Written by Hritam Saha
Edited by Siddhant Sharma
A fictional story will find a place today where a host of milk-producing animals have gathered for a party. During that party, the goat asked the cow why people are propagating the prevention of cow slaughtering even though there are other animals including the goat who also produce milk. The cow advanced a practical argument that human beings consume cow’s milk more than the milk of other animals.

Yes, the cow is practically right. The goat too is right but legally. Article 48 of the Constitution of India mandates the prevention of slaughtering of all milk-producing and draughty animals.

48. The State shall endeavour to organise agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter, of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle.

A herd of political masters are harping on a particular line of Article 48— "...shall, in particular, take the steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter, of cows…", to fuel their mileage of 'Hindutva' ideology.

The subject of Article 48 categorically depicts two aspects— one is the organisation of agriculture and the other is animal husbandry and it is a fact that both agriculture and animal husbandry are connected with economic growth which is unconnected with any dogma of religion.

It is writ large from the opening expressions of Article 48— "the state shall organize" and "on modern and scientific line" that the learned framers of the Constitution had contemplated that the furtherance of agriculture and animal husbandry shall be based on rational and legitimate methods rather than on religious preferences and etiquette.

The comma used after the expression "prohibiting the slaughter" grammatically signifies that the expression is incomplete and it is completed by the immediately following words— "of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle". There is no comma in between the following words, hence, signifying the uninterrupted application of the said expression— 'prohibiting the slaughter', on all those words. Therefore, the framers of the Constitution have not only mandated the prohibition of slaughtering of cows and calves but also of other animals who produce milk (milch) and of animals who carry the load (draught cattle). It is also worthwhile to accentuate the word 'other' placed after the words, "of cow and calves" and before the words, "milch and draught cattle". The word 'other' (a determiner that sequentially recognizes that a thing falls into the class of another thing previously mentioned) has signified that animals under the category of 'milch and draught cattle' fall into the category of 'cows and calves'. The latter functions both as milk-producing and load-carrying animals just like the animals falling into the category of 'milch and draught cattle' do. Hence, the expression, "prohibiting the slaughter, of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle" is a prohibition clause that the state is bound to operate. Using Article 48 as an indicator of 'anti-Islam' if not 'Hindu Rashtra', is a farrago of idiosyncrasy and manufactured politicism.

Article 48 mandates the uniform prohibition of slaughtering of all milk-producing and load-carrying animals irrespective of their animalistic name. However, the state has strenuously endeavoured only to prevent cow slaughtering in an attempt to boot a religion. Bos indicus, the Indian breed of cow, is designated as a sacred animal, an economic animal and more recently, a political animal. However, Bos taurus, the foreign breeds like Jersey and Holstein-Friesen have not been awarded the same designation. Hence, the cow is also discriminated against in the context of their respective breeds. This evidence shows the non-uniform and skewing will of the political mind.

Purposeful acts lead to objective results whereas motive-centric acts lead to results that are subject to mala fide.

Ancient texts like Brahmana taught religious duty (dharma). It is mentioned there that a bull or cow should be killed when a guest arrives. All these texts state that 'the cow is food'. Even when a portion of the Satapatha Brahmana (3.1.2.21) forbids the eating of cow, a revered ancient Hindu sage named Yajnavalkya immediately contradicts it, saying that, nevertheless, he eats the meat of both cow and bull, "as long as it’s tender". According to many historical texts, before the arrival of Buddhism beef was consumed by the Hindus. It was because of the strife between Buddhism and Hinduism that the Brahmins adopted vegetarianism. They had to do it to portray themselves as supreme and purer than the Buddhists.

In the 4th Century BC, a wave of vegetarianism had sprung throughout India. The objection to the sacrifice of the cow had taken a stronghold of the minds of the masses especially as they were an agricultural population and the cow was a very useful animal. To improve their position against Buddhists, the Brahmins had to give up beef-eating and the practice of sacrificing the cows. Sociologist MN Srinivas pointed out that the lower castes also gave up beef-eating when they wanted to move up the social ladder through the process known as Sanskritization.

This is how cows became such an important part of Hinduism. It's not that they weren't considered sacred before, but due to these events, their importance in Hinduism increased so much. And this is why in the present times they are being weaponized in the name of protection to politicize them for meeting political ends.

Article 48 is an enabling provision of law that is enshrined under the Directive Principles Of State thereby casting a duty upon the authority of the state to tread the path of the scientific road for agricultural and animal husbandry but in no way it allows any person to use it in favour of any religion or as a bombardment against any religion.

The difference between a right and faith on something is that right gives rise to a claim whereas faith gives rise to reliance.

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When there is a deadlock at the headlock of corona and politics....

[Continued].... the people of India have to resort to voting at the expense of their life; political ideologies incarnate into political idiosyncrasies incarcerating the idea of the 'Union of States'; a relay race of shifting responsibility without a finishing point takes place between the government of a State and the government of India and the arrival of many other alike beings take place.All when summed up makes the life and limbs of the common people susceptible to the ears and eyes of the COVID-19.History is a witness, which when called upon, has reiteratedly enunciated that war and crisis makes a government unipersonal. Such power then suffuses over every branch, for instance, Reporters Across Borders purported that 38 countries have hijacked freedom of the press.Many governments have enacted emergency laws to address the pandemic, like new powers of detention, closing non-essential businesses, limiting public gatherings and movement, monitoring the streets to ensure they remain inside.Some countries have also invoked emergency like Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Moldova and Romania. These actions though made in good faith have inseparable repercussions, for instance in Philipines, people are violently detained, belaboured and even killed for being cold with the restrictive orders, and when the actions of the authorities were questioned they justified themselves by colouring their cause of actions with unintelligible crayons. Miniscule of Confrontations has also been witnessed between the armed forces and people in the United States, Greece and Germany.It is a watertight proposition that lockdown has sent the human rights in hibernation though such has been done with good intentions. Still, severing the accountability from the largest picture of lockdown was a cancerous dream that indeed took the form of reality.In India, the largest picture was the inexplicable ever walking hunger march of the migrant workers which perhaps would remain a never-ending march for their families. The government of a state has invested their burden to another state stating the workers are not domiciled in their state. But that is why they are called migrant workers, not just workers. In such circumstances, the centre had graced the situation with absolute silence even though they have conveyed ration to the states but had not pressed anything for the migrants. At that time the Supreme Court, in its wisdom, deemed fit to take a resolution of disappearing with the sunset and not to rise with the sun.Are not these instances exemplifying the uninterrupted dictation of the governments?During the election this year, a newspaper in its print considered voting as the 'dance of democracy'. But I think it was a curtain-raiser. The subsequent substantive of the story was the 'uninvited dance of life shedding'.Politics in simpler and unharmful terms are disagreements that are conciliated and reconciled by deliberations.But here exists palatable incommunicado between the people in power due to their political constipation. But their speeches at biggish stages were that incandescent that it called upon horde of people to throng in their sabhas.Later, it was understood that people were there to assuage their stomach emptiness, not to imbibe the rhetorics of ever germinating politicians, because the number of people who were present there in a party's sabha did not commensurate with the number of votes that the party has received.The pandemic had a huge impact upon the economy, resulting in the imbalance of an already imbalanced socio-economic structure of the society which has been the blue and black to those people whose stomach's appetite solely compliments their daily actions.Comparing the GDP havoc endured by the countries, to approximate one country's efficacy over another against this pandemic is unwanted because every country has been unavoidably compelled by the virus to receive its invitation of downfall in every aspect, and the attendance of the people of some countries to such invitation has been either more or less but not null.Yes, it is indisputable that unemployment, societal disjunction, hunger, domestic violence, depression, etc., all together have increased. But can anybody assert that these were never there before this pandemic? I think the answer would be a big NO.'Health is wealth.' When we say this, things like unemployment and poverty are very much present, thus, we don't have a vibrant economy and the corollary is 'no wealth'. Hence, the other name of 'health is wealth' is, "as there is no wealth there is no health".Some say that a vibrant health system would not have been a guarantee against this pandemic. Yes, indeed, it could not have been a guarantee but it could have been a warranty, that is assurance rather than the commitment, that is guarantee. But here, the government knows that a vibrant health system could not be a shield of guarantee without even trying to make it happen. The drops of Astrology and drops of science are both in positives. Therefore they repel each other.The game of touchable and untouchable, black and white, etc. have been widely familiar for human beings across the world. Like in India, the 'so-called upper castes' purport that they would be contaminated if they come into contact with the 'untouchables' and somewhat similar reasons are for the differences between the whites and blacks. Hence, its a game of illusory contagiousness. But the game is a bit different in the case of COVID-19. If an 'upper caste' person comes into contact with an 'untouchable', he would not get contaminated because in the light of science, there is no trace of contamination. But yeah, those people could get mentally contaminated as they claim to be. In contrast to such, SARS-CoV-2 (the virus which spreads COVID-19) can spread to all humans. Yes, you've again read it correctly, HUMANS. It does not discriminates between touchables and untouchables or whites and blacks, and one more point, this contamination can take the lives of the people, whereas in the previous case, the mentally contaminated ones take the lives of those who had 'contaminated' them as a compensation for their illusory damages.And what politics does in such cases, it encashes such disaster to transform it into a never-ending one for the sake of meeting their political ends, where end means an extension of infinite hedonism with sheer impunity.But this time, politics has averted from the game which was unfolding against the healthcare personnels. Why? Because such a game would have inflicted everyone including politics. Therefore, politics obituaries for its administrators and not for those who have chosen politics to govern them.Let's talk about the elections. Were there no ways available to cherish democracy other than to conduct the elections in this pandemic? If no, then were there no ways left for the politics to witness people's throng without creating the opportunity for the people to reach out to politics physically? Was it needed to apprise people about their past and would be, via rallies?Many in the history of India had shed blood to earn freedom, we, the people of India have tenaciously deliberated to gift ourselves a written Constitution and democracy is a vital cog of it. As said that voting is a 'dance of democracy' and to actualize democracy, elections are conducted. "Had the framers of our constitution ever conceived the thought of witnessing such dance at the expense of people's life?"We are so determined to see the dance of democracy that we have forgotten to evoke the gorgeous dance of the celebrities. At least such would have impeded us to witness the buffoon dance of the politicians and perhaps could have protected lives, but yes, the latter can be witnessed free of cost and also with a toast of food. And why not? It is performed every five years.The multi-polarization of political beliefs at the expense of uniform goal in national interest and discrimination of religious beliefs have now been adjoined by the discrimination of the technological accessibility of people as there has been seen a sharp division among classes regarding the technological means.Has this pandemic compartmentalized human beings in every aspect? The answer seems to be still under construction.The deadlock at the headlock of corona and politics may completely end one day but for the time being, the relaxation of the deadlock is in progress at the effacement of the population.But the question that will remain to be discussed is, "What would happen after the clearance of the deadlock at the headlock of COVID-19 and politics". As of now, COVID-19 is in a headlock with politics and vice versa. But after the expungement of the pandemic, will the headlock by politics to the livelihood of people, would remain? Headlock by rich to the poor, employment to unemployment, vibrant medical structure to precarious medical structure, etc? The future would author and the past would readout.The gravitation of the earth pulls people down for the sake of stability. But the human structured rockets supersede this pull to expel itself from the earth to the space. We human beings are not rockets. Therefore no one is more and no one is less in respect of being stable. Therefore one may discriminate against an individual in every aspect and respect other than the means of stability. Because stability is the law of nature but not of humans.Views are personalWritten by Hritam Saha(Edited by Siddhant Sharma)

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