The issue of cow slaughter grabbed headlines recently with the Suvendu Adhikari-led BJP government in West Bengal strictly enforcing the Animal Slaughter Control Act, 1950, under which only cattle above 14 years of age can be slaughtered after mandatory certification by local authorities and government veterinary surgeons.Amid this, ahead of Bakrid on May 28, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind chief Maulana Arshad Madani and Ajmer Sharif cleric Syed Sarwar Chishti called upon the Centre to declare the cow the national animal in view of its religious significance for the Hindu community. Former Vice President of India Hamid Ansari also endorsed this demand, saying the cow should be accorded the status if it helps maintain peace and harmony and prevent fighting between communities. “Because if you can finish off the root cause of the problem, then that should be done,” he told The Indian Express.AdvertisementThe issue has been a recurrent one over more than a century and has led to Hindu-Muslim tensions. Conversely, there are instances from history of Muslims themselves acting against cow slaughter. Mughal emperor Akbar prohibited cow slaughter. During the Revolt of 1857, Muslims are known to have voluntarily suspended cow slaughter as a gesture of goodwill. The same happened at the time of the Khilafat movement that began in 1919, and got support from Mahatma Gandhi and, thereby, the freedom struggle.Scholarly interpretationsMany scholars have studied why cow slaughter became such an emotive issue. Sociologist Therese O’ Toole of the University of Bristol has argued that cow protection bridged the divide between the Hindu orthodoxy and reformers, thus providing a unifying Hindu consciousness. University of Manchester scholar John Zavos has argued it allowed a horizontal Hindu consolidation without a need to restructure caste.Historian Gyanendra Pandey has argued that the issue became related to who is a proud Hindu, making it particularly appealing to backward castes, recalling how Goalas in the Bhojpuri region took part in violent cow protection campaigns around 1917. Historian Sandria Freitag has written that it also reassured “upper caste” landlords that peasants were responding to cow protection calls, a sign of landlord social status.AdvertisementAnthropologist Peter Van der Veer has argued that “as a mother the cow signifies the family and the community”… and “depends on the authority and protection of the male of the family”, adding that “her protection refers to patriarchal authority and to the Hindu state”.In Arya Dharm, historian Kenneth Jones writes that polarisation between Hindu-owned and Muslim-owned press made cow slaughter, an old issue, a major problem. Significantly, historian Bipan Chandra has pointed out that the cow protectors seldom made an issue of cow slaughter and beef eating in cantonments but chose to target Muslims.Gandhi’s nuanceWith the rise of the Arya Samaj in the 1880s, cow protection (gau raksha) societies sprang up. However, Mahatma Gandhi, himself very fond of the cow, focused on cow service (gau seva), insisting that while it was important to save the cow, this should be done by persuading Muslims and not by fighting them. He wrote in Hind Swaraj that he would beseech a Muslim trying to kill a cow not to do so, and even lay down his life to save the cow, but never harm the Muslim, as all life was equally precious for him. He added that competitive obstinacy made things worse and cow protection societies in effect became cow-killing societies.Historian Ravi K Mishra, in a paper in Dialogue, cites Gandhi writing in Young India in 1921, “I make bold to assert without fear of contradiction that it is not Hinduism to kill a fellow-man even to save the cow.” Presiding over the Cow Protection Conference in Belgaum in 1924, Gandhi conceded he did so with great reluctance as he wasn’t sure the attendees would understand his position.In 1927, Gandhi unsuccessfully tried to broker a settlement between Hindus and Muslims, wherein the former would undertake not to play music before mosques, and the latter would forgo beef-eating.However, Gandhi called upon Hindus to give up beef to be considered Hindus. When there was a controversy over cow slaughter in Mysore state, Mishra’s paper recalls, Gandhi supported the idea of a legal ban in case the majority of the subjects supported it. In 1927, he dissuaded the Adi-Karnatakas from eating beef. To the Adi Dravidas his message, as per Mishra’s paper, was, “… tolerant though it (Hinduism) is, it is intolerant of beef-eating on the part of its devotees.”There were many riots on the question of cow killing in colonial India and much controversy over it in the newspapers.Constituent Assembly debatesThe Constituent Assembly took up the question of cow slaughter, with Thakurdas Bhargava and Seth Govind Das of the Congress initially wanting cow protection to be part of the Fundamental Rights, but they agreed with B R Ambedkar that it be part of the Directive Principles of State Policy instead. The rationale for this was that the Fundamental Rights pertained to humans and this was a question of animal rights.Bhargava moved an amendment to Article 38 – Article 38 A – saying, “The State shall… take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle.” This was adopted, and eventually became Article 48 of the Constitution, a part of the Directive Principles of State Policy.During the debate on the subject, several Congress members – Bhargava, Das, Shibban Lal Saksena, Raghu Vira and R V Dhulekar – made passionate speeches in favour of cow protection, evoking both the religious and the economic significance of the animal. Apart from the religious significance, the economic significance or usefulness argument was also meant at making the plea for cow protection “scientific” in nature, something that O’ Toole says also gradually reduced the element of sacredness in it.Z H Lari of the Muslim League said the Assembly should offer clarity on what the view of the majority was on cow slaughter and abolish it as part of Fundamental Rights if needed, rather than keeping the matter vague and subject to interpretation. Syed Muhammad Saiadulla from Assam opposed the amendment on the argument of economic benefits of cow protection, while saying he had no objections to the religious concerns of Hindus.Post-IndependenceThe 1950s saw stray conservative voices in the Congress, and voices in the Hindu Mahasabha and RSS, calling for a central ban on cow slaughter. Meanwhile, the Congress state governments in north India under conservative leaders were already moving towards banning cow slaughter.On February 10, 1955, the S Sampoornanand-led government in Uttar Pradesh announced the acceptance of the Dr Sitaram Committee report that recommended a ban on killing of cows in the state. Outside the Assembly, recalls Abhishek Choudhary in his biography of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Vajpayee and Prabhudatt Brahmachari celebrated the move and also claimed credit for it.At the Centre, however, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was wary of such moves. The Nehru Archive documents a widely circulated pamphlet evoking Lokmanya Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi, Madan Mohan Malaviya, and Dayanand Saraswati that demanded a national ban on cow slaughter and accused Nehru of allowing cows to be killed. It quoted Nehru’s statement in the Lok Sabha dated April 2, 1955: “My advice to the state governments is not to bring forward or enact any Bill for cow protection. I do not approve of this. I am even prepared to resign from the office of Prime Minister rather than yield in this matter.”However, the Congress conservatives succeeded in states north of the Vindhyas. Anti-cow slaughter laws came up in Congress-ruled Bihar and Madhya Pradesh in 1955 and 1959, respectively.This did not deter Hindutva organisations from continuing to demand a national ban and there was a major demonstration of sadhus outside Parliament for the same in November 1966. When the police prevented them from going to Parliament, the protesters turned violent and even set fire to K Kamaraj’s house. Police firing led to 7-8 deaths and hundreds were injured in police action. Subsequently, Home Minister Gulzarilal Nanda lost his job.The Jana Sangh did surprisingly well in UP in the 1967 elections, winning 98 out of 425 seats, which brought the Congress below the majority mark. The unstable Samyukt Vidhayak Dal (SVD) governments of the Jana Sangh, socialists and even Communists were formed in north Indian states. To control the possible damage, Indira Gandhi set up a committee to look into cow slaughter and a possible ban on it. After the split in the Congress in 1969, her Congress (R) adopted the cow and the calf as its symbol.The BJP has either strengthened or more strictly implemented these laws. For instance, Uma Bharti as Madhya Pradesh CM passed a more stringent law in the state in 2004.When the UPA was in power, the RSS kept up with initiatives related to the cow and conducted a Vishwa Mangal Gau Gram Yatra in 2009.In 2017, the Modi government imposed a ban on sale of cattle for slaughter in animal markets, triggering an outcry over its effect on trade across the country. There were also claims that this led to the rise of stray cattle in many states. The following year, it eased these rules.After 2014, there were reports of cow vigilante attacks and the Centre warned the states on these amid criticism. In 2016 and 2017, Modi expressed anger over people calling themselves gau rakshaks and taking the law in their hands.