farming, being a Bangali, I have seen how hard our farmers work in our village, their hard labors is what really counts when we talk about the ultimate agricultural production.