Until recently, Kashmir had the death sentence for cow killing. It's now life imprisonment. Through Indian eyes, institutions such as McDonalds would be seen as an illicit killer, mocking everything the cow symbolises. It often seems that Westerners forget that the cow is a necessity in India. But not for adorning dinner plates.
Cows provide much of India's dairy requirements.
In addition, cattle excrete more than 700 million tonnes of manure annually. Half is used as fertiliser to maintain the soil. The rest is burned to provide heat for cooking. The Indian animals live primarily off household garbage, chaff, stalks and leaves. In the West, thousands of tonnes of grain are directed to the cattle industry, while leaving Third World countries in the agony of starvation.