India's Culture Wars

India's courts want the cow problem resolved . . . now! Thing is, a lot of the Indian people don't think there's a problem and get a little angry when officials try to fix it. Link. Excerpts:

An Indian court has ordered officials to clean up one of the biggest menaces prowling the wide avenues, luscious parks and crowded bazaars of the capital New Delhi -- holy cows.

About 35,000 cows and buffaloes roam free in Delhi in the heart of north India's Hindu "cow belt", sharing roads with hordes of monkeys, camels and stray dogs and killing scores of people every year in gorings and traffic accidents.

Cows are sacred to Hindus and just the rumour of mistreatment can prompt angry mobs to kill people in revenge. Traffic routinely comes to a halt to allow the animals to amble across highways and pedestrians constantly side-step steaming evidence of their passage.

How long until someone like Bill Maher or Howard Dean picks up on this and draws a connection to the religious right in America?