by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Panaji : Beef traders in Goa on Friday accused cow vigilante groups of trying to disrupt supply of beef in Goa by pressurising authorities to crack down on legitimate slaughter of cattle imported from neighbouring states.
Addressing a press conference, Manna Bepari, President of the Qureshi Meat Traders Association of Goa, said that beef supply in Goa was severely curtailed due to interference by cow vigilante groups.
“On Wednesday, our meat traders brought six animals to the official abattoir after obtaining necessary permission from Goa and Karnataka where the animals were imported from. But the animals were rejected after pressure on the abattoir authorities from the cow vigilantes,” Bepari said.
This is the second time in the last eight months that beef traders have complained of interference in the supply of beef by cow vigilantes, who the traders claim, are targeting supply of beef in the coastal state, where nearly one third of the resident population consumes beef.
In 2017, beef traders in Goa had gone on a strike for more than a week, following harassment by vigilante groups in Goa, forcing Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar to intervene and direct the Director General of Police to crack down on such groups.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
By Amulya Ganguli,
For the third time since the Narendra Modi government’s assumption of office, the Dalits have come into conflict with the Hindutva brigade. The first time was in Una in Gujarat, where a group of Dalits were thrashed by saffron activists for skinning a cow, a traditional occupation of the “untouchables”.
The second time was in Hyderabad central university where a standoff between members of the Ambedkar Students Association and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) student wing, led to the suicide of a Dalit student, Rohith Vemula.
Now, perhaps the most serious of all these incidents has taken place in Maharashtra following the objections of Hindu Right organisations to the celebrations by Dalits of an 1818 battle in the village of Koregaon on the banks of the Bhima river near Pune in which the “untouchable” Mahar soldiers of a British army defeated the upper caste Marathas.
Considering that these celebrations have been held for decades without the rest of the country noting it as an event of great significance even when B.R. Ambedkar participated in them in 1927, it is noteworthy that they should have led this time to a violent outbreak which spread from Pune to Mumbai and other Maharashtra towns.
Evidently, the Hindu Right groups have been emboldened by the BJP’s political ascendancy to decide to stop an instance of Dalit assertion, not least because it targeted the upper caste Peshwa rulers of the state of the 19th and earlier centuries.
The episode was a much larger version of the clash which took place in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, between Dalits and the Rajputs in May last year when the former objected to the processions taken out by the Rajputs to celebrate the birth anniversary of Maharana Pratap. A few weeks earlier, the latter had objected to the celebrations of Ambedkar’s birth anniversary by the Dalits.
What these episodes show is that unlike in the past, the Dalits are unwilling to commemorate their days of pride in a low key and are also ready to object to the noisy festivities of the upper castes.
The Bhima-Koregaon event may have kindled the ire of the Hindu Right all the more because of the unapologetic participation of the Dalit soldiers with the British army to defeat a Hindu ruler.
This is something which evidently riles the ultra-nationalists associated with the saffron brotherhood at a time when they are engaged in rewriting history to suit their own fads and prejudices as is evident in their objections to a yet-to-be-released film on a fabled Rajput queen.
In such a time of triumphal chauvinism, the Dalit-East India Company collaboration is obviously unacceptable to the Hindu Right, especially when Ambedkar had noted that the “untouchable” Dusads had helped Robert Clive to win the battle of Plassey in 1757, just as the “untouchable” Mahars, a community to which Ambedkar himself belonged, had helped the “foreigners” to win in Koregaon.
Not surprisingly, Ambedkar had not been a favourite of the BJP till recently when the party changed its mind about him after realising the high political cost of alienating both the Muslims and Dalits.
However, the party’s “mann ki baat” or speaking one’s mind about the Dalits was succinctly expressed by Arun Shourie, who was a minister in Atal Behari Vajpayee’s government, in his book, “Worshipping False Gods”, in which he said that “there is not one instance, not one single solitary instance, in which Ambedkar participated in any activity connected with the struggle to free the country”.
Considering that there are not too many instances of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) participating in “any activity” to free the country, Shourie’s charge cannot be taken seriously. But it does underline the traditional Brahmin-Bania outlook of the Sangh Parivar towards the Dalits and their foremost leader.
The objections voiced by the RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, about the continuing reservations for Dalits in government jobs and educational institutions also denote the saffron attitude which is resented by the latter.
The BJP has tried to make amends by nominating a Dalit, Ramnath Kovind, as the country’s President, but it is unlikely to make any difference to the longstanding antipathy of the community towards a party whose hardliners swear by the Manusmriti, an ancient book which was once “ceremonially” burnt by Ambedkar along with hundreds of his followers for its anti-Dalit pronouncements.
For the BJP, the latest confrontation with the Dalits carries a disturbing message on the eve of elections in as many as eight states this year, including those where the party is expected to face the anti-incumbency factor.
While the BJP’s success in winning 69 of the 85 reserved seats in Uttar Pradesh last summer showed that the party was gaining the support of the Dalits, the trend was not in evidence in the recent Gujarat elections where, among other things, the victory of the previously unknown Jignesh Mewani, by a margin of 19,000 votes, pointed to the disaffection of the Dalits with the saffron organisation. Mewani emerged from nowhere after the Una incident to become a well-known figure in today’s politics.
There is little doubt that farily large sections of the Dalits, who make up 16.6 per cent of the population, as well as Muslims, who comprise 14.2 per cent, harbour reservations about the BJP, notwithstanding its attempt to placate at least the Muslim women by bringing the triple talaq bill. The BJP cannot but be deeply worried, therefore, about the impact of their alienation on the forthcoming elections.
(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Riyadh : The Saudi Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture has imposed a temporary ban on importing cows from Spain following the detection of mad cow disease in some farms in the country.
The Saudi Ministry imposed the ban after receiving a notification from the World Organisation for Animal Health confirming an emergence of the disease in Spain, the report said on Saturday.
The mad cow disease is a fatal neurodegenerative disease in cattle that may be passed to humans who have eaten infected flesh.
The disease may be most frequently transmitted to humans by eating food contaminated with the brain, spinal cord or digestive tract of infected carcasses.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : The government has made no change in its May 26 order banning sale of cattle for slaughter though it is said to be considering its withdrawal.
The Union Environment Ministry on Saturday withdrew rules made in May this year relating to the regulation of fish market and aquarium in a bid to ensure aquatic creatures are kept in hygienic conditions.
Under the rules all shops selling fish for aquariums anywhere in the country had to get registered and follow certain norms to keep fish healthy.
Following representations, the government made amendments to withdraw the May order.
It was earlier inadvertently reported that the order withdrew the ban on sale of cattle for slaughtering.
Saturday’s order made no change in the controversial order.
A ministry official said the process of proposed withdrawal of the order relating to cattle sale will take some time.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Pehlu Khan lynching (file photo)
New Delhi : An independent fact-finding investigation into the lynching of Pehlu Khan, a dairy farmer, earlier this year by cow vigilantes has exposed how police tried to “weaken” the investigation by delaying filing of the FIR and invoking IPC sections of crimes with lesser punishment.
The investigation termed the police action as “monumental inefficiency” or a “deliberate attempt to weaken the cases against the accused gaurakshaks”.
In April, Khan, a dairy farmer from Jaisinghpur village in Haryana, was lynched by cow vigilantes in Behror of Alwar district in Rajasthan. He was returning home after purchasing two cows and two calves from a Jaipur cattle fair.
The murder caught national attention and Khan became the face of protests against the spate of lynchings across the country in the name of gauraksha or cow protection.
The independent investigation also revealed that the accused named in Khan’s “dying declaration” were not arrested and police failed to defend the arrests they made in court, as five of the seven got out on bail.
In July, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked state governments to act against gaurakshaks indulging in violence.
The investigation report states that it has found that “police across the states are openly flouting the Prime Minister’s instructions, especially in the states that are ruled by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), be it Haryana, Gujarat, Jharkhand or Rajasthan.”
The report said that FIR was filed nine-and-half-hours after the incident, though the scene of the crime is only two km from the police station.
“The FIR claims that the police were informed of the attack at 3.54 a.m.” on April 2, but “according to the FIR the attack took place during 7 p.m.-10 p.m. on April 1”, and does not explain the delay, the report states.
Another major finding of the report was the invoking of IPC sections of crimes with lesser punishments among others.
“The FIR does not invoke Sec 307 of the IPC for the offence of “attempt to murder” which provides for imprisonment of 10 years to life. Instead, the FIR invokes Sec 308, which only takes cognisance of “attempt to culpable homicide not amounting to murder”, prescribing imprisonment of three to seven years,” the report said.
Also several sections of IPC which amount to criminal conspiracy, rioting with weapon, promoting religious enmity, which would have made the case stronger were ignored by police, according to the report.
“The pattern of behaviour exhibited by the police reflects either monumental inefficiency or a deliberate attempt to weaken the cases against the accused gaurakshaks, nearly all of whom are said to be connected with the BJP and its affiliates such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal,” the report read.
“Many of the accused have secured bail even though they have been charged with murder, that, too, committed in broad daylight. Their bail is even more surprising as the attackers took pictures and recorded videos of their acts which should anyway nail them without doubt,” it said.
The report states that it is hard to believe that the police could not trace the six accused named by Pehlu Khan in his “dying declaration” for five months after the incident.
“Khan named six of his attackers in a statement given to the police. But none was arrested. Police concluded that none of those named was involved in the attack. Those arrested were not named either in Khan’s statement or in the First Information Report (FIR). They got bail despite being charged with murder,” the report said.
“Their bail is even more surprising as the attackers took pictures and recorded videos of their acts which should anyway nail them without doubt,” the reports read.
The police failed to “defend the arrests” as five of the seven arrested secured bail, the report said.
As a way forward, the investigation suggests that the six men Khan named in his dying declaration should be arrested, a new FIR should be registered, and an investigation ordered into VHP and Bajrang Dal for involvement in Khan’s murder, among other measures.
The report has been endorsed by Alliance for Justice and Accountability, New York, Human Rights Law Network, New Delhi, and South Asia Solidarity Group, London.
—IANS
