Doublespeak over Dadri lynching: We need real debate, not political horse-trading

The cows of Bihar now have a stake in the upcoming election. BJP leader Sushil Modi has said that if the NDA wins in the state cow slaughter will be banned. Once politicians promised to give us jobs, highways, polytechnics and hospitals to get our vote. Now they want votes by promising to take something away. The political foodfight that has erupted over beef shows that when it comes to pandering to the electorate to get votes, there is no sacred cow our good netas will not milk. Only one thing is for sure. If all of this is to make you think our political class genuinely cares a lot about cows, that’s a load of bull. As Shashi Tharoor understood from the furore over his innocuous “cattle class” tweet, the cow is just a handy way to settle political scores. It is the political Kamdhenu that keeps giving. When it comes to beef, politicians talk out of both sides of their mouths. “Even Hindus eat beef,” said Lalu Prasad Yadav of the RJD. When the NDA attacked him, Lalu backtracked and said he meant meat, not beef. But happy to fish in troubled waters, advocate Sudhir Ojha has filed a complaint in Muzaffarpur saying Lalu’s comment was “hate speech” and meant to spread “communal tension to woo voters”. As if Sushil Modi was trying to placate tensions by promising a cow slaughter ban. During the Maharashtra beef ban hullabaloo, Minority Affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told those dying to eat beef to go to Pakistan. At that time his colleague Kiren Rijiu retorted angrily “I eat beef. I’m from Arunachal Pradesh. Can somebody stop me? So let us not be touchy about somebody’s practices.” Within days Rijiju beat a hasty retreat saying he was misquoted and “Hindu faiths and sentiments must be respected in Hindu majority states.” [caption id=“attachment_2457196” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Digvijaya Singh in a file photo. PTI[/caption] This is not about saving cows at a time when the indigenous Indian cow is actually endangered. It’s about naked political horse-trading. Not to be outdone by the BJP, the Congress’ Digvijaya Singh wants to remind people that Congress governments were the ones banning cow slaughter in some 24 states including Bihar. But the party’s spokesperson Pramod Tiwari has said it is not the party’s habit to interfere with the eating habits of individuals as long as they do not interfere with existing laws. That is classic doublespeak about wanting to have your cow and eat your beef too. All this has led to a bizarre patchwork of cattle laws across the country. Some states have a ban on all cattle slaughter. Some allow slaughter of cows that are old or sick. Some ban only cow slaughter. Some require a “fit for slaughter” certificate. A few require no certificate at all. And that’s about slaughter not about consuming beef. That sounds confusing but there was no evidence that Indians were tearing out their hair trying to keep their steak orders straight as they moved from state to state. But the Congress is floating the idea of one ban to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. Digvijaya Singh says his party is open to a discussion about a national ban on cow slaughter. He boasted that the Congress Working Committee had passed a resolution in the 1930s seeking a ban on cow slaughter. What stopped the Congress from enforcing such a ban or even having a national discussion about it in the 60 odd years it has been in power? Now, the beleaguered party thinks it can regain lost electoral ground, especially Hindu votes, on the back of the long-suffering cow. Of course, no one wants to have a real debate about beef and its contested place in Indian history. Ashok Sanjay Guha, professor emeritus at JNU, reminds us in The Telegraph that Swami Vivekananda, so beloved of the Prime Minister, said, “There was a time without eating beef no Brahmin could remain a Brahmin; when a king, a hermit, or a great man visited, the best bullock was killed in his honour.” The great sage Yajnavalkya in the Satpatha Brahman responds to a lecture against beef eating by saying “I eat only really tender beef.” “Buddism and Jainism led this movement (against cow slaughter)”, writes Guha. Its driving force, more than religion was economic and ecological because of shortage of pasture and frequent famines. Religion helped sell the movement to the masses. That’s not to say “Yajnavalkya ate tender beef” is a valid argument for swaying us on one side or the other of a ban. But it is an inconvenient truth that is shouted down by the likes of BJP leader Sangeet Som who find more political dividend in calling other Indians “those cow killers”. If Yajnavalkya had been around today, what would Som have called him? While the politicians are rustling cows for votes, our celebrities have also decided to come out of the beef-eating closet. “I eat beef and I don’t consider cow as mother,” says retired justice Markandey Katju. “I just ate beef. Come and murder me,” tweets Shobhaa De. Eating beef has bizarrely become the latest status symbol of civil rights, Page 3’s great stand against illiberalism. Having said that, it’s important that some normally outspoken stalwarts in the higher echelons of the BJP, who are well-known for loving their steak, should stand up to the bullying Som-s within their own ranks. Otherwise just as LGBT activists once outed closet lawmakers during the AIDS crisis in the US, they too could be outed as closet steak-eaters who were cowed into silence and looked away when the knives were out for the Akhlaqs of the world. They should speak up because ultimately the fight is not really about the right to eat beef. It is about tolerating difference and not beating it to a pulp with a brick. And everyone, not just the beef-eaters has a steak in that.