The Congress Government in Madhya Pradesh is aping the previous regime’s controversial policies on cows, cow-slaughter, cow urine and cow killers. This is surprising considering that the party had always shunned the cow as a tool for political propaganda, rejecting the demand for an outright ban on its killing and had allowed the export of beef. What new has happened for the Congress Party to discover the cow as a revered animal to be worshiped as ‘gau mata.’
In one word, it is votes. After the A K Antony report into the successive electoral failures of the party which said there was a popular impression in the majority community that the party appeased the Muslims while caring little for the interests of the Hindus, the party has taken a sharp tilt to the right. Instead of making a nuanced change in its policy and attitude, the party went whole hog, with Rahul Gandhi claiming to wear the sacred thread (janeau) and lesser leaders making a show of their worship of the cow.
It is in this context that the decision of the Kamal Nath Government to detain five persons under the National Security Act for allegedly slaughtering a cow ought to be seen. Invoking a law meant to be used in extreme cases when there is a threat to national security and law and order is highly objectionable. Invoking the preventing detention law for the defence of cows was far from the objective of the law-makers.
The law empowers the executive to detain people without trial for up to one year. The justification that the five persons if freed would be attacked by the cow vigilantes is hollow. The real reason is that with an eye on the coming Lok Sabha election, the Congress Government does not want to be seen a lesser defender and devotee of the cow than the BJP. It is why it keeps on harping on its promise made in its manifesto that it would open one thousand cow shelters and market cow urine in bottles across the State.
But it is the preventive detention of the alleged cow-killers that has attracted much criticism. Senior Congress leader and a former Home and Finance Minister P Chidambaram has criticised the detention, adding that the party leadership, too, is against it. Next day, a party spokesman, however, reiterated that it supported the detention of the alleged cow killers. Clearly, preventive detention of people in the name of cows is the same as preventive detention in defence of national security in the eyes of the Congress leadership. To what depths of desperation have our politicians sunk to woo voters? It is not good for the health of our nascent democracy.
