DUNG IS GOLD MINE

Part : 2 - Part: 3 - Part: 4

Part 4: Destruction or Scarcity of Herbal Medicines Means End of Ayurvedic Medical Care for Poor Indian Population

With non availability of dung, our forests also get destroyed and with the destruction of forests, many ayurvedic herbal medicines also became either extinct or scarce. How many people can be treated with the costly Bhasma (oxides of various minerals like Gold, Copper, pearls etc.) and how many patients can afford such Bhasma? On the other hand, medicines under Allopathic system are also very costly and beyond the reach of poor people, and thus a vast majority of poor people living in Indian villages, carry on with illness for life, without any treatment. Herbal medicines are the basis of Ayurvedic system of medicines. Similarly, Bhasmas are also the basis of the system. These Bhasmas must be prepared on fire lit with the help of dung cakes only. If coal or electricity is used to make the Bhasmas, then it will be like running an automobile with kerosene instead of petrol. What happens to an automobile engine if kerosene is used, will also happen to the Bhasmas and the patients who consume such Bhasmas. Many medicines have to be purified before their use and such purification can be done only with the help of dung. In different branches of Ayurveda, paks are made of different medicines, and these paks must also be made on the slow burning dung cake fire only. Nowadays, because they are made on other types of fire, they do not yield the desired results and hence people have started losing faith in Ayurveda. Thus, by stopping the flow of dung and dung cakes to the Ayurvedic system, the government has dealt a death blow to the system and yet they are not tired of talking about providing encouragement to Ayurveda! This is nothing but cheating, and unfortunately the scholars of Ayurveda seem to be enjoying this act of cheating on the part of the government. How could scholars of Ayurveda tolerate this state of affairs, when an age old ancient system is put into such peril. On the one hand they talk of encouraging Ayurveda, and on the other, there is destruction of the most essential aspects of Ayurveda i.e. herbal medicines, cow's milk and cow's ghee, dung and dung cakes. The duplicity of government policy can be seen from such an occurrence. If we have to prevent Ayurveda from dying; the oldest of the medical systems, which is well accepted and which has withstood all the challenges to its principles of diagnosis, treatment etc. for centuries; then it is essential that the government be challenged, its duplicity exposed and it be forced to increase dung cake availability in the interest of this great medical science. If Ayurveda as a science eventually dies, it will be due to inaction and timidity and the urge of Ayurvedic scholars to indulge in false flattery of the government machinery.

Cheap Fuel Has Also Become Costly

Abundant food grains may be cultivated, but what if there is no fuel to cook the food? We cannot eat raw food grains, and for cooking, fuel is necessary. The cheapest and most easily available fuel are dung cakes. It can be available wherever needed. Its flow is unending. Till the time our country had not resorted to animal slaughter, the rural population used to get free dung cakes for fuel. The affluent who used to buy dung cakes had to spend only Rs 3 to 5 in a year. Now people have to use kerosene, which has to be imported from countries which are exploiting to great advantage, the folly of our planners. When Nadirshah came to loot India, he had to cross the Indian border and he also had to fight a fierce battle. Despite this, what he looted from this country and took away with him, was just a drop out of the ocean of the wealth of this nation. Today, the successors of Nadirshah have stormed into the kitchen of every household of our villages with the help of a can of kerosene. They can exploit us at their free will, by increasing the price of kerosene as and when they feel like. They can cut short the supply of kerosene at their will and force us to either eat raw food or to starve or to surrender to the countries who are their allies and who are unfriendly to us. This should make it very clear how valuable is the contribution of even a bullock in the field of fuel, and how the sovereignty and security of the nation is connected with it. Gas and kerosene, once used, are lost forever, and they are not renewable sources of energy. The day their availability becomes extinct, it will lead to starvation. Their prices keep on increasing with their increased use and in addition, they create pollution. With the compulsion to use alternative fuels like kerosene and gas in place of dung cakes, each family has been burdened with an additional annual expense of Rs -1500/ Is it not wiser to save this Rs 1500 by reverting back to dung cakes as fuel? There will be an additional saving of about Rs 75/ per annum for a family which is spent on washing powders, as the ash of dung cakes which will be freely available can serve the same purpose. This saving can be used to provide food, clothing and education to millions of children, and can be utilized for such other noble purposes. Potential value of dung as fuel would be clear from the following small calculation India has a population of about 96 crores; 70% of this population i.e. 67 crore people live in rural areas. Considering 5 persons to a family, it means 13.4 families. Dung fuel if available, can be used by these rural families as was being done only a few decades ago. Due to the non-availability of dung cakes for fuel, other types of fuel are used. For valuation purpose, let us take the value of LPG to assess the fuel cost. The LPG cylinder is on an average priced at Rs 150/ and for a family of 5, one cylinder lasts for about a month. Thus each family has to spend Rs 1800 per annum on cooking fuel. Thus for 13.4 crore families, the fuel cost comes to 13.4 crore x Rs 1800- i.e. Rs 24,120 crore.. Thus theoretically speaking, if the entire rural population reverts to dung cake fuel it will save the nation a whopping burden of Rs 24,120 p.a. which is spent on one or the other form of fuel today. This is the unlimited potential of dung in its utility as fuel.

Effects of Animal Slaughter on Forests vis-à-vis Fuel Shortage.

After independence, the availability of dung cakes reduced drastically. This forced people to use firewood as fuel. The ratio of firewood to food grain price doubled between 1975-85 which made cutting wood for sale economically attractive. Neglect of people's need for cheap and local fuel has made cutting wood for firewood a lucrative trade. A world Bank report quoting figures from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) states that the total extraction of wood in India was 264 million cubic meters in 1988, of which 240 million cubic meters was for fuel. Of the total wood consumed in the country, 90% is for fuel. The remaining 10% comprises timber, pulp-wood and poles.

TABLE 1.11 shows source-wise energy consumption in householder sector

 (Ref. A report of Working Group on Energy Policy 1979 (adapted in the Report of Firewood study Committee appointed by Planning Commission Pub. by CMIE June 1982 Page6)

The Report of Firewood study committee appointed by the Planning Commission in 1981-82 states that "if the present trend continues, the fuel required to cook the food, rather than the food to cook, may pose the greater challenge". According to Dr. Kushoo, an eminent Indian environmentalist, at the current rate of depletion of firewood, 250 million people in the year 2,000 will not be able to cook their food, let alone meet the energy needs. The annual requirement of fuel wood in India by the year 2,000 is estimated to be 200 million tonnes. The shortfall has been estimated to be about 137 tonnes. (Ref: Business Standard, 28 November, 1992) At the Central Board of Ministry of Forest and Environment meeting presided over by the late Prime Minister Shri Rajiv Gandhi, the shortfall of fuel wood was estimated to be around 100 million tons. In order to put further restriction on forest cutting, the government decided to import about 125 million tons of firewood, which would cost Rs. 4,000 crores. The following table shows time taken and distance traveled by villagers for firewood in different regions:

TABLE 1.12 Firewood Collection

Ref: Business Standard dated 2-4-1989)

Cooking and heating requirement of a villager having a family of 5 members, has been calculated to be around 1.25 million Kcal/year. About 20% of this requirement could be met from vegetative waste. Fuel wood would be needed to meet the remaining 80% . As such, 1125 kg of fuel wood would be required by a family annually. A tree of 5 years of age will yield between 100 to 125 kg of fuel wood approximately i.e. 10 trees of around 5 years of age will have to be cut to meet the fuel requirements of one family. ( Ref. Report of the Firewood Study Committee appointed by Planning Commission, June 1982- pp. 27) To make up the gap between demand and supply of firewood, 34 million hectares of land area is required to be planted with fuel wood crops during the next decade, requiring an outlay of Rs. 34,000 crores. According to "Indian Forester, July, 1978" firewood has a heating value of 4708 Kcal/kg and dry dung cake has a heating value of 2092 Kcal/kg. As explained earlier, a tree of 5 years of age will yield 100 to 125 kg of firewood. Dung available from a large animal (cow/bullock/buffalo) will be 5.0 tonnes p.a. Therefore, dry dung available will be 5.4 tonnes x .3 = 1620 kg/annum, which is equivalent to 712.8 kg of wood. Therefore one large animal, if kept alive, saves 6 trees every year. (Report of Firewood study Committee, June 1982 Page 13 and Letter from Punjabrao Krishi Vidyapeeth, Akola, dated 16-4-93) The destruction of forests for firewood will not stop as long as natural  sources of energy from non-wood sources is not made available to villages at their doorsteps. In this situation, it is necessary to increase the supply of cattle (i.e. cow and buffalo) dung cakes to be used as fuel. Dung cake obtained from one cattle is sufficient for a family for a year. Dung cakes are generated within 24 hours only. There are several economic, social and environmental advantages from using dung cakes, because of which it deserves to be considered an ideal energy source. Dung cakes as renewable and safe energy source deserves due recognition. In absence of LPG or kerosene, villagers cut trees for their daily firewood requirement. Since dung of one large animal per annum is equivalent to fuel of 6 trees, crores of trees can be saved by stopping slaughter of animals. India's poverty is closely linked with its increasing deforestation and land degradation. As much as half of the 329 million hectares is considered degraded in one form or another. Satellite imagery in the seventies and eighties, revealed that forests were losing tree cover at the staggering rate of 1.3 million hectares every year. Of 75 million hectares of forest under forest management, 40 million hectares are now without tree cover. The existing plant cover is only about 12% as compared to the ideal of 33%. The area under forest in India is half of what it was 50 years ago. The widening gap between demand and supply of fuel wood is the main cause of fast depletion of forest cover, which in turn has proved to be ecologically disastrous, as denudation leads to soil erosion, floods, shortage of water, loss of food grain production, and destruction of rural economy. (Ref. The Hindu Survey of Indian Environment, 1992 pp 31-37).

Oh! Even Ash, also is not available!

How would you evaluate the value of ash of dung cakes? This ash can save us from the slavery of World Bank! It may not be possible to assign any price in monetary terms to the ash which is left over after cooking on the dung cakes. However, it is very precious. This ash is very, very useful in preservation of food grains. In olden days, the kings used to preserve jowar for their subjects for use during drought year. For preserving jowar to last for years, ash of equal weight was mixed with jowar, and it then could be stored in this way for 12 years without any damage. Even in normal; course people could store food grains for 2 to 3 years in their storage tanks made of clay in each household, by mixing cow dung ash in food grains. Today, due to non-availability of ash, people have forgotten its use. Now we borrow millions of dollars from World Bank for construction of air-conditioned warehouses for storing food grains. Now we resort to spraying of poisonous pesticides on food grains for their preservation, which adversely affects health of people. The World Bank and the multinational pharmaceutical companies are taking advantage of scarcity of dung and dung cakes. An old bullock may not be able to work in the farm or to pull weight, but it is capable of giving dung till its death, and this dung can keep us free from inflation, free from disease and also preserve the sovereignty and integrity of the nation.

Another Important Use of Ash

Cleaning of utensils is one of the routine and essential household chores. For centuries, the cleaning of utensils was done with the help of ash of dung cakes. Now, instead of dung cake, washing powder or other detergent has to be used. The expenses on this head comes to about Rs 75 to Rs 100 per annum per family. What was inexpensive or totally free, now costs crores of rupees for the society as a whole, and the families in the middle class are the worst affected. The middle class families have to curtail their other expenses to meet this expense and the curtailment is either in their food expenses, education or medical expenses. In 1960, an issue was raised in the Supreme Court, that when the nation is spending just Rs 5 per head on education, how was it worthwhile to spend Rs 19 to maintain an old animal. (The argument was presumably to justify animal slaughter) The issue today, is that if we are unable to spend Rs 25 per head on education, is it worthwhile to spend Rs 75 to Rs 100 on an activity like cleaning of utensils? Is it not worthwhile to save this 100 rupees, and spend them on education, by reverting to dung ash as means to clean utensils.

Closure of Schools Imparting Experience-based Knowledge

In villages during winter, people used to make bonfire of dung cakes at night and sit around it talking. The youth helped elderly persons who were suffering from arthritis related problems, by providing them fomentation from fire, and the elderly people used to talk about their own experiences in life, the family traditions, the social customs, the history of the village and thus pass on the rich experience and knowledge to succeeding generations. The local poets used to sing our ancient epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata and thus kept alive the flow of culture in our society. In the absence of dung cakes, these village square assemblies had to discontinue, and thus the young generation was deprived of the flow of knowledge and real history. With the closure of such village square centers, the younger generation diverted itself and drifted to gambling dens and hooch shops. One single animal, be it a cow, bullock or sheep, is much more valuable to the society compared to even a hospital or a college. This is so because the cattle dung creates conditions as described earlier which inculcate into the people the qualities of nursing, organization, social service, passing on knowledge of real history, maintenance and development of religions, social and family feelings and preventing youths from drifting away to gambling dens and hooch.

Destruction of Forests, Wildlife and Vegetation.

With disruption of dung availability, our rich forests also got destroyed. Thousands of full grown giant trees which were destroyed, would value crores and crores of rupees at today's prices. If the dung and dung cakes can preserve and protect these invaluable assets worth crores and crores of rupees, the dung itself can be considered to be worth crores and the value of the animals who provide such dung is naturally much more! It might serve the interest of a few butchers if animals are allowed to be slaughtered, but in preventing such slaughter, the nation would save assets worth crores of rupees and the religion and culture of the entire nation. With the depletion of forests, scarcity of water set in. With scarcity of water, many vegetarian animals such as deer and rabbits died due to thirst. With their death, animals like tigers, panthers, etc. who used to survive on smaller animals, also died due to hunger. Thus, with the gradual depletion of the wildlife, the manure which was available in the forests in the form of their dung and urine, also stopped becoming available. With slaughter of goats and sheep who wander in the forests, the manure in the form of their droppings and urine also became unavailable. Thus, many herbal medicines which used to grow naturally in the forests, also became extinct or became scarce, and lost the effectiveness of their medicinal properties.

Villages Also Fell Prey to Liquor Addiction

Most of the widely prevalent diseases in villages are due to cold and imbalanced elements in the human body (known as VAYU) as also due to various injuries arising out of accidents. In all such diseases, a major therapeutic procedure was fomentation by the dung cake fire. The hot water bag fomentation is not available in villages for prevention from cold, cold related diseases and as protection against severe cold climate. The only way for protection from this was the fire of dung cakes and when this was snatched away, people turned to liquor. They started applying liquor on the body for heat and also started consuming liquor, thus pushing up the demand for liquor, and also increased the number of liquor manufacturers and addicts.

Scarcity of Houses Increased

With non-availability of dung, the scarcity of houses in villages is more than 3 crores. All the cement plants of the country together cannot meet this scarcity. The easiest way out is to increase the availability of cattle dung.

Value of Dung

What is the value of cattle dung? Does this question still need an answer? The value of dung is much more than even the famous Kohinoor diamond. "How is it viable to maintain an old bullock which consumes grass of Rs 700 in a year and in return gives dung and urine worth only Rs 500 ? How absurd, unscientific and hollow this argument is, is clear from what is described below. The market price for any commodity can be manipulated (i.e. increased or decreased) by speculation and hoarding, by administrative measures, or by similar calculated action. But this cannot alter its value. Grass can be priced as Rs 1 per kg or Rs 5 per kg also. But its value as the means to help animals to survive, to feed them and to give them strength cannot be altered. The stalk of food grain plants which becomes useless after removal of food grains from it, is the food for animals. When this useless stalk is returned by animals in the form of their dung, its value is astonishing. Even an old bullock gives 5 tons of dung and 3,443 pounds of urine in a year, which can help in the manufacture of 20 cart loads of compost manure. For cultivating jowar and bajra on dry land, 5 carts of compost manure is required for each acre. Thus, the compost manure provided by one single old bullock can meet the manure need for 4 acres of land. On irrigated land with the help of such manure, about 2,800 to 3,600 kg of bajra can be grown on 4 acres of land and where irrigation facility is not available, the yield can be about 1,500 to 1,600 kg. This can feed about 10 to 12 human beings throughout a year. Thus there is a wide difference between concepts of price and value. Whether the food grain is priced at Rs 1 per 10 kg or Rs 10 per 1 kg, it does not affect the intrinsic value of the food grains. Its value lies in the utility of providing nutrition and life to human beings. The right to life is a fundamental right and it can be basically protected only with proper food and feeding and the cheap and nutritious food grains required for feeding can be grown with the help of dung. Thus, the most fundamental thing to the fundamental right of living for the human beings is bovine dung. It is absolutely foolish to evaluate this function of dung in monetary terms. A servant employed by us, has to be paid wages for his labor. He demands wage rise, he also demands bonus, he resorts to strike if bonus is less than his expectation, and also abuses the employer. But our servants in the form of these dumb cattle do not demand any wages from us, do not demand any wage rise or bonus. They survive on whatever we offer them to feed, and in return even favor us with a bonus in the form of most valuable dung. And still we are after the blood, meat, hides and skin of such animals and for that we slaughter them alive. We do not wait till they die their natural death to get their hides and skin.

Need for Dung

For land under cultivation it is necessary to use 5 tons i.e. 10 cart loads of dung manure per acre. If less manure is used, the soil becomes weaker, gradually loses its fertility and becomes barren over a period of time. At this rate, 43,07,50,000 acres of cultivable land in our country will need 215,37,50,000 tonnes of dung manure. An adult cattle on an average gives 4 tonnes of dung and 3,343 pounds of urine. A cattle less than 3 years of age would yield half this quantity. (Source: Cow in India Page 374 by Dr. Satishchandra Dasgupta quoting Dr. P.E. Lender who was an agricultural chemist of the Government of Punjab during British Regime) Our cattle population is as under:

TABLE 1.13 Domestic Ruminant population in the country ( in '000's)

Thus, the total population of various types of the above animals is 34.33 crores. The advocates of cow slaughter are making propaganda in the country and abroad that the cow population alone is 34 crores, and thus cheat the people and make them believe that slaughter of cows is necessary to keep in check their population. In fact, the number of calves should be at least 2 to 2 1/2 times more than the number of cows. However, in our country the number of calves is much less than the number of cows, because under the guise of killing old bullocks, more calves are slaughtered for their soft and tender skin. Of the above animal population, only 16.82 crores of animals are adult animals (i.e. above 3 years of age). Animals of less than 3 years of age are 6.76 crores, and the number of sheep and goats is 10.75 crores. Let us now consider the dung yield of the above animal population.

 (Source: Indian Agriculture in Brief, 18th edition by Agriculture Department of Central Government)

As we have seen above, for manure alone we need 215.37 crore tons of dung per annum. As against this, the dung production is only 86.16 crore tons. Thus, for agricultural need alone, the annual scarcity of dung is 129 crore tonnes. Besides this, we need 124.36 crore tonnes of dung to meet the needs for fuel, housing, preservation of food grains, repair of houses and for cleaning utensils etc. Thus, as against our annual requirement of 340 crore tonnes of dung, the availability is only 86 crore tonnes, which is just 40% of the requirement for dung alone. It is regrettable that out of the Six Planning Commissions so far, none has taken note of the colossal scarcity of bullocks for agriculture. If animal slaughter is totally banned by legislation and is implemented with strictness and honesty, then only will it be possible to meet this gigantic scarcity of dung manure.

Conclusion

From what has been explained above, the readers will now realize that cutting short the source of dung, has engulfed the entire nation, economically, intellectually, and physically, irrespective of any distinction as to the caste, creed, religion or region. Dung is such a invaluable commodity, that not a single individual of the country can remain immune from the effects of its scarcity, whether such a person is very affluent or poor, whether he is Hindu, Muslim, Parsi or Christian. The scarcity of dung is eating away universally everyone without any distinction. Dung economy was the most scientific economic system evolved by the great Aryan race. Unless we accept this, our future will become more and more gory. We urgently need our dung culture and its restoration to the predominant place where it belongs. This is not possible unless a total ban on animal slaughter is imposed. But unfortunately, the government of our country is bent on converting the cultured and civilized population of this great nation, into herds of wild human beings. The religious heads on whom lies the responsibility of preserving the culture and civilization of the population must awaken from their deep sleep.