Samarkand, April 2021: Rekha Arya is the current Minister of Women and Child Welfare, Government of Uttarakhand and member of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The writer of her Wikipedia page also bestows her the title of Uttarakhand Maata, although our team could neither validate the authenticity of the title nor of its award.
Rekha’s singular claim to fame is from mid-2016, when she was a Congress legislator, went missing for four days, and then turned up to the assembly as a BJP member in an attempt to oust the then Congress Chief Minister.
“Cow is the only animal that not only inhales oxygen, but also exhales it.” ~ Rekha Arya, circa 2018, as Minister of Animal Husbandry, Uttarakhand
Okay, we do not contest that cows exhale oxygen, but it is not the only species, by far. Every species inhales oxygen and exhales oxygen, and also nitrogen, and argon, and carbon dioxide, and trace amounts of neon, helium, methane, krypton, and hydrogen. You inhale all of it. And then your lungs take up some of the oxygen and then returns the rest back. There is no magical barrier at the nose that stops all the gases except for oxygen.
If you’ve not got the gist of it already, then let us spell it out for you. No, cows do not produce oxygen. No animal does, which at the end of the day, what a cow is. It is just an animal, which we exploit more so than others probably, but that is a discussion for another time.
“The cow is treated as an incarnation of motherhood. The cow’s milk is scientifically considered the best for a newborn after his mother’s milk.” ~ Rekha Arya, circa 2018, seeking the status of ‘Rashtra Mata’ for the cow
While we found no scientific literature to support her claim, we did find a World Health Organisation advisory noting that unmodified cow’s milk should not be fed to infants. As a minister who holds both the portfolios of Women and Child Welfare, and Animal Husbandry, this is stupid at best and directly endangering the lives of infants at worst.
It is also to be noted that she very freely used the term “scientifically” with no citation of real research, which, no surprises, has fooled a lot of gullible people. She managed to get the resolution seeking the status of ‘rashtra mata’ for the cow passed through the Uttarakhand assembly unanimously. She then went on to talk about the “medicinal qualities” of cow urine…
We found this draft in front of an unconscious correspondent who has since been diagnosed with Post Research Stress Disorder. In honour of our asylum-bound correspondent, we have kept the draft unedited.