Cow has become a hazardous subject
to be handled cautiously, capable of igniting the frenzy of a mob to lynch or
deny nationhood by being verbally deported to another nation. The image of this
docile animal has been strategically used to polarize people to achieve
ulterior purposes.
Cow has been historically used as an
identity symbol to distinguish from Muslim rulers by the re-emerging Hindus of
19th century, who followed the consciousness of medieval period which
proscribed beef eating, pertinent only for upper caste Hindus. The shift to preservation
of cattle is associated with agrarian expansion of which caste Hindus where the
major benefactors. The influence of Buddhist principle of ahimsa and its
cooption is also argued to be another strand that endowed the moral dimension
to this preservation angle. Cow protection historically therefore has less to
do with ‘holiness’ of cows but more with economics. (See, ‘The Myth of Holy
Cow’ by D.N Jha; W Norman Brown, “The Sanctity of Cow in Hinduism”, EPW, February 1964).
Analysis on the objective and
rationale of cattle preservation/cow protection laws could provide an
impassionate sense of laws logic and contrast it with the current high-pitched
hyperbole on ‘holy cow.’ The legal
regime is located in two major fields, Constitution of India and States laws
under Entry 15 of the Seventh Schedul. There are few relevant judicial
decisions connected with the prevailing issue.
Constitution of India, besides Entry
15, deals with the topic of cows in Article 48. While speaking in
Constituent Assembly on current Article 48, Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava
reflected the Assembly’s attitude in the following words, “[w]e have practically substituted this article for the article which
other Members wanted from a religious point of view. It is now simply a
utilitarian measure but still a measure in which the religious sentiments of
crores of people are involved.” The Directive Principle of State Policy urge the states to ‘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 tenor of the directive is writ large in the mandate to the states.
The objectives are agriculture and animal husbandry. The prohibition of
slaughter is of cattle that have one common character, productiveness. It is
both arduous to locate holiness of cows in Article 48, and unreasonable to
force the States to legislate to prohibit slaughter of cows because it is
sacred, as Article 48 is not drafted to protect the ‘divine cow’ but an
agricultural benefaction.
There is also a very plausible contextual explanation for the placement
of cattle protection norm in Directive Principles of State Policy. It was a
time when the demand for cow protection were gaining momentum and getting
violent. Given the liberal façade of the Constituent Assembly, it was difficult
to bring the non-secular cow protection directly into the basic document that
they strategically positioned it in Directive Principles. Entry 15 that give
the mandate of ‘preservation, protection and improvement of stock and
prevention of animal diseases; veterinary training and practice’ to States to
legislate, leave it upon the States to decide the content of the laws in
ursuance of the directive under Article 48 and within the legislative
competency under Entry 15.
Out of
36 States and Union Territories of India, 29 States and Union Territories have
laws prohibiting slaughter of cows. Out of which except three, Indian National
Congress have prime authorship. Majority of these Act are title as cattle/animal
preservation as opposed to six which have prohibition of cow slaughter in its
title. The nomenclature distinction is highlighted only to augment the point of
focus of these legislations. Of all the
cow related laws, it is the Delhi legislation, that was fully drafted by the
Bharatiya Janatha Party, though the Rajasthan and Gujarat laws have seen
amendments in respective laws during BJP regime tightening up existing laws by
enhancing punishments and also prohibiting export of cows for slaughter out of
state.
The Delhi legislation covers cows and calves of cows of all ages, bulls
and bullocks. The law titled Delhi Agricultural Cattle Preservation Act 1994
has the declared objective to ‘provide for the preservation of animals suitable
for milch, draught, breeding or agricultural purposes,’ which ostensibly stands
far from the holiness of species. There are certain state laws that
specifically target to prohibit slaughter of cows and not the wider range of
agricultural cattle like the Punjab Prohibition of Cow Slaughter Act 1955,
Uttar Pradesh Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act 1955. Both these enactments have
similarly worded objectives that is, ‘to prohibit the
slaughter of cow and its progeny in ...’.
The above analysis is
taken up with an idea to indicate where the law stands. The cow slaughter laws
may be a compromise to placate the hardliners but it has so far not endorsed
the religious sentiments outwardly, nor these laws permit trading of human
souls for those of cows. The laws of India so far hold the life of humans valued
than cow.
