There Is More Than Just “Beef” In Beef Politics

Image Courtesy: Unofficial: Subramaniam Swamy

Another day, Another victim
The series of killing people over the beef ban row continues to surge in the country as two men herding buffaloes on their way to market were thrashed and hanged to death from a tree by suspected cattle-protection group. The gruesome episode took place early on Friday in Jharkhand’s Balumath forests in Latehar district, 100km from Ranchi. The victims who were cattle traders 35-year-old Muhammad Majloom and 15-year-old Azad Khan were strung up with their hands tied behind their backs and their mouths were stuffed with cloth.

The villagers as well as the local MLA from Jharkhand Vikas Morcha suspect that this is a work of extremists and two of them were targeted as they were cattle traders. The protest broke out in Jhabbar village when the police came to take down the bodies. Villagers pelted stones at SDO Kamaleshwar Narayan and six other cops, who were injured trying to control the situation and ensure that it does not go into communal waters. The incident is reminiscent of the lynching of a man in Dadri for allegedly possessing cow meat. In January also, several passengers were attacked by a cow protection group for allegedly carrying beef at Kharkiya railway station in Madhya Pradesh. The Jharkhand incident draws light into the actual law regarding beef ban. In Maharashtra, there is a ban on slaughtering of cow, calves, bulls and bullocks. But it allows the slaughter of buffaloes whose meat is called carabeef that constitutes 25 percent of the total beef market.

Beef Politics and its ramifications
Today two more succumbed today to the wrath of beef politics, kindly note the word “politics”. What was at best a social issue which communities would have talked, discussed and debated with each other before eventually sorting it out escalated into the political space for political mileage. It is this escalation which has empowered few to take the law into their own hands and costing precious human lives. There can be nothing more inaccurate to view the issue through the prism of faith and religion. There is history and contemporary statistics which place India as a liberal country in the consumption (Kerela & Bengal) and exports of beef, yet, the political class have managed to hijack and escalate this issue into a popular debate blinding people from many more issues. The shocking incident which ended two lives are not isolated incidents, normal people from different communities have always found better ways and means to sort things out. The policial class must be laughing at the people right now sitting in their posh homes and hotels even as social equations are re-written, communities pitted against each other and consequentially costing human lives.

The Logical Indian appeals to the government and the entire political class to calm this situation down which has cost a few lives already. We appeal to the government to being the guilty to justice besides we request the politicians to send out a positive message of unity and harmony which has taken a beating in the light of these incidents.