Prime Minister Narendra Modi has rightly said that “Nobody has the right and no one can be allowed to kill people in the name of cow protection. There is no place for violence in the society and it is unacceptable. This is not something with which Mahatma Gandhi would have agreed.” India has been reeling from a spate of vigilante murders in recent months. Last year, Modi criticised the vigilantes and urged a crackdown against groups using religion as a cover for committing crimes. The slaughter of cows and the possession or consumption of beef is banned in most Indian states, with some imposing life sentences for breaking the law. Simple warning by PM is not enough, strictest possible action is required to be taken against such goons. Modi has spoken wisely and reassuringly and it is time for mobs, vigilantes, moral police, street fighters etc. to quit now.
Historically, the cause of cow-protection in colonial India has always led to violent vigilantism. The riots of 1893 in eastern Uttar Pradesh were sparked by attempts to forcibly prevent Muslim butchers from slaughtering cows. Modi has rightly expressed his “pain and anguish at the current environment” in India, listing incidents of vigilante violence. Laws framed against cow slaughter existed in several states of India for many years, but in the past many have not been enforced, especially for aging cows that stop producing milk. Ever since the BJP has come to power, many states have strengthened enforcement for ideological reasons, led by Maharashtra, which activated a 1996 law for the first time in March, with some including heavy imprisonment sentences. A series of incidents involving cow-protection activists attacking people transporting cattle in various parts of the country have shaken India, whose Hindu majority regards cows as sacred.
Breaking his silence on cow vigilantes in the country, PM Modi has also condemned their actions, saying most of them were anti-social elements masquerading as gau rakshaks. The self-appointed gau-rakshaks (cow protectors) have created a reign of terror in the country. Attacks on Dalits and Muslims in the name of protecting the “holy” cow is totally unjustifiable.
On March 31, the Gujarat assembly passed a law that made cow slaughter punishable by life imprisonment and the day after that Chhattisgarh’s chief minister, Raman Singh, moved by competitive zeal, promised to hang anyone guilty of killing a cow. It was almost as if cow slaughter was more wicked than manslaughter.
Mahatma Gandhi had never approved violence in the name of cow protection and sharply differed with the Hindu communalists. Unlike them, Gandhi preferred “persuasion” and other non-violent (ahimsa) ways to achieve gau-raksha (cow protection). Gandhi is invoked frequently in the course of the debate but his musings on cows and cow slaughter were nuanced and evolved over time. He asked people to focus on gau ‘seva’ or serving cows and not on protection or gau ‘raksha’. In 1921, he reflected: “I would not kill a human being for protecting a cow, as I will not kill a cow for saving a human life, be it ever so precious.” By 1946, Gandhi was clear that, “Cow slaughter can never be stopped by law. Knowledge, education, and the spirit of kindliness towards her alone can put an end to it.” Modi should ensure that cowards indulging in such type of bloodiness activities should be strictly punished under the Law in a fast track court so that other schizophrenic may get lesson and we can save the life of innocent people.
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
