ABSTRACT
The sacred cow concept of Hindu India has many interesting and important socio-cultural and ecological manifestations. This article focuses on one of these: the ban on cow slaughter included in the Constitution of India, and the legal controversy that followed efforts to implement the ban. The conclusion is reached that to understand the problem one should not focus narrowly on the unquestioned economic utility of cattle in Indian life, that one must also consider religious belief as a force that in some respects has a detrimental impact on the ecology of food and nutiition.
