What’s the beef?

A female Hindu ascetic has been thrust into the national spotlight in India after she beseeched the government to start executing people for eating beef in the country. Sadhvi (the title given to female ascetics following the tenets of Hinduism and Jainism) Saraswati reportedly made the comments while speaking at a four day Hindu convention being organized in Goa, India.

The subject of beef and its consumption has been at the forefront of a number of controversies in India in the recent years. The sensitive issue has little to do with dietary and nutritional value is coloured by religious and political biases.

The comments by the Sadhvi, who is a President of a religious organization called the Sanatan Dharma Prachar Seva Samiti, could have serious and even deadly consequences in a country where people have been murdered over the issue.

A beef issue

While India is a secular nation, over 80% of its 1.3 billion population is Hindu. Those who follow the religion consider cows to be sacred and hence do not eat its meat. Additionally, many states in India have banned the slaughtering and the consumption of cows. This has caused tensions to rise between the Hindu communities and the Muslim communities as a result.

One of the most horrific tragedies in recent times regarding the consumption of beef took place in 2015 when an angry Hindu mob stormed the house of a Muslim man in a village in Uttar Pradesh in order to attack him after suspecting him of eating beef. As a result, Mohammed Ikhlaq died from the sustained injuries and his son was grievously injured. Similar incidents have continued to plague the nation. Most recently in 2017, a 55-year-old Muslim man was attacked and killed by a mob while he was transporting cows.

There is also a strong political angle to the ongoing controversies. The government led by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has deep ties to Hindutva philosophies and many of the leaders from the party have openly spoken against the consumption of cows. In fact, in 2017, it was reported that the central government had gotten the ministry of agriculture to explore the possibility of enacting a nation-wide law to prohibit the slaughter and the sale of beef and beef products.  

The rhetoric used by elected officials has also become increasingly vehement in the recent months. In a recent interview, the Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Keshav Prasad Maurya, defended the government’s Defending the Uttar Pradesh government’s decision to invoke the National Security Act (NSA) against those involved in cow slaughter and cow smuggling. In the interview he noted that this move was to instill “fear in the hearts of such people.”

Assessment

It is against a backdrop of such tensions when, Sadhvi Saraswati, who boasts a considerable following of her own  demanded the government to not only execute those who eat beef but also those who contemplate eating it. According to PTI she said, “I appeal to the government of India that those people who consider eating the meat of their own mother [cows] as a status symbol, should be hanged to death. Protection of cow is our duty.”

Such statements made when tensions are already high can have devastating consequences. Those vulnerable to hateful rhetoric could as a result carry out acts that can prove to be deadly. This is evidenced in the shooting of a Republican member of the congress in United States. The shooter, James T. Hodgkinson, who opened fire at a GOP baseball practice had often taken to social media to deride the actions of the US President Donald Trump and had at one point even gone on to labelling the Republican party, the “Taliban of the US” on his Facebook page.

Hate speech has also led to the radicalization of many across the world with terrorist outfits like ISIS and Taliban effectively using online tools to recruit thousands to carry out their agendas.

Hence, governments across the world ought to try and place more effective systems to combat hate speech that seeks to incite violence of any kind.