Political Beef

TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2003]

If proof were needed that the Congress was re-positioning itself as the B-team of the BJP, then it has come from Digvijay Singh's Madhya Pradesh. Over the past few weeks, Diggy raja has systematically targeted the BJP on an issue that is supposedly dear to the latter's heart - a legislative ban on cow slaughter. Accusing the party of a patent lack of sincerity, the Congress leader has dared the prime minister to introduce a Bill on the issue in Parliament. Pushed on the back foot, the BJP has accused Mr Singh of scoring cheap political points - by distributing posters in Bhopal and elsewhere, which maliciously attack the party's track record on the question of cow protection. One such poster reportedly charges Atalji with being a closet beef-eater, for whom "gau mata" is merely an expedient political slogan. Cut to the quick, Atalji has been forced to issue an angry denial. All this would be highly amusing, were the subject itself not be so emotive and contentious. Mr Singh has argued that his plea for a ban does not amount to a hijacking of Hindutva. From Mahatma Gandhi to Vinoba Bhave, an important section within the Congress has always stood for a ban, keeping in mind the religious sensibilities of a majority of people in the country.

Without going into the merits of Mr Singh's potted history, there is no denying that cow protection has long been a live political issue in this country. It was the subject of a passionate debate in the Constituent Assembly. Yet, the founding fathers stopped short of a ban, merely including cow protection as a directive principle of state policy. This diffidence was not without reason. Many constitutional experts felt that it would set a wrong precedent for a secular state to legislate on matters of religious faith and sensibility. Secondly, notwithstanding the sacredness of the cow, beef eating was a fairly common practice in India, cutting across ethnic and religious divides. Indeed, in many parts of this large, heterogeneous republic, it was and remains the staple. A blanket ban cannot therefore be the answer. Even a symbolic prohibition is not free of difficult logistical questions. Would the ban extend to imports and inter-state trade? Would it include public as well as private spaces? But such questions are perhaps irrelevant because the great Indian cow protection debate is not so much about the fate of the sacred cow, as about cynical politics. Otherwise, the political class would have perhaps attended to the millions of abandoned cows who are forced to survive as sca-vengers on a daily diet of plastic bags and toxic waste.

PTI[ TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2003]

NEW DELHI: Opening a new gambit, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani on Tuesday offered to talk to BJP's allies on sorting out issues like the Ayodhya problem and cow protection if the Congress was ready to support the move but attacked the main Opposition party for its "silence" on the issue of a bill to ban cow slaughter.

"Since the BJP has no majority and if Congress is agreeable, we will talk to our allies for finding a solution to Ayodhya issue," he told the BJP Parliamentary Party meeting here.

Advani, who chaired the meeting in the absence of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who is away in Malaysia, said the party was for resolving the Ayodhya issue through court verdict or negotiated settlement or a legislation by Parliament, according to party spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra, who briefed reporters.

Accusing the Congress of raising Ayodhya and other issues for the sake of vote bank politics, the deputy prime minister said it was the Congress which had first sought to bring an adjournment motion on Ayodhya and suspension of Question Hour for discussing it.

Subsequently, when BJP agreed to a discussion, Congress sought postponement till February 26, he said.

Advani also asked why Sonia Gandhi was "silent" on the bill banning cow slaughter but said his party was committed to issues like ban on cow slaughter and Uniform Civil Code. However, it would not take them up as it was bound by the NDA's agenda.

He said it was the Congress which got the doors of the disputed shrine in Ayodhya opened for Shilanyas and its leader Rajiv Gandhi launched the 1989 Lok Sabha election campaign from Ayodhya promising "Ram Rajya".

"All this only goes to show that the Congress was only interested in vote bank politics," he said.

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 2003]

LUCKNOW: For the protection of cows in Uttar Pradesh, the state government has extended the campaign to stop cow-slaughter and illegal trafficking of cows, to February 18. The campaign was launched on December 18.

Giving this information on Thursday, minister of state for animal husbandry Lakshmikant Vajpayee said during this period, 16,055 cows and 54,050 bulls were among the animals recovered from traffickers. In this connection, 87 cases were filed against the traffickers, the minister said. Also, 214 people were booked under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, he said.

Vajpayee said the government would set up disease-free zones in 12 districts of western Uttar Pradesh, for which, a proposal seeking an assistance of Rs 10 crore has been sent to the Centre.

Vajpayee said the government is toying with the idea of allowing private veterinary colleges in Uttar Prades, and the government has requested Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission to okay the appointment of 403 veterinarians.

More moo-lah for UP cows

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2003]

NEW DELHI: The Union agriculture ministry has approved a three-year programme to improve the productivity of cows and buffaloes in Uttar Pradesh through genetics. An amount four times the entire spending for this purpose over the previous two decades has been sanctioned.

India has a fifth of the world's bovines and is the biggest producer of milk, with UP the first in India. However, productivity is low. The world average is more than two tonnes of milk in each lactation cycle of an animal; India's average is less than a tonne, which is why a 10-year national project in this regard was launched in the year 2000. The UP grant is a component of this; 16 other states are to be covered, too.

Union agriculture minister Ajit Singh handed the first instalment of Rs 10.6 crore, a fifth of the three-year sanctioned amount for UP, to the state government at a ceremony on Monday evening in Lucknow. The aim is to either use artificial insemination (AI) or high-quality bulls on all breedable cattle in the state, the service being provided at all farms.

The plan is a comprehensive one, also involving the training of rural youth to provide these services, besides vaccination, cattle insurance and health care, besides field recording, evaluation and computerisation. Hundreds of farmer training camps are also planned, as are establishing of AI centres and mobile ones, and the buying of superior quality bulls.

SUNDAY TIMES OF INDIA New Delhi, March 30, 2003

OUT OF COURT

COW, one of the most docile inhabitants of the animal world, occupies a special place in the hearts of a vast majority of our people. She figures in our Constitution, which by its Directive Principle (Article 48) requires states to adopt measures to prohibit cow slaughter. Legislation banning cow slaughter has been assailed in the Supreme Court which has declared some provisions unconstitutional.

Various claims are made for preserving cows and curative medicinal properties are attributed to cow urine. There was a custom, possibly obsolete, which required the young novitiate into the Zoroastrian religion to imbibe a few drops of urine (Taro) collected from a bull kept for that purpose. The UP State Cow Protection Commission has claimed that "houses with an outer coating of cow dung could be the safest place to be in during a nuclear attack."

Reportedly UP animal husbandry minister L K Bajpai is sending cowdung samples to the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre for scientific verification. Well done. The Defence Ministry may well examine this claim which has tr4mendous security implications. Only westernized pseudo-secularists would disdainfully dismiss such claims forgetting Hamlet's admonition to Horatio: "Ther4e are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Express News Service

New Delhi, November 16: RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan knocked on an unlikely door on Saturday. He appealed to the Congress to move a private member's bill in Parliament seeking a ban on cow slaughter and asked the BJP to lend a helping hand.

Speaking at a cow shelter in Harveli village near Delhi, Sudarshan said there was ''need for a consensus'' on cow slaughter. He asked Congress Rajya Sabha member M.M. Agrawal, who was present, to take up the matter with his party leadership. He said Jain saint Acharya Mahaprajna had approached Shivraj Patil, Congress deputy leader in Lok Sabha, on the matter.i

Story of a mother
There is nothing she won't do to protect her child

Niti Paul Mehta

The scene looked a painted one in the dim misty light of the early morning hours. The cow stood large and looming over her calf on the edge of the road. Every few moments she'd lick the calf which looked like a dark bundle of fur. It must have been sometime in the night that she delivered the calf.

The calf showed no movement. A stray dog tried to sneak close. Fuming with rage, the cow went at the dog with such ferocity that it sent the whimpering dog scurrying for safety. The belligerent posture of the cow seemed to defy her traditional docile image. She looked wild and menacing.

As the day dawned, things could be seen clearly. The cow looked the very picture of pain and anguish. Tears had dug deep furrows on both sides of her long jaws. As she licked the motionless body of the calf, she moaned. It was clear that the calf was dead and the cow stood mourning beside it.

Someone brought a bucket of water and some stale chapatis and placed these some yards away. She must have been hungry and thirsty but she showed no interest in the chapatis and the water. The sun became strong but no one came to claim the cow, much less the dead calf.

Towards noon two men came to remove the body of the calf. But the cow foiled all their efforts. She kept them at bay. Every time they came close, she fought them off valiantly. She seemed to anticipate all their moves and she was everywhere around her baby. Some three hours later, fatigued and sweating, they withdrew to a shady corner while the hungry and thirsty cow stood her ground.

In the evening the men reinvented their strategy. They tied a chapati at the end of a long stick. They dangled this chapati close to her mouth and as she turned to eat it they slowly withdrew it. The unsuspecting cow took a couple of steps after it. In doing so she had to turn her back towards the calf. The chapati in the meantime was withdrawn a little behind a car parked there and lowered to the ground. As she lowered her head to eat the chapati, one of the men picked up the calf and vanished into a by-lane.

The cow raised her head, half a chapati still dangling from her mouth. She gave a grunt on finding the calf missing. She went wild as she shot into one street, then another. For almost half an hour she kept running from street to street, mooing and lowing in pain and looking cheated. The next morning she wasn't there. But the day after, she came again. For about a week she kept returning to the spot and then she stopped coming.
Then one day about a month later she came again. The entire neighbourhood echoed with her lowing. It was the loudest, the longest pain-soaked lowing of a mother cow I have heard. The depth of her sorrow made her look almost human. Maternity can be a transforming experience. In her case, it was.