Politics of appeasement

Anuradha Dutt

Bhardwaj blocks Bill banning cow slaughter

In line with the Congress’ old policy of kowtowing to Muslim sentiments and the butchers’ lobby, Karnataka Governor HR Bhardwaj has decided to reserve the Bill banning cow slaughter for the President’s consideration. The reason cited is that certain provisos of the proposed law have inter-State implications. Though passed by both Houses of the State legislature, the fate of the Bill is now dependent on Ms Pratibha Patil’s response, which is presumably shaped by her erstwhile party’s stance on the issue. And that is well known, given the Congress’s antipathy to banning cow slaughter. Though it has been in power at the Centre for the longest period of time, it has not bothered to bring about Central legislation in this regard.

In January this year, religious savants of all faiths, experts, organic farmers and social activists submitted to Ms Patil over eight crore signatures, collected during the 108-day Vishwa Mangal Gou Gram Yatra. The journey had begun from Kurukshetra on September 30 last year, and concluded in Nagpur on January 17, 2010. Their memorandum demanded enactment of a central law for cow protection. VHP president Ashok Singhal recalled that in 1952, anti-cow slaughter advocates had presented about two crore signatures to the then President Rajendra Prasad. What he failed to emphasise was that the campaign had not yielded the desired result. And no positive development has occurred now, with the Congress-led UPA Government unwilling to frame a central law, prohibiting cow slaughter.

It is worrisome that there has been concerted lobbying by politicos, traders and even a section of the media in Karnataka to scrap the Bill. Janata Dal (S) stalwart and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda claims that Mr Manmohan Singh, the present Prime Minister, agrees that the Bill is a bad law. But while it may affect the livelihood of butchers, leather workers, traders, and beef-sellers, who could easily be helped by the Government to take up other, less offensive work, it shows a commendable respect for milch animals, which are the staple of our predominantly agrarian economy. Religious sanctity aside, cows and, by extension, cattle are invaluable because they provide milk, dung and urine, used as fertilisers and even medicine, and also plough the fields. They preempt the need for costly agrochemicals in farming, as well as tractors. The worst reward for their efforts is to butcher them, thereby betraying the savagery of arid utilitarianism.

The Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Bill, 2010, which is meant to replace the Karnataka Prevention of Cow Slaughter and Cattle Preservation Act of 1964, is different from the latter in important ways. The former covers “cattle”, defined as “cow, calf of a cow and bull, bullock, buffalo male or female and calf of she-buffalo”. The earlier law was against the slaughter of cows, calves of cows and calves of she-buffaloes. It sanctioned the slaughter of bulls, bullocks and buffaloes if they were over 12 years old, or of no use. The penalty for an offence is more severe in the new law. Violating the 1964 Act invited a jail sentence of six months. Under the proposed law, imprisonment extends up to seven years. This should certainly deter cattle smuggling, illegal slaughter and the like.

Is a cartel of beef-traders and compulsions of minorityism responsible for sacrificing the dominant community’s belief in the sanctity of cows on the anvil of commerce and politics? This issue has long been debated, as successive decades after Independence have seen the constitutional directive to ban cow slaughter being callously flouted. Article 48, ‘Organisation of agriculture and animal husbandry’, avers that “The State shall, in particular, take steps for prohibiting the slaughter of cows and calves and other milch animals”. But while most States have instituted laws against cow slaughter, the Centre has been notoriously callous in this regard. Communist-leaning West Bengal and Kerala have also been remiss.

So far as Muslims are concerned, cow slaughter is not a duty, enjoined by Islam. Historical annals relate attempts by Muslim rulers such as Mohammed Bin Qasim, Mughals and Nawab Hyder Ali of Mysore to prohibit such butchery in deference to the feelings of their subjects. In the present instance, Mr KN Anees Ulhaq, State convenor of Karnataka’s Muslim Rashtriya Manch, concedes that the Quran does not state whether people should eat beef or not, and that one should go with the majority opinion. But judging by its track record, the Congress clearly would beg to differ.

Source: http://www.dailypioneer.com/274230/Politics-of-appeasement.html