MP government’s Gau-Vansh Vadh Pratishedh (Sanshodhan) Act has just received the presidential nod. Punishment for slaughtering the cow or its progeny, transporting them to slaughter and storing beef, under the more-Hindu-than-thou legislation, will be severe: up to seven years in jail.
Eating beef has been a contentious issue in the country for long. A few years ago, Professor D.N. Jha, an eminent historian, argued in his book that in ancient India Hindus loved their cow and ate it too. For Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the Hindu Mahasabha leader who gave us the “Hindutva” concept, the cow was merely a “useful animal”, but by no means a sacred animal.
But for the Arya Samaj founder Swami Dayanand Saraswati, it was indeed Holy Cow. The Arya Samaj endorsed cow worship even though it rejected idol worship and polytheism. To Mahatma Gandhi, the cow was “a poem of pity”. He too worshiped it.
India has had a long history of agitation for cow protection, no doubt. Today, laws prohibiting cow slaughter are in force in several parts of the country. This column is not about their rationale, but the severe punishment stipulated in the new enactment in MP.
No comments:
Post a Comment