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23 Oct, 2015

Communalising beef: The Hindutva camp’s flawed argument | The Indian Express

The worst part about any debate on political/social/religious issues in India is that you introduce a Muslim dimension to it and the whole discourse will turn into an emotive issue. This situation has greatly aggravated with ‘swayamsevaks’ ruling a democratic-secular India. Currently it is happening on the issue of beef. The Hindutva camp is using it to demonize India Muslims by arguing that consumption of beef started with the arrival of Islam/Muslims in India. This thesis was laid out by MS Golwalkar, the most prominent ideologue of the RSS in 1966 when he said: “It began with the coming of the foreign invaders to our country. In order to reduce the population to slavery, they thought that the best method to be adopted was to stamp out every vestige of self-respect in Hindus. They took to various types of barbarism such as conversions, demolishing our temples and mutts. In that line cow slaughter also began.” [M. S. Golwalkar, Spotlights, (Bangalore: Sahitya Sindhu, 1974), pp. 98-99.].

Thus, cow became another issue to attack Muslims and continues to be a factor in unleashing violence against them.

Source: Communalising beef: The Hindutva camp’s flawed argument | The Indian Express