What is needed is a cattle policy and not just knee-jerk ferocity

Way back in 1984, when I was a PhD candidate in the US, a TV commercial by the hamburger chain Wendy’s caught the national imagination. In it, an irate, elderly woman, holding a fluffy hamburger bun, noisily demands, “Where’s the beef?” The ad directed against Wendy’s more successful competitors suggested that the latter’s buns, though bigger, had very little meat in them. As a vegetarian, both by tradition and choice, I was never fully comfortable with the ad, though it was obviously funny and popular. But I learned an important lesson. Not only was it undesirable to impose my food preferences on others, but carrying vegetarianism to linguistic extremes would make it impossible to think or write in English.

Today, when beef is the burning issue, we might ask what’s the actual “meat” of the matter. In India, though we are less culturally oriented to meat, we cannot totally do away with it. Let us, therefore, not turn beef into political “easy meat.” To continue my porky metaphor and add some flesh to my argument, I might sum up my position through the famous English proverb: “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.” The state, in other words, has no business telling people what (not) to eat or drink. 

Speaking of the latter first, prohibition hasn’t worked in earlier impositions in India. Even today, alcohol smuggled from neighbouring states is readily available in Bihar. Even so, we shouldn’t be entirely surprised at periodic liquor tragedies from illegally brewed hooch. I brought up drink before meat precisely because prohibition is also part of the directive principles of the Indian Constitution, occurring just before cow slaughter. But the injunction is part of a public health guideline: “The State shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition … as among its primary duties.” In a poor country where intoxicants are the deprived man’s way of escaping the unbearable toils of reality, such an injunction is understandable. Let us not forget, however, that most members of the Constituent Assembly were austere gentlemen. But the Constitution shows itself up as being anti-pleasure, which is not necessarily a good thing.

Similarly, the directive to prevent bovine slaughter, which follows immediately, in Article 48, is actually about agriculture and animal husbandry: “The State shall endeavour to organise agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle.”

Surely, as VD Savarkar asserted, cow protection should be based on “clear-cut and experimental economic and scientific principles” not merely on devotional or religious practices. Both the above-quoted Articles, as many other sections of the Constitution, contain overt or covert contradictions or prevarications. No wonder, despite revering the cow, we are one of the world’s top beef exporting nations.

The problem is that while the Constitution discourages cow slaughter and alcohol consumption, it clearly upholds the individual’s choice of what to eat or drink. On the one hand, we want to treat the cow as a mother, but on the other hand, we export the flesh of her family members or cousins. An impoverished Hindu farmer, thus, might let loose his aging and unproductive kine, to avoid selling or killing them. These, quite (in)conveniently fall into the hands of cattle rustlers who run them across the borders for meat. The Hindu may salve his conscience, but the fate of the cattle is the same: either they roam the streets eating rubbish or fall into the hands of predatory, often illegal, raiders. Gaushalas are surely insufficient to take care of millions of aged cattle; after all, where the population has no social security or old-age benefits, what of cattle?

Sadly, the state and the political parties are happy to play cow-politics, just as they played politics with minorities and caste-banks. The ruling party itself seems to want to have it both ways, benefit from murderous cow-vigilantes and bullying beef-haters on the one hand, but also be seen to uphold the law of the land and rein in criminal elements on the other. Similarly, the Opposition sees beef as another chance to show the regime’s authoritarian and anti-liberal character. Don’t both know that Dharma and calculated (mis)conduct are totally opposed? What is needed is a comprehensive cattle policy, not just knee-jerk anti-beef ferocity, whether legislative or vigilante. One might as well add a word of warning to the agent-provocateurs: on almost every issue they wish to turn into a weapon against the government, a united Hindu vote-bank will expose and trounce them. 

Beef should not be politicised. There are enough provisions in the existing laws in most states to make beef, especially cow-meat, practically impossible to procure. So where is the problem? At the same time, individuals should not be punished or targeted for their eating habits. The Opposition too, adding fuel to fire, with their flagrant displays of cow-slaughter and beef-eating, should find more meaningful ways of cornering the government.

Let’s move on lest we end up, to use Sara Suleri’s evocative farewell to Pakistan, eking out meatless days, both literally and metaphorically.

The author is a poet and professor at JNU, New Delhi