Prof. Kamakoti And the Cow Urine Controversy

Prof. Kamakoti the director of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) became a target of attacks in social media following his speech in a Pongal function conducted at a private cow shelter.

From the background banner, it is clear that the cow shelter belongs to those following the tradition of the Sankaracharya Math of Kanchi. The function was for venerating the livestock, a tradition associated with Pongal.

Here Prof. Kamakoti was extolling the virtues of cow and cow-related-products. Cow urine is considered sacred by Hindus as it is one of the five components of the sacred Panchagauvya. Professor shared the anecdotal incident of a particular sage who drank cow urine when he had fever and then he healed himself. Then the IIT director claimed that cow urine has antibacterial and antifungal properties.

Thiru. Karti Chidambaram, Congress leader and Member of Parliament from Tamil Nadu and also the son of P.Chidambaram former finance minister shared it on his X page and came down vehemently on Dr. Kamakoti for ‘peddling pseudoscience’.

Incidentally the tweet Karti Chidambaram shared, has not criticised Kamakoti as an individual in a responsible position for making allegedly an unscientific claim but made a veiled casteist hate reference – ‘the mob claiming to have higher brain capacity’. Everyone in Tamil Nadu knows to whom the hate-euphemism refers to.   

Then the tweet claimed that ‘these ancient Sanghis seemed to have been drinking various types of urines including human urines.’

That twitter handle also belongs to an office bearer of Indian National Congress (INC).

Prof. Kamakoti was heavily trolled online. Online trolling became a vicious witch hunt with Dravidianist Communist organisations asking for his resignation. ‘Scientific temper’ has been violated they said.

The cited 'Nature' journal link is here: It can be downloaded as pdf.

Inside one reads:

In reality, this makes perfect evolutionary sense.

Throughout history, humans have sought to maximise the benefits derived from their environment, including domesticated animals. In agrarian societies, the cow has held a central place, contributing not only to food production but also to the ecological balance.

The early Indians, observing the benefits of cow urine for crops, explored its potential for human health as well. This exploration might have led to the selection of cow varieties with specific microbiomes that produced urine with desired medicinal properties.

The selection here would not have been as explicitly artificial as selection of dog breeds. Nor it would have been as slow as the usual natural selection. It would have been something in between.

The cultural reverence for the cow in India has definitely fueled curiosity and investigation into its potential benefits, leading to the development of various medicinal formulations using cow urine.

Ayurveda, the traditional Indian system of medicine, incorporates many such formulations. While some may view these practices with skepticism, it's important to acknowledge the potential for traditional knowledge to hold valuable insights.

The papers which Prof. Kamakoti pointed out shows that we as a modern nation do not hesitate to test the claims in the more potent crucible of modern science and the outcome could have been either way.

However, the way human bio-cultural evolution takes place the results are expected. That we infuse this with sacredness is yet another greatness of this civilization. If a Hindu takes pride in modern science vindicating such an inter-species wisdom developed by his or her civilization then it is not pseudoscience or anti-science.    

In the case of Sushruta Samhita, what is even more amazing is that the author had tested with whatever limited tools available for him and his team, the urine of every domestic animal. They had overcome the human prejudices and aversions to test them. They had experimented with them. Then they had arrived at some conclusions. If this is not method of science and if this is not scientific temper, then what is the method of science and what indeed is scientific temper?

But just look at the tweet. Sushruta becomes a Sanghi.

What should be shown as the method of science, what has now evolved into harvesting useful peptides from such urine distillates, becomes something to be ridiculed for the tweeter.

In reality this shows how much unscientific, deeply colonised and hate-filled the person who made the tweet was. Karti Chidambaram has often positioned himself as one of the few voices of sanity within the present INC ecosystem. It is unfortunate that he has retweeted such a casteist and hateful tweet and has passed it on as ‘scientific temper.’