Playing with fire Rajindar Sachar

Playing with fire

Rajindar Sachar

The recent Vedic Sanskrit conference held at the University of Delhi suggests that a deliberate effort is being made by the BJP government to create a divisive strategy. I have nothing against Sanskrit. In the intermediate class, it was one of my “choice subjects”. But to be frank, the reason was primarily because it is a scoring subject and not on any foolish and boastful claim of Sanskrit’s supremacy amongst the languages. Each language has a claim of its own along with the scope of study and philosophy. Languages which are in everyday use ought to be promoted. Learning a classical language such as Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic (in India) can only be regarded as special subjects. In day-to-day administration and education, Hindi, Urdu and the provincial languages are the only practical alternatives.

But there are deliberate efforts to claim contrived superiority. Dina Nath Batra, the convener of the RSS-backed Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti, who is writing a moral science textbook for the BJP’s Haryana Government, has the effrontery to declare that Ramayana and Mahabharat represent history and ought, therefore, to be taught in schools. Mr Batra does not consider the Quran and the Bible to be history. Can anything be more provocative? This is a certain recipe for spreading communal tension.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh has created an unseemly controversy over the Nehru Library and the contrived resignation of its Director, Mahesh Ranganathan. He entered Nehru Library accompanied by BJP stalwarts and said that there should be a full debate on all subjects. He highlighted the BJP leader, Deen Dayal Upadhaya’s “integral humanism”. The suggestion is welcome, though the attitude is divisive. But then this debate should encompass all perspectives.

While praising Upadhaya, the BJP has referred to his association with Dr. Lohia. If so, it is only fair that the leaders of the Socialist Party (India), who are the followers of Jayaprakash Narayan and Dr. Lohia, should be associated with it. It appears that the Indian Council of Historical Research has decided on a project to map the country’s scientific achievements from the Vedic age to the 18th Century. To give authenticity to this project, it will be essential to include Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib, two distinguished historians, and Mr. T.K. Oomen, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and former president of the International Sociological Association.

Meanwhile, will the Ministry of Education look into the slavish mentality of retaining the university syllabus of colonial India? A university can legitimately have a course on Machiavelli, but how is it that there is no course on Chanakya who by any reckoning was one of the leading political strategists of his time? Further, the caste system is a subject of public discourse. And yet Dr. Lohia’s treatise on the caste system is not even a recommended study. It should be a compulsory paper for students of Sociology and Political Science.

The rabid communal stance of BJP leaders is encouraging the local satraps to spread communal poison by viciously highlighting its demand on banning beef. Provocative statements are being made on this irrelevant topic of one’s eating habits to malign a certain community. In the process, an anti-Muslim atmosphere is being created. This is underscored by the recent tragedy in Dadri village of Uttar Pradesh where a mob of BJP and RSS supporters lynched a person on suspicion that he had eaten beef. This is nothing short of murder; in a democracy, the eating habits of the people cannot be determined by the State.

It is both a tragedy and a farce that a Muslim should be killed on the basis of a false allegation. Uttar Pradesh happens to be the largest exporter of buffalo meat. It also has the highest number of abattoirs-cum-meat processing export units. The state has 317 registered slaughterhouses and 24 export-oriented units for buffalo meat. Of the total Indian beef exports, 67 per cent originates in UP.

The legal position has been settled by the Supreme Court in 1959 and it would be pertinent to quote the observation - “A total ban [on cattle slaughter] is not permissible if, under economic conditions, keeping useless bulls or bullocks is a burden on the society and therefore not in the public interest”.

Such a ban, according to a reliable estimate, has the potential to pull down India’s annual GDP growth rate by about 2 per cent. According to a study conducted by Abusaleh Shariff, an economist who is currently working at the US-India Policy Institute, Washington DC, between April and November 2014, the sale of bovine meat and meat products was worth $ 3.3 billion, compared to $ 2.8 billion in the same period the previous year, registering a 16.7 per cent increase. The figures are important in the context of Indian’s annual trade deficit. From April 2014 to March 2015, the deficit was estimated at $ 137 billion, which was higher than the deficit of $ 134 billion in the previous financial year.

More sinister is the false propaganda by RSS and VHP goons against the Muslims, considering that the monetary benefits of trade in beef are being almost exclusively enjoyed by Hindus. Buffalo meat is also referred to as beef. A study by ummid.com states that “Muslims are earning peanuts as against the general perception about the trade, and it is actually the government and non-Muslims who are benefiting the most from the $ 4.5 billion animal slaughter business. Except for direct consumption, in which case both Muslims and non-Muslims are at par in terms of consuming beef, all associated business including meat export, bone-crushing and powder industry, leather and horn processing industries, blood processing, animal fat and soap industry are dominated entirely by non-Muslims”.

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