Our PM is a MASTER BLUFFER, a characteristic learnt sitting at the feet of Guru Golwalkar. Modi ji has completely washed off his hands from the culpability of crimes being committed by ‘Gau Rakshaks’ by saying “All (state) governments should take stringent action against those violating law in the name of cow protection.”
Thus it is not the Hindutva gang whose polarizing agenda is responsible for lynching/robbing in the name of Holiness of Cow but States not taking “stringent action” against the criminals under the garb of Hindutva.
Is our PM so naive that as a senior RSS pracharak he does not know how Golwalkar manufactured the fact about cow-slaughter that it was started by Muslims and Christians?
Golwalkar, a shameless liar while responding to a question (1966), “How did cow slaughter begin in our country [India]?” replied, “It began with the coming of foreign invaders to our country. In order to reduce the population to slavery, they thought that the best method to be adapted was to stamp out every vestige of self-respect in Hindus…In that line cow slaughter also began”. [MS Golwalkar, Spotlight, Sahitya Sindhu (RSS publication house), Bangalore, 1974, p. 98.]
It is this propaganda at Hindutva shakhas and boudhik meetings which has created this scenario of terror. Unless PM and his band of rulers disown this blatant lie, the violence in the name of cow is not going to end. The lie that cow-slaughter started with the arrival of Muslims and Christians is not even in keeping with the Vedic version of history as narrated by ‘Hindu’ chroniclers.
Swami Vivekananda, regarded as a philosopher of Hindutva by the RSS, while addressing a meeting at the Shakespeare Club, Pasadena, California, USA (February 2, 1900) on the theme of ‘Buddhistic India’, declared:
“You will be astonished if I tell you that, according to old ceremonials, he is not a good Hindu who does not eat beef. On certain occasions he must sacrifice a bull and eat it.” [Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, vol. 3 (Calcutta: Advaita Ashram, 1997), p. 536.]
This is corroborated by other research works sponsored by the Ramakrishna Mission established by Vivekananda. According to C. Kunhan Raja, a prominent authority on the history and culture of the Vedic period:
“The Vedic Aryans, including the Brahmanas, ate fish, meat and even beef. A distinguished guest was honoured with beef served at a meal. Although the Vedic Aryans ate beef, milch cows were not killed. One of the words that designated cow was aghnya (what shall not be killed). But a guest was a goghna (one for whom a cow is killed). It is only bulls, barren cows and calves that were killed.” [Cited in the series, Suniti Kumar Chatterji and others (eds.), The Cultural Heritage of India, vol. 1 (Calcutta: The Ramakrishna Mission, 1993), p. 217.]
If the Pime Minister really wants to seal flood gate of lynching/robbing in the name of cow by the criminals, the India state must share the Vedic facts on holiness of cow with the nation. Once the source of the mischief is tackled the violence will stop.
[Shamsul Islam is a retired Professor of University of Delhi.Email: notoinjustice@gmail.com. The above article first appeared on countercurrents.org.]