India's soul is secular

India has been pushed into an unnecessary debate whether beef should be banned or not. This is a wrong question to ask in a country where the emotions of Hindus are linked with the cow, which they revere.

The real question is whether a person should have been lynched that he had consumed beef. Even this allegation was based on false rumours. It looks as if the Hindu extremists have come to dictate their view of the religion.

It is a blessing that the debate on beef did not last long. The discussion had begun to polarise the society. Maybe, this realisation made Prime Minister Narendra Modi say that Hindus and Muslims should come together to fight poverty, not each other. He kept quiet for a week and would not have probably taken equivocal position but for the public pressure. Even what he ultimately said was so tepid that it looked as if he was merely going over an exercise.

It seems as if the Rashtriya Svayamsewak Sangh (RSS) had come to feel that the BJP government under Narendra Modi would be exposed to unforeseen dangers if the extremist fringe went on harping on beef. The Muslims would have felt more insecure. This made RSS to pipe down. Not long ago, its stalwart L K Advani candidly admitted that it was possible  for the BJP to have an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha with the support of Hindus but it would be difficult to administer the country without the Muslim cooperation. Yet, this has remained on paper.

If the Sangh Parivar had felt so strongly about garnering the Muslim support, it would have taken appropriate steps for the participation of Muslims. For it, the Muslims do not really count in affairs of the country. Take the Central cabinet, only one seat has been given to the Muslims and that too of minor importance.

Still worse is the distance which is increasing between the two communities. There is hardly any interaction between them. Both seem to live in the world of their own. This is primarily because of polarisation which is deepening and which the Sangh Parivar is purposefully cultivating.

This point has been brought to the fore by the return of academy awards by several eminent literary figures, including Nayantara Sehgal, Jawaharlal Nehru’s niece. In their letter, they have contended that the space for free expression is shrinking day by day. Indeed, they represent the country’s ethos.

The saffronisation that the BJP is imposing cannot be acceptable to a society which has been nurtured in the values of free expression and pluralism. It’s un-fortunate that the RSS and BJP leaders have not realised this basic fact so far.

Modi, once the RSS pracharak, should draw a lesson from the communal rioting at Dadri, near Delhi. A Muslim was lynched on the basis of rumour that he had consumed beef. Even if he had, there is no law to forbid its eating it. True, all the states except two or three have banned the cow slaughter but none has banned beefing.

Modi should realise, if he has not so far, that pluralism is whiff and whoop of the society. Even if some extremists in the Sangh Parivar do not like this, there is a preponderant majority which believes in the idea of India: democracy, secularism and egalitarianism. No doubt, there are pockets in the country where the majority has an unbridled say and denounce pluralism. But this is not true about the nation on the whole. It has full faith in the free say of minorities and will defend.

Those who declare on the TV screens that they eat beef are not serving the cause. In their efforts to register their secular credentials, they are doing it harm through their chest beating.

Killed by a rumour
The country’s focus should have been on the lynching of Akhlaq Hussain who was dragged from his house on the rumour that he had consumed beef. Even if it is a fact, the question arises: whether a person who ate beef should be put to end?

The directive principle of the constitution also says: “The State shall endeavour to organise agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter, of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle”.

The matter of beef has gone to the Supreme Court which has said in a judgment that it was up to a person whether he wanted to eat beef or not and it was no crime if he did so. The real fact is that the fringe of Hindu extremists have made beef an issue to polarise the society for electoral purposes. In the same way, the Shiv Sena, a Hindu organisation, confined to Maharashtra, also has given the state a bad name.

Not only has the Shiv Sena sullied the reputation of democratic structure of India but has besmeared its face. Shiv Sena’s founder, Bal Thackerey had real-ised the futility of violence and had come to condemn it. This helped the Sena to gain acceptability and have its nominee in the chair of chief ministership.

Still, the democratic functioning is not to the liking of Sena’s new breed. Blackening the face of Sudheendra Kulkarni, a respected author who has pro-BJP leaning, is the way in which the Sena functions now. The uproar over this incident should make the Sangh Parivar realise that India’s soul is secular. So it will stay.