Book Excerpt: 'The State Practices And Politics Around the Sacred Cow'

(Extracted with permission from 'Practices of the State: Muslims, Law and Violence in India by Tanweer Fazal, published by Three Essays Collective. Paragraph breaks have been added for readers’ convenience).

In an incredibly dauntless act of investigative reporting, one of the leading media houses in India, picked up the roadside vendors of a Muslim majority locality of Haryana as a subject of its probe.

In this undercover operation of rare grit, the reporter adopted a Muslim name for a reality check—whether cow meat was still the ingredient used in the ‘biryani’ sold by them or was it, buffalo meat as it was commonly presented.

On his constant prodding and much to his glee, the vendors revealed that the customer preference for cow-meat was unambiguous, and they simply catered to their taste.

The lid was now open — Despite Stringent Beef Ban, Cow-Meat Biryani Openly Sold in Haryana’s Mewat—ran the shrill headline. Exactly a year before, biryani had been in the Haryana police’s eye of the storm and the newly formed state’s Gau Sewa Ayog (Cow Service Commission) as they went around collecting samples from Muslim concentrated Nuh district.

Soon, news of samples proving ‘beef-positive’ in the state run laboratories hogged the media space.

How Cow Vigilantism Was 'Appropriated' By the State

The proof of the pudding lies in its eating—and literally, the offence could now be fixed on the vendors and their biryani eating customers.

In the eyes of the newly drafted state law, Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gausamvardhan Act, 2015, peddling and consuming biryani laced with beef was a grave offence amounting to a maximum of ten years rigorous imprisonment.

The state of Haryana along with neighbouring Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh was the site of some of the most horrific acts of violence — forms of vigilante justice — borne by Muslim and Dalit communities.

In its content and implication, the Act ended up apportioning the blame on the victims while exonerating the offenders.

The most notable of its provisions was the shifting of the burden of proof to the accused — a principle though abhorrent to modern jurisprudence but increasingly being relied upon by authoritarian states to secure swift convictions.

Unlike its predecessors, The Punjab Prohibition of Cow Slaughter Act, 1955 and The Haryana Prohibition of Cow Slaughter Rules, the provisions of the new legislation were far more stringent and expansive.

The quantum of the period of incarceration was doubled and sweeping powers were bestowed on police officers to enter and search any premises or seize vehicles ‘used or intended to be used’ for the slaughter of cattle.

This came along with blanket impunity for excesses committed during the course of the investigation. As an additional provision, apart from slaughter or selling and storing of beef, the transport of cow without a permit to do so was also listed as an offence liable for severe retribution.

In a nutshell, cow vigilantism — an activity that till date survived on the margins of law — was now appropriated by the state. Haryana, though is hardly an exception.

The new surge in Hindutva politics in the last decade or so coincides with zealous calls for protecting the sacred cow and punishing those suspected of slaughtering them.

In the run-up to the 2014 general elections, BJP’s PM designate indicted the incumbent government of outraging Hindu sentiments by promoting export of packaged beef and beef-products.

Aware of the social dynamics where cattle-rearing is generally associated with Hindu caste groups such as the Yadavas in North India, and meat-trade with Muslim caste groups, Modi’s accusation could be easily read as an attempt to expand support amongst the former.

Expanding the 'Range' of Criminal Activities

Since the formation of the BJP-led government at the Centre and in several states, cow protection laws underwent considerable revision. And almost identical to the law enacted by the Haryana state, the amendments in the existing Acts or promulgation of new ones followed a similar pattern.

Expansion in the range of activities considered criminal, thus not confining itself to slaughter, but also trade, transport, possession as well as consumption of beef products.

Enlargement in the definition of ‘cow and its progeny’ to include bulls and bullocks; sweeping powers to the police; and provision of impunity to vigilante groups supposed to have acted in ‘good faith,' far more stringent penal provisions and quantum leap in the duration of incarceration.

And not surprisingly, a matching determination and resolve to prosecute those accused of leading murderous assaults on the pretext of protecting cows, was invariably missing.

The prevailing atmosphere of permissiveness has emboldened vigilante groups to intensify targeted violence against those accused of transporting, selling, possessing or consuming the forbidden meat.

According to the investigative reports of Indiaspend, Muslims were the target of 52 percent of the violence centred on bovine issues during the period 2010-2017, and comprised 84 percent of those killed.

Notably, nearly 97 percent of these incidents were reported after BJP’s accession to power in May 2014.

The two cases offer stark contrast in the practices of the state —overzealousness in the protection of the cow and its progeny, as opposed to its disinterestedness in protecting human lives.

On the contrary, more than one-third of the police personnel endorsed mob fury against alleged slaughter.

In most of the cases of lynching by vigilante groups, the police was found to ‘have stalled investigations, ignored procedures, or even played a complicit role in the killings and cover-up of crimes.'

How do we explain this fusion of the legal and the extra-legal, the executive and the judiciary, the religious and the secular in endorsing, enduring and at times even contributing to a hegemonic narrative in favour of cow protection?

The Clamour for Beef Ban

In the public domain, the outcry against mob-lynchings was soon trumped by cries for cow-protection and beef ban.

Despite evidence of beef consumption not being confined to Muslims, liberal intellectuals joined the chorus with the Hindutva fanatics in singling them out.

Arguments in favour of the ban were laid out on several grounds.

Pandering to the Hindutva-enforced binary between cow worshipping Hindus and beef-eating Muslims, these commentators remained oblivious to the fact that dalits and other Hindus in different regions too consume beef.

That there was no Islamic injunction to compulsorily eat beef, a correct textual interpretation, they still sought ultimately to keep the debate within the sphere of religion, while being purposefully ignorant of the association of beef trade and its consumption with the livelihood question and dietary practices of certain castes and communities.

Moreover, Muslims were reminded that cow slaughter was proscribed by law and as citizens of the country, they were duty bound to abide by it.

The inherent statism aside, the argument conveniently ignored the circumstances in which such legislations came into existence, and how the laws also exempted certain category of animals for slaughter, besides, many state governments refused to enact any blanket ban.

Another act of concealment is when argument favoring beef-ban is camouflaged in the language of preventing cruelty against animals.

In May 2017, the Union Environ ment Ministry notified new rules under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (1960) that imposed a blanket ban on the sale of all kinds of cattle including cows, calves, bullocks and buffalos at livestock markets for the purpose of slaughter.

The move, however, could easily be read as an attempt to usurp the domain of the state governments in matters relating to the slaughter of cattle.

Moreover, this move of the central government to take the cover of animal rights is suspect for two more reasons. One, a moral call for preventing brutality against animals could not be limited to the cattle. It would ideally entail proscribing the slaughter of all species of animals, which is certainly not on the cards.

Two, if slaughter was a form of cruelty, surely roping them into agriculture is just another form of cruelty. How could one sort of cruelty be condemned while the other is upheld?

(Tanweer Fazal is professor of sociology at the University of Hyderabad. His interests lie in the history and theories of nationalism, minority studies and the study of state practices and collective violence).