‘The Cow Empress’

The threat of mob justice

What is one person’s food, can be another’s faith. Cow is one such creature. While the Hindus deify cow, Muslims, Christians and others consume its meat. Recent press reports inform the killing of at least three Muslims in India who were suspected of eating beef or smuggling cows across the borders by devout Hindu mobs. Though India is officially a secular state, there are laws on the statute books of several Indian states that ban cow slaughter as well as the consumption of beef. In civilised societies, and India claims to be one, the enforcement of the rule of law is the responsibility of the institutions of state not the “cow mobs”. The above mentioned killings were the manifestation of uncontrolled anger exhibited by right-wing extremist Hindus, many of whom have organised themselves in ‘Gau Raksha Dal’ (Cow Protection Squads) and insist that they “will dispense justice, there is no need for courts” because “our Hindu scriptures say three hundred and thirty million gods and goddesses reside in one cow” and “my heart beats only for my dear cow mother”. These quotations reveal the sensibility and sensitivity of the present day devout Hindus as well as the extent to which they are willing to go to protect the cow. Has such thinking and attitude of the Hindus towards cow been a recent phenomenon or rooted deep in history?

There is no doubt that cow has been sacred for the Hindus since antiquity and although the Hindus refer to the Vedic literature in this regard yet the precise origin of this holiness remains obscure in the folds of time. What is sacred is protected and sometimes fought for by violent adherents. What is happening with regard to cow protection in Premier Narendra Modi’s twenty-first century India is a replica of what happened in the colonial British-India at the end of the nineteenth century. An official government document of 1893 on the agitation against cow-killing in the North-Westren Provinces and Oudh sheds ample light on the various aspects of this contentious issue.

The ‘institutionalisation’ of cow-protection as a movement was initiated by the Arya Samajists who were later joined by various ‘Dharma Sabhas’ (orthodox Hindu religious societies) and other Hindu organisations. The leaders of the cow-protection societies were mostly Brahmin officials and schoolmasters while the backbone support came from the trading and banking classes as well as the bigoted Hindus whereas the patronisation was offered by Hindu Rajas and nobility.

The plans of cow-protection sabhas were quite elaborate: the members undertook to stop the ownership of cows from going into the hands of those who wanted to buy cattle either for sacrifice or slaughter for consumption. Strict rules were specified for protection and harsh penalties were stipulated for the offenders. In order to discourage and warn the potential sellers and buyers of cows at the public cattle fairs; posters were put and leaflets distributed “exhorting Hindus to protect the cows”. Some of these posters were quite instructive. For example, one poster containing cow picture showed, “A calf is at her udder, and a woman sits before the calf holding a bowl waiting for her turn. She is labelled ‘The Hindu’. Behind the cow, above her tail, is a representation of the god Krishna labelled ‘Dharmraj’ (Kingdom of Justice) – and in front of the cow, above her head, a man with a drawn sword, labelled ‘Kaliyug’ (The Age of Evil i.e., the present era).” When a Hindu was asked to interpret this picture of the cow, he stated that the ‘Dharmraj’ was the ‘Golden Age’ when no Hindu would slaughter a cow whereas in the ‘Kaliyug’ the survival of cow was in danger. This Hindu further argued that “As every man drinks cow’s milk, just as he, as an infant, has drawn milk from his mother, the cow must be regarded as the universal mother, and so is called ‘Gau Mata.’ It is therefore matricide to kill a cow. Nay more, as all the gods dwell in the cow, to kill a cow is to insult every Hindu.

As cow was dear to the cow-protection societies, their organisers even hired paid agents to spread the message among the masses. In fact, one ‘Gaurakhsha Sabha’ in Nagpur held training sessions for the candidates especially selected for cow-protection propaganda. Funds were required to pay the recruited agents as well as to save the cows from the potential butchers. The methods adopted for fund generation were quite innovative. At the house-hold level, a ‘chutki’ or pinch equal to one paisa per family member was set aside at meal times every day for contribution to the fund. While the Hindu government servants who were eligible to pay income tax were expected to contribute 1 pie per rupee on their income, the bankers and traders were required to pay about twenty percent of their assessments. In the rural areas a fixed fee was levied on every plough and a certain proportion of the whole grain sold was set aside for this fund. In addition, fees were levied on the sale of cotton, oil, cloth as well as on ceremonies such as marriages, entertainments and festive occasions. Side by side these voluntary and compulsory deductions, collection boxes were placed in the shops of traders, liquor-vendors and public places to raise funds which were then utilised by the cow- protection agents to outbid the butchers who wanted to purchase cows at cattle fairs and markets.

Those Hindus who did not follow the instructions of the ‘Gaurakhsha Sabhas’ in the North-Western provinces were coerced into submission. The coercion mechanism involved the setting up of Sabha Courts under which the errant Hindus were prosecuted and punished by the Sabhapatis, the heads of these courts. The nature of the charges framed and the punishments imposed can be understood from three cases that have been preserved by history for posterity. The first case entitled “Gao Maharani (Cow Empress) versus Sita Ram Ahir” was about one Sita Ram who had sold a cow for rupees ten to a butcher. First, a Sabhapati ordered Sita Ram to buy back the cow for rupees fourteen which he did and then he was tried at a Sabha Court especially set in a house where Sita Ram pleaded guilty and was awarded a monetary fine, which, when he refused to pay was punished with outcasting for twenty-four days along with various religious penalties.

In the second case entitled “Gao Maharani versus Sheo Lochan”, the defendant was sentenced to twelve days of outcasting and a fine of eight cows. In the “Gao Maharani versus Ram Bhavan” case, the defendant was fined rupees ten to be deposited in the Gaoshala fund along with an outcasting for fifteen days. An analysis of these cases shows that these private courts were set to impose authority of the cow-protection sabhas by coercion of the Hindus of all castes and to affect a social boycott of the minorities particularly the Muslims on the one hand, and to challenge the authority of the prevalent British judicial system on the other hand by setting up a parallel judicial system. As to how effective such ‘Gao Rakhsha’ Sabhas were, the observation of a District Magistrate in the North-West provinces is quite educating: “The whole of the Hindu population is driven into its arms by the tyranny of the caste… its grasp is so powerful that every man, woman and child must openly or secretly contribute to its funds or cease to be a Hindu.”

One thing is pretty clear: the sanctity of cow was, is and will remain an integral part of the Hindu religion. For the maintenance of societal harmony, religious feelings ought to be respected but in no way should “mob justice” threatening the rule of law be tolerated by the Modi sarkar.