Many disputes that are political in nature are difficult to resolve because they are based on subjective experiences and differing perspectives. But some disputes can be easily resolved because they are matters of fact. Whether a cow is a mother or not depends on whom you ask. But whether cow urine has medicinal properties is a matter of fact that can be tested by modern science, without any contradiction with tradition or faith. If its medicinal properties can be established, that alone will move India towards becoming a Vishwaguru; in the event that it does not meet the standards of scientific proof for medicinal qualities, those who venerate it for cultural reasons can continue to do so without any fear of contradiction.

Notions of holy water and divine healing are part of all religions. Christians, for instance, share crackers and grape juice after the priest declares that they are the flesh and blood of Jesus.

Cow urine and its purported advantages are now matters of national concern. National leaders are seized of the issue. The controversy resurfaced recently when Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi, during a debate in Parliament, sarcastically described Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director of IIT Madras, as a “gaumutra expert”, provoking sharp reactions from sections of the academic community. Hundreds of scientists have written in defence of Prof. Kamakoti, who has a stellar record of scholarship and leadership.

There are many people of erudition with disputable faiths and beliefs. This applies to people on both the left and the right. To cite just one example, Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer, widely regarded as a progressive or left-leaning jurist, made public statements describing what he believed to be communication with departed souls.

It is not easy to scientifically establish or disprove whether someone can communicate with souls. But we can conclusively prove or disprove the medicinal value of cow urine and cow dung.

When Professor V. Kamakoti spoke about the medicinal properties of gaumutra, he reignited a debate that India seems destined to revisit every few months. Critics accused him of promoting pseudoscience. Supporters defended him as giving voice to India’s traditional knowledge systems.

Perhaps it is time to stop asking whether Professor Kamakoti is right or wrong and begin asking why India continues to argue over a scientific claim without making a serious national effort to test it.

The twentieth-century philosopher of science Karl Popper offered a profound insight into how science works. Scientific theories never become permanently true. They gain credibility only by surviving repeated attempts to prove them wrong. Science advances not by defending ideas but by relentlessly exposing them to the toughest possible scrutiny. If a hypothesis survives, confidence in it grows. If it fails, science moves forward with greater clarity.

That is precisely what India has not done with the medicinal claims surrounding gaumutra. Traditional medicine is not automatically unscientific, nor is it automatically scientific. History offers abundant examples of remedies rooted in traditional knowledge that were later validated by modern research. Equally, countless traditional remedies across civilisations have failed rigorous scientific scrutiny.

Why should gaumutra be treated any differently? All parties should vote to support a mission-mode national project to validate the claims regarding cow urine and cow dung. A few hundred crores would be worth spending, considering the social, economic and reputational stakes attached to cow urine and cow dung.

India has repeatedly demonstrated that it possesses scientific institutions of global calibre. ISRO’s lunar and Mars missions, indigenous vaccine development, sophisticated digital public infrastructure, and growing investments in semiconductor research testify to that capability.

For a nation that can place a spacecraft around the Moon with remarkable precision, determining the medicinal value, or otherwise, of gaumutra should hardly qualify as an impossible scientific challenge. The mission should undertake comprehensive chemical characterisation, toxicological evaluation, laboratory investigations into biological activity and, wherever preliminary evidence justifies it, well-designed, randomised, double-blind, multicentre clinical trials.

Every result, whether positive, negative or inconclusive, should be published in peer-reviewed journals and placed in the public domain. The mission’s credibility would depend not on proving the claim right, but on being equally willing to prove it wrong.

If the claims are validated, India would have contributed something genuinely valuable to global medicine while giving scientific legitimacy to an aspect of its traditional knowledge. If they are falsified, decades of speculation can finally give way to scientific clarity.

Either outcome would represent a victory: not for one political ideology over another, but for science itself. India has generated enough television heat on gaumutra to sterilise a laboratory. What it has not generated is enough laboratory evidence to settle the question.

A civilisation secure in its traditions should never fear scientific scrutiny. Equally, a scientific republic should never fear wherever the evidence may lead.

India has debated this question for decades. It now has the scientific capability and the scientific responsibility to settle it once and for all.

Published - August 02, 2026 02:05 pm IST