THE Indian Supreme Court validated the demolition of the Babri masjid. The Supreme Court judge Ranjan Gogoi was inducted, shortly after his retirement as a member of the Rajya Sabha (council of states) as quid pro quo for his pro-government decisions.

He took no action on the abolition of Kashmir’s special status. The serving Supreme Court judges rejected a petition for inquiry into Gogoi’s in-service conduct.

The National Crime Records Bureau withheld collected data on murders; burning Muslims alive, cow-related lynching and offences committed for religious reason.

It is strange that the status of cow overshadowed all other issues in India’s elections.

One is shocked to read that chief minister Yogi Adityanath of India’s Uttar Pradesh state equated cows with human beings. A Goa legislator complained that cow vigilantes (gau rakhshak) intercept beef trucks into Karnataka and put phenyl on it to make it unfit for eating.

Judge Mahesh Chandra Sharma of the Rajasthan High Court, in his 193-page judgment, stunned people by mentioning the mythical benefits of cow milk, urine and dung. His judgment, a mélange of scriptures and law, glistens with claims like ‘cow is a surgeon’, ‘a complete pharmacy’, and cow is a ‘national animal’.

The judge revealed that when Lord Krishna came to earth, he brought down a cow with him to Vrindavan. And he knew that the cow could suffice for doctors and surgeons because cow’s milk is medicinal in nature, and cures all kinds of ailments (except insanity).

Rajasthan education minister Vasudev Devnani also claimed that the holy cow is the only animal that inhales as well as exhales oxygen. Later, in an interview to CNN News18, the judge, inter alia, said ‘Peacocks don’t have sex’.

While lynching the beef eater, the Hindus ignore that, according to the National Sample Survey Office, more than 80 million Indians consume beef, of whom Hindus account for 12.5 million, the rest belonging to various other communities, including Muslims and Christians.

Moreover, according to 2015 figures, India has been the largest exporter of beef since 2014 and has been outpacing Brazil in that department steadily over the past few years. India’s Al-Dua is a leading exporter of halal/kosher meat to Arab nations.

BJP legislator Sangeet Som is a big beef exporter. Goa allows beef consumption as does the Northeast. Both, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju and Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu have openly admitted being beef eaters.

Preventing cow slaughter or the eating of beef has neither economic nor constitutional backing. Where is secular India headed towards? If re-elected, which he is likely to be, Modi would amend India’s constitution to make India a Hindu republic and adopt cow as an equal citizen.

A Pakistani
Rawalpindi

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2020