The law passed by the Gujarat Assembly ...banning cow slaughter in the State and bringing the violators of the law within the purview of the draconian Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Act (PASA) will soon enthuse other BJP governments. Whatever may be one's opinion on cow protection, the ... Patel Ministry must be complimented for the alacrity with which they implemented their pre-election promise to save the cows of the state. At this juncture, one can only wish that it would show similar enthusiasm to protect the interests of the poor people of the state also.
Before I go further on the subject, let me make it clear that I was brought up in a family which considered beef loathsome. My mother never touched it even with a barge pole. Nor did my grandparents with whom I lived during the formative period of my life. Thus on my first visit to a European country, it was natural for me to order chicken or mutton, instead of beef. But a fellow visitor, who styles himself as an ideologue of the BJP and who once wrote a stinging article demanding removal of a mechanised abattoir in Andhra Pradesh, was always found savouring different varieties of beef. I had another experience of attending a party with a journalist of similar persuasion. On offer was fried beef, which the journalist first refused on grounds of religion. But as temptation grew, he had a taste of it, only to ask for more and more. So much for his religiosity! I personally believe that a person should not be judged by his food habits, which are dependent on a host of factors ...
In Nagaland, dog's meat is considered a delicacy. In a restaurant in Beijing, I was shown a live reptile, which could be on my table after 15 minutes or so, if only I had ordered it:I Bihar, the Musahars, one of the lowest castes, are known as rat-eaters. I personally know a cat-eater. It is futile to make value judgements. In Mongolia, where the temperature often dips to 40 degrees at night, the people canthot be expected to survive on rice and dal. They need meat ...
Let us come back to the Gujarat Assembly. The House witnessed uproarious scenes when members cutting across party affiliations flayed the government for doing nothing to prevent 886 cattle, including 133 sacred cows, starving to death at Virpur, a village not very far from Gandhinagar ..
(A) discriminatory attitude is manifest in the Gujarat law. While the butcher, who puts a cow or its progeny on the chopping block, will be held under PASA, the one who sold the animal to him and made money will not be touched. With the ban imposed on cow slaughter, thousands of cows, which have crossed the productivity stage, will be rendered "destitute" in the state. How many of their owners will provide them with fodder and water when they won't get anything in return from the animals except cowdung? Can the state government look after thousands of "orphaned" cows? Will the government use the provisions of PASA against those who starve the cows to death? ..
For the RSS, the cow has been an article of faith. Writes Walter K. Andersen and Shridhar D. Damle in The Brotherhood in Saffron, "Golwalkar's personal involvement in the late 1952 agitation against cow slaughter gave the RSS a chance to influence the Hindu religious establishment as well as to build up its popular support. At the grassroots level, the agitation depended heavily on RSS volunteers who were largely responsible for the collection of signatures petitioning the President of India to ban cow slaughter ... The involvement in the anti-slaughter agitation boosted RSS morale and demonstrated to the membership that the organisation had the capacity for mass action". (Page 112)
The Indian Penal Code stipulates under Section 295 that "whoever destroys, damages or defiles any place of worship, or any object held sacred by a class of persons, with the intention thereby of insulting the religion of any class of persons, or with the knowledge that any class of persons is likely to consider such destruction, damage or defilement as an insult to their religion, shall be punished by imprisonment." But in 1888, the High Court of the Northwestern Provinces decreed that a cow was not a sacred object. Six years earlier, Swami Dayanand Saraswati, founder of the Arya Samaj, formed the first Gaorakshini Sabha in the Punjab (Making India Hindu, Oxford, Page 216). Hindu communal elements used the symbol of Mother Cow to unite Hindus causing riots at times. "The riots occurred in such far-flung cities as Bombay and Rangoon, and so Cow Protection should not be seen as a strictly North Indian phenomenon. But the heart of the movement lay in the Bhojpuri region overlapping eastern UP and Bihar ... By reinforcing the value system of the twice-born Hindus, the movement also underscored certain traditional social schisms, setting up all those outside this cultural system - such as Muslims, Chamars and Christians - as targets".
... Rafiq Zakaria hits the nail on the head when he says that the real reason for their objection lies in the Hindu animosity towards Muslims rather than their reverence for the cow ...
At the level of the common Hindu, there is a general misconception that Muslims slaughter cows, which are sacred to them. There is no basis for it; even under Muslim rule, often the slaughter of cows, in defcrence to the religious sentiments of the Hindus, was tanned. Moreover, there is no religious obligation to eat beef ...
But the same cannot be said about the Hindu religion as Modhumita Mojumdar has rightly pointed out, "They conveniently forget the fact that the men who gave us the most ancient texts which the Hindu claims as the precious heritage - the four Vedas - were beef-eaters themselves and made no bones about it. This demand, therefore, is not intended as a tribute to our Aryan ancestors but designed to turn secular India into a Hindu Rashtra where, even in the choice of food, the minority communities will be unable to exercise their options, but shall be coerced to comply with the fads of the Saffron Brigade."
The only reason for Muslims to opt for beef is its cheaper price; poor Muslims find it more economical than mutton ...
In Missionaries in India (ASP), Arun Shourie rationalises worshipping of cows "as the entry-point from which to develop reverence for all animal life" (Page 52).
Vishal Mangalwadi in his Letters to a Postmodern Hindu (Good Books, pp. 552, Rs.225) asks Shourie, "Can you provide a single piece of evidence from traditional Hinduism fpr this modern justification? Few societies ill-treat animals more than ours" ... Mangalwadi concludes, "When we worship cows, we make ourselves incapable of exercising our dominion over them, of manipulating and improving their breed".
How did the veneration of cow begin, particularly when during the Vedic period, even Brahmins ate beef? It, most probably, was a clever device to prevent people from eating cows during droughts and famines. If they ate up their cows, they would then not have any oxen. In the absence of oxen, agriculture would become so much harder when the rains did return. The cow was deified in an era when a law enforcing machinery did not exist ...
Statistics ... prove that India's cattle strength is beyond what the country's biosphere can accommoda "Cows that are abandoned by the owners are left to ron around, unattended. The streets of every city and town the country are witness to cows wandering at will ami the traffic and eating at garbage dumps. The plastic ba they ingest as a result can sometimes cause pain deaths", editorialises the Indian Express (March 31). this is known to the Gujarat rulers. They also know-( there is no better stick to beat the minorities will than the humble cow. Hence the PASA. (Source: The Indian Currents, 9 April, 2000).
Sangh Parivar Unloads Cattle
Activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Bajra Dal, the RSS and, interestingly, the Youth Congress, 23 October, 1999) forced the administration to agree their demand for unloading 624 bullocks at the Jaland Cantt. Station from a train bound for West Bengal. Ev as railway officials claimed they were being transport after fulfilling all legal procedures, the dist administration said the step was taken only to prevent law and order problem ... After the permission to unl was granted, a motley group of Sangh Parivar activists other took it upon themselves to carryout the task ... After off loading the cattle, they proceeded to railway station and blocked a passenger train ... (Source: The Indian Express, 25 October,)
