Non Violent Cows

Gandhi is greatly admired by Westerners and his concepts of non-violence have guided individuals such as Dr. Martin Luther King. The guiding philosophy of Gandhi, however, was extreme Hinduism. Symptomatic of his worldview was his obsession to "saving the cow in India from the butcher's knife."
 
"To attempt cow protection by violence is to reduce Hinduism to Satanism and to prostitute to a base end the grand significance of cow protection. As a Mussulman friend writes, beef-eating, which is merely permissible in Islam, will become a duty if compulsion is resorted to by Hindus. The latter can protect the cow only by developing the faculty for dying, for suffering . . . The Hindus must scrupulously refrain from using any violence against Mussulmans. Suffering and trust are attributes of soul-force. I have heard that, at big fairs, if a Mussulman is found in possession of cows or even goats, he is at times forcibly dispossessed. Those who, claiming to be Hindus, thus resort to violence are enemies of the cow and of Hinduism. The best and the only way to save the cow is to save the Khilafat. I hope therefore that every non-co-operator will strain himself to the utmost to prevent the slightest tendency to violence in any shape or form, whether to protect the cow or any other animal or to effect any other purpose" (Young India 18-5-1921, CWOMG vol. XX p. 111).