Ahead of Elections, the Cow as Rajyamata

The cow has been playing an important emotive issue in Indian politics for the last three decades or so. The cow is propagated as a holy animal. She has the status of ‘mother’ for many, and Hindutva politics has used this to the hilt in polarising our society.

Hindutva ideologue V.D. Savarkar brought to fore the term Hindutva to mean ‘the whole of Hinduness’ and not just the Hindu religion. This was the premise on which the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh formulated its politics and the goal of Hindu nation, which it has been pursuing relentlessly since a century. The last three decades have been very beneficial for RSS politics as the emotive issues raised by this organisation are dominating the political scenario in the country.

This came to the fore yet again this month. On the one hand, the ruling coalition of Maharashtra led by the Bharatiya Janata Party declared the cow – only the indigenous breed, called desi gai in popular parlance – the RajyaMata Gomata or the state’s mother-cow mother.

This surely has been done with an eye on the forthcoming Maharashtra election. In Maharashtra, as per popular perception, BJP seems to be floundering a little bit. In the recently held parliament elections, it fared badly in the state, and since then, it has resorted to antics which are polarising to the core.

Savarkar

At around the same time, a Karnataka minister made a statement saying Savarkar was not against cow slaughter and did not regard the cow as sacred but as a very useful animal.

At an event in Bengaluru organised to mark Gandhi Jayanti, Dinesh Gundu Rao claimed that Savarkar was not only a meat-eater, who consumed beef, but also propagated the practice publicly.

The Congress minister said that Savarkar, despite being a Brahmin, did not adhere to traditional dietary restrictions and was a modernist, “Savarkar was a Brahmin, but he ate beef and was a non-vegetarian. He did not oppose cow slaughter; in fact, he was quite a modernist on that topic.”

That Savarkar was not a vegetarian is often repeated. Gandhi famously visited Savarkar in London, when he was raising support for his work in South Africa. Savarkar was preparing his dinner. He was frying prawns, and offered them to Gandhi who declined as he was a vegetarian.

Author Vaibhav Purandare said at a literature festival, “Savarkar held the view that the cow is only a bullock’s mother, and while there is no record of him eating it, he was not averse to eating beef.” Purandare wrote the book Savarkar: The True Story of The Father of Hindutva.

Purandare said that Savarkar’s position was rather complicated on the issue of cow protection as he was of the opinion that if one “deliberately killed cows to spite Hindus” then it was a problem. “However, he believed that if it was just for the sake of eating because you like it, then it is okay,” added the writer.

Vivekananda

As far as cow and holiness is concerned, a lot has been written about the sacrifice of cows during the Vedic period. Swami Vivekananda in his various writings points out that cow was sacrificed in the holy rituals and eating it was not taboo.

“You will be astonished if I tell you that, according to old ceremonials, he is not a good Hindu who does not eat beef. On certain occasions he must sacrifice a bull and eat it.”

Other research sponsored by the Ramakrishna Mission, like C. Kunhan Raja’s ‘Vedic Culture’, cited in The Cultural Heritage of India series by Suniti Kumar Chatterji and others says:

“The Vedic Aryans, including the Brahmans, ate fish, meat and even beef. A distinguished guest was honored with beef served at a meal. Although the Vedic Aryans ate beef, milch cows were not killed. One of the words that designated cow was aghnya (what shall not be killed). But a guest was a goghna (one for whom a cow is killed). It is only bulls, barren cows and calves that were killed.”

Ambedkar’s studies also point in a similar direction. The historian D. N. Jha, based on his scholarly work Myth of Holy Cow points out that there are ancient verses like ‘atho annam via gau (cow is veritably food)’. It was during the struggle between Buddhism and Brahminism that the cow was later given the status of mother, of a holy being and so on.

Later, during the freedom movement, as Muslim and Hindu communal politics surged, the pig and cow were used by these political tendencies to strengthen themselves. Throwing pork at the mosque or beef at the temple were tactics used to instigate communal violence which strengthened these divisive tendencies.

As cow slaughter bans continue to be enforced and several Muslim and Dalit men from Akhlaq to Junaid to Rakbar Khan have been made victims citing it, there is a natural fright in minority communities.

It is only Muslims and Dalits who are targeted, other beef eaters in northeastern states (Kiren Rijiju once conceded that he eats beef), along with Kerala and Goa have been spared.

The Maharashtra government has very cleverly called only ‘indigenous cows’ Rajyamata, and not the other ones. India is gradually peaking in beef export.

Interestingly, Vijay Trivedi’s book on Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Haar Nahin Manunga, tells us that once when Vajpayee was eating beef in America, he was reminded about this by his table partner. Vajpayee smiled it away saying that it was not the Indian cow anyway, so where was the problem?