Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Sadhvi Saraswati has once again made it to the news by asking Hindus to “buy swords and keep them at home to protect cows.” According to her, if people can buy phones worth a lakh, they can also buy swords “to protect cows from those who slaughter them.”

Her words seem to be a call to violence against a minority community. Saraswati was speaking at the Hindu Sangama programme organised by the VHP and Bajrang Dal at the Karkala Gandhi Maidan on Sunday, December 12. According to local news reports Saraswati said, “Across the world ‘Gau Matha’ (mother cow) is respected, but in Karnataka, the cow is killed for meat. Such slaughterers have no right to live in this country. Cows are being stolen from the cowsheds of Hindus showing arms. We all should carry swords to save the Gau Matha.”

Controversial statement by Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Sadhvi Saraswati in Karkala :Buy swords & keep them at home to protect cows.
Says when people can buy phones worth a lakh they definitely can buy swords & keep it at homes to protect cows from those who slaughter them. pic.twitter.com/twQLAayYHL

— Deepak Bopanna (@dpkBopanna) December 13, 2021

She seems to have rehashed her 2018 script, when she had reportedly said, “Love jihadis and cow slaughterers of Kerala should have their throats slit”. According to a 2018 report by New Indian Express, Saraswati, who is also the president of Sanatan Dharma Prachar Seva Samiti, was addressing audiences at the Virat Hindu Convention, organised by the VHP and the Bajrang Dal at Badiadka.

Saraswati’s vitriolic speech had then called on Hindus to take up arms and “start a revolution if the country and the religion had to move forward.” Then too she had used the ‘expensive phone’ analogy and reportedly said, “If you can spend Rs 1 lakh and Rs 50,000 on phones, you should also spend Rs 1,000 on a sword and keep it at home.”

Fast forward to Karkala in Udupi, Karnataka, December 2021. Saraswati has decided to incite possible violence the community by using the “sacred mother cow” as a focal point. She claimed, as reported by the news portal Mangalorean.com, “Cows are being stolen from the cowsheds of Hindus showing arms. We all should carry swords to save the Gau Matha,” adding, “Some anti-nationalists are praising Tippu Sultan in Karnataka. We should protest against them. Government should bring strict laws against Cow slaughter, Conversion and Love Jihad. Bhagavad Geeta says that every soul is the child of God and every life is divine. Bharat Matha is our land. We should fight against love Jihad and put an end to cow slaughter.”

Recently, Rajeev Brahmarshi, a man aspiring to be a Hindutva leader had announced on his Facebook page, “Weapons will reach every corner of #Hindustan.” He claimed he had started the supply in November for Begaluru. A “Public Figure”, Brahmarshi’s page has over 62,000 followers. “I have started sending weapons to every house of my Hindu brothers in every corner of the whole of India. There is a weapon in the hands of my deities, keep weapons in the temples,” he had claimed.

On Monday December 13, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai announced that the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government will bring laws “that are good for the people and in the larger interest of society,” adding that “every law will have pros and cons and there will be discussions. But, what is good for the people would be made as a law. We are ready to discuss the new law in the session.” 

Related:

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Is Nihang leader Baba Aman closely connected to Agriculture Minister Tomar?

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In a shocking incident, three men were lynched by a mob in Assam’s Karimganj area on suspicion of stealing cows. The men suspected of being Bangladeshi may have sneaked by cutting the wire fence along the border.

According to India Today, the incident took place at Bhubrighat Tea Estate under Patharkandi police station near the Indo-Bangladesh border. Karimganj district Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Prasanta Dutta told media persons that a group of people entered the area from the Bangladesh side. While three were killed by the mob, the others managed to escape. The police have recovered fence-cutters, rope, bag, wires, biscuits and bread manufactured in Bangladesh from the site.

Meanwhile, Indian Express reported that in a written statement, Kumar Sanjit Krishna, Karimganj Superintendent of Police, stated, “Three unknown suspected Bangladeshi nationals were killed last night by some unknown miscreants at Bogrijan tea estate under Patharkandi police station. On enquiry it is revealed that the said Bangladeshi nationals crossed the border with a motive to steal cows from the Bogrijan area.” The process to repatriate the remains of the dead with their country of origin has been initiated.

This is the second such incident in recent times. On June 1, one man was lynched by locals after he allegedly attempted to steal cows from a house in Putni tea estate. He was later identified as 43-year-old Ranjit Munda. He was allegedly trying to steal cows with the help of three Bangladeshis and two Indians. In August 2019, yet another alleged Bangladeshi cattle smuggler was gunned down in an encounter with the Border Security Force (BSF). In May 2019, an Indian man allegedly attempting to smuggle cattle into Bangladesh was arrested by the BSF. A few days later, an alleged Bangladeshi cattle smuggler was arrested in the Cooch Behar region of West Bengal that is near the border with Assam and Bangladesh.

The India-Bangladesh border, though sealed with a wire fence, still remains extremely porous in areas along rivers, tea estates and forests. In fact, elephants in the Patharia reserve forest are known to often venture into Bangladesh. Before the British rule, the entire region was one where people moved around freely between places that are now known as West Bengal, Assam and Bangladesh.

Related:

Two men killed over suspicion of cow theft in Bengal

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We the Wonderful Cows of India
With a population of 19 crore
Worshipped in the name of Gau Matas
Do not have rights of our own

Despite being provided with Aadhaar card
And being upgraded to that of a divine symbol
We do not have right to vote
In a regime which is cow friendly

At a time, when we should be getting ministerial positions
Including the governance of the country
We lack even basic right to vote
This is a pure hypocrisy in the name of cow friendly Government

Despite so much talk of Cow
And initiation of Cow Ministry
We are denied this right
At a time when we could have decided the electoral fortunes of the country

At the crucial moment in cow history of India
When we have been brought to centre-stage of politics
We demand a role in governance in the country
And basic right to vote

When we have gained citizenship through Aadhaar card
We demand basic citizenship rights as guaranteed by the constitution
And here we demand
Universal Cow franchise in the country that is Bhaarat

Long Live Cow unity

TH Sreerama is a Poet and retired from Central Warehousing Corporation

Courtesy: Counter Current

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The police had conducted a raid at Karkali village in Kandhwa on February 1 to nab the men, but they escaped. However, they were picked up the following day from different locations in Khandwa itself.

The New Lotus Blooming in Madhya Pradesh
But what came as a bigger surprise is that it was Madhya Pradesh, now a Congress ruled state under the Chief Ministership of Kamal Nath, that invoked the NSA against three men for cow slaughter. This leads one to wonder if this controversial move was an exercise to placate a slice of the electoral pie wrested out of the BJP’s control with much difficulty.
 
Chief Minister Kamal Nath’s predecessor Shivraj Singh Chouhan had used NSA against at least 22 people accused of cow slaughter. Keen to reap rich electoral rewards in the assembly elections held in December 2018, the Congress had promised, in its manifesto, to do more for cow protection. Now that it is finally in power, it is delivering on this promise.
 
In January, the new Congress administration announced that 1000 new government run cow shelters will come up across the state over the next four months… a time frame that mirrors the time left before the upcoming general elections!
  
However, building cow shelters is one thing and booking people under the provisions of NSA, an act that has attracted scathing criticism from various civil society voices and human rights groups for its use against dissenters as well as members of historically oppressed communities, is quite another!

Here is why the Congress should do everything in its power to steer clear of such a controversial legislation, if it wants the electorate to be able to differentiate between it and its opponents.
 
The Genesis of the NSA
The seeds of this draconian law were sown by Indira Gandhi replacing the National Security Ordinance in 1980. The act (through section 3) gives power to the Central Government, State Government or even Commissioner of Police or a District Magistrate to detain any citizen or a foreigner, to prevent him from acting in a prejudicial manner against the ‘security of the State’, ‘maintenance of public order’ or ‘maintenance of supplies and services which are essential to the community.’ It allows for the arbitrary exercise of power, giving the government the power to take preemptive measures, and does not set boundaries to the extent of applicability of these provisions.
 
The act not only fails to define ‘public order’ and ‘state security’ but also fails to define what may amount to an action deemed to be prejudicial.

Under the provisions of NSA, people can be detained for as long as the state wants and authorities are not even required to disclose grounds for detention!  

Experts have pointed out how, the structure of this Act is similar to the British Raj’s Rowlatt Act [1] which denied access to courts or lawyers to those who were detained leading to the coining of the phrase “No Vakil, No Appeal, No Daleel“.  

Key Drawbacks of NSA
 
Human Rights Abuse
The Indian security laws do not comply with the international human rights laws. They restrict freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, impose restrictions on the rights to a fair trial which is guaranteed by the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, to which India is a party. Women have faced sexual violence, families of detainees lose an earning member and detainees are victims to assault, torture and mental abuse.
 
Discriminatory use of law
The empowered governments often misuse or outright abuse the power bestowed upon them. Due to religious and ethnic discrimination, politicians have targeted members of a certain communities. Individuals who belong to minority communities have been detained, disproportionately investigated and prosecuted under these security laws.
 
Punitive rather than Preventive measure
Preventing a crime would mean discouraging a criminal from committing a crime without taking any severe action on the criminals. Rehabilitation would be more effective than punishing and making them suffer. The NSA proves to be punitive as it strips away the basic rights of the detainee and creates a difficult environment for the detainee in the prisons.
 

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