Respect majority sentiment

The opposition to a ban on cow slaughter is more communal and political than humanitarian. Proponents of the freedom to eat cow meat pretend as if they will go hungry without that. They invoke secularism, the Constitution, right of choice on cuisine, Dalit, Adivasi and minority rights, job loss and livelihood of butchers and a decline of the leather industry to support their right to kill the poor cow. The question is, are these not the same set of people who, on various occasions champion, the cause of pacifism, animal protection, protection for stray dogs, environment and human rights? Why are they not able to share their universal love with the bovine species too? Only because it is considered holy for the Hindus? Do they believe that opposing anything that Hindus hold in esteem is secularism?

There is a high level of hypocrisy and doublespeak in the opposition to a ban on cow slaughter. The present debate might have its origin in the recent decisions of the Maharashtra and Haryana governments to ban cow slaughter. But the debate is as old as India’s freedom movement. Majority of Indians never reconciled to the idea of killing holy cowd for meat. Any amount of argument will not convince them, if they have not been convinced for 900 years that killing the cow is passé. Even the Islamic rulers, with a few exceptions, and the British respected this sentiment. Philip Mason in his book The Men Who Ruled India describes this.

Mahatma Gandhi, whom the BJP opponents quote for all seasons and reasons, was a great crusader of cow protection. One of the major planks of the first Tilak-Jinnah Pact also known as the Lucknow Pact of 1916 included a clause on cow protection. Gandhiji tirelessly championed throughout the freedom movement to promote cow protection as the central theme of his gram swaraj. In this he was in sync with the mainstream opinion in the Congress represented by all well respected nationalist leaders including Jawaharlal Nehru. But for a few fanatic Muslim leaders who mistakenly identified it as part of their religious right, most of the Muslim leaders also agreed with Gandhiji on this. Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, one of the most respected contemporary Islamic scholars believes that Muslim support to cow protection will greatly cement Hindu-Muslim unity. MC Chagla and Hamid Kidwai too believed the same way. The matter would have been settled decades ago but for the diabolical Congress stand. Remember, the existing ban in many states was introduced by the Congress respecting popular sentiment. The BJP is only completing a half-done job.  

The cow slaughter ban enshrined in the Constitution is the outcome of this general consensus. India is still primarily an agrarian society. Majority of Indians live in villages. And cattle are considered central to the health of the village economy. The nutritional value of cow milk, the place the cow enjoys in rural Indian life, the medicinal value of cow urine and its patents are facts widely debated and scientifically proven. Hundreds of Indian breeds of cow are extinct. A movement to protect and preserve the existing varieties is also well documented. All the major religious sects and leaders participated in the famous 1966 march to Parliament demanding ban on cow slaughter. In 2009, the RSS and its affiliates with the support of Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Jain religious leaders conducted a national Vishwa Mangal Gou Gram Yatra touring all villages to propagate the idea of the place of cow protection in the health of a village economy. This was then described as a war for the soul of India in the spree of globalisation. 

Cow has always been considered as part of wealth. The extent of wealth of an individual was counted by the number of cows one owned. In Mahabharata, the story of Drona begins with the quest to get a cow for providing milk to his son. When Drona defeats  Dhrupad, the Panchala king, he divides the Goshala into two and gets one cow from the share of the king, to prove a point. When Dhritarashtra wants to please Krishna, he gifts him a cow.

Rishi Vishwamitra’s story is also linked with the divine cow ‘Kamadhenu.’ So the cow has been revered by Hindus from time immemorial. The section opposing cow slaughter quote Hindus of Vedic times, to Vivekananda to say that they were beef-eaters. The question is not who ate what and who didn’t. The issue at hand is, if the sentiment of a large section of people is hurt by the slaughter of cow, why not respect their sentiment?

There is no point arguing that Indians let cows to fend for themselves. And that what is the use of a cow once its stops yielding milk. For most Indians the cow is not just another animal. It is special. It is holy. It is religious. And it is this religious sentiment that is central to the demand for a ban on cow slaughter. It is no argument to say that there are Hindus who eat beef. Are there no Christians who claim that they don’t go to churches?

Individual choices do not constitute a societal faith. Arguing for cow protection, Dr HR Nagendra, a yoga exponent, says, “India annually spends over Rs1 lakh crore on pesticides. We can save this money and gain a lot by effectively using cow dung and cow urine to manufacture organic fertiliser by the farmers at the village level which will replenish their incomes and promote village self-sufficiency”.

Indians have always lived in harmony with nature. The cow is at the centre of a village eco-system. Eighty per cent of India’s population depends on agriculture. For them the cow is more than their right hand, since without the aid of bullocks which the cow provides, ploughing, irrigating, weeding, harvesting, threshing, carting and marketing will be next to impossible. 

There is a lot of misleading propaganda in the name of beef ban. A ban on cow slaughter is not exactly a ban on eating other varieties of beef. Hence the fear that it will affect the livelihood of butchers and meat sellers is wrong. Similarly it will in no way affect the leather industry. Yes, today India is the second largest meat exporter in the world. Because of the encouragement to the pink revolution in India under the UPA, when other industries were stagnating, Indian export was largely dependent on meat. This however caused considerable damage to Indian cattle wealth and village economy. 

There is a national outcry for a total and effective ban on cow slaughter. This will go a long way in redefining Indian polity. Even the Congress supported the Haryana ban. Most Indian states have a ban in place except for Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal and North-East. Even in Muslim majority Jammu and Kashmir this ban is effective. The opposition to a ban is more opportunistic than real.  

The author is former editor, Organiser weekly