For centuries, the majority Hindu population of India considered cows sacred, a symbol of the earth and divinity. The animals are so revered that authorities planned to rename Valentine’s Day on February 14 as “Cow Hug Day,” hoping the move would increase the “emotional wealth” of citizens, News.ro reported, citing CNN.

But the move appears to have been abandoned after it sparked a wave of memes and jokes on the TV show about the importance of consent.

The decision to rename February 14 as “Embrace the Cow Day” was taken on Monday after the Animal Welfare Council of India called cows “the backbone of Indian culture and rural economy”.

The cow is the “best contributor to the wealth of mankind” due to its “living nature”, declared the committee, a statutory body that advises India’s Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying.

He said the cow-hugging idea was part of an effort to promote “Vedic” or sacred Hindu traditions, which he claimed had been eroded by Western influence.

“Vedic traditions are almost on the verge of extinction due to the progress of (Western) culture over time,” the statement said. “The blindness of Western civilization has made our physical heritage and culture almost forgotten.”

But within a week of the announcement – after several days of online derision – the idea appears to have been abandoned.

For days, the media laughed at the government’s plan, publishing satirical cartoons depicting cows running away from men in love, while internet users posted videos of violent animal-human encounters.

The anchor of one of India’s leading English-language news channels, NDTV, was even caught on video trying to hug a few cows that didn’t seem to agree.

“Consent is important,” he joked during the show.

This is not the first time the government has caused a stir with its cow policy — killing or eating it is considered a sin by many Hindus, who make up about 80 percent of India’s 1.3 billion people.

The sale and slaughter of animals is banned in most of the country, and animals are often left to roam the streets and roads looking emaciated, and drivers must be careful not to run them over.

A cow welfare agency known as Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog (RKA) was established in 2019 by the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying.

Two years later, the RKA was forced to indefinitely shelve a national ‘cow science’ exam after the syllabus drew widespread criticism for making unscientific claims about the animal.

Among several unproven claims, the 54-page study guide for the exams claimed that large-scale cow-slaughter activity leads to strong earthquakes, suggesting that the pain radiating from the mass slaughter could cause enough stress to trigger a seismic response.

Without providing evidence, he also stated that local (Indian) cows give the best quality of milk compared to “exotic” cows.

The cow is a sacred animal for Hindus (Photo: Shashi Sharma/Pacific Press/Shutterstock Editorial/Profimedia)

Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, following a wave of Hindu nationalism, the animal has also become increasingly politicized.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is a staunch supporter of conservative Hindu traditions, and critics say cow worship has been used as a tool to intimidate, harass and even kill Muslims, whom they accuse in some cases of disrespecting the animals.

During the 2014 election campaign, Modi promised to end the “pink revolution”, a phrase he used to describe cattle slaughter.

Other BJP MPs went even further.

“I have promised to break the arms and legs of those who do not consider cows as their mother and to kill them,” Vikram Saini, an MP from Uttar Pradesh, said at an event in March 2017.

The claims sparked protests in a country where violence against women and minorities often makes headlines. Critics say the government has double standards and say the BJP is not doing enough to protect vulnerable groups.

In 2017, photographer and activist Sujatro Ghosh’s series of photographs of Indian women wearing cow masks went viral on social media. The series of images was intended to depict a society where cows are valued more than women.

Addressing reporters during the Hug the Cow Day on Thursday, before it was called off, BJP MP Giriraj Singh said the government had “taken a very good decision”.

“Cows should be hugged,” he said. “We must love and embrace the cow.”