A judge in the Indian state of Gujarat has sentenced a young man who was caught transporting sixteen cattle in a truck to life imprisonment. The sentence presumes that Mohamed Amin's intention was to take them to a clandestine slaughterhouse in the neighboring state of Maharashtra. For ten years, the protection of the cow has been drastically raised in various state assemblies, with the connivance of magistrates who are not always so strict or diligent when it comes to crimes against women or pariahs.
Although the sentence, written in Gujarati, dates back to last November, it only came out this week, thanks to its publication on law portals. The Indian media have covered it, not out of sympathy for the prisoner, but because of some of the extravagance with which the judge has embellished his 24-page sentence.
Thus, in a lyrical outburst, Samir Vinodchandra Vyas ventures that "the day not even a drop of cow's blood is spilled, all the problems of the Earth will dissipate." Also, after praising the supposed beneficial effects of cow urine, the judge, the Tapi district judge, assures that "science has shown that houses covered with cow dung are not affected even by nuclear radiation."
The lawyer considers that the cattle were being transported without feed or water, or a first aid kit, so a bull and a cow would have died of starvation. The case dates back to July 2020 and the defendant was arrested a month later, although the sentence was not handed down until last November and it was not known until this week. This also includes a fine equivalent to about 5,500 euros.
The effect of the sermon on the judge's 22-year-old Muslim fellow citizen, who will have the rest of his life to reflect behind bars on the situation of cows and justice in India, is unknown. Although India is a democracy, the truth is that the Brahmin caste continues to dominate the judicial posts, overwhelmingly at the highest levels.
It should be noted that devotion to the cow, although ancient, has never been universal in India. Beef has been part of the diet of Muslims, Christians, outcasts, aborigines and even Hindus -secular or atheist- when they have been able to afford it. However, the welfare of the cow has been turned into a hoisting banner by Hinduist populism, hegemonic since 2014.
The father of independence, Mohandas K. Gandhi, proposed to respect the religious precepts of Hindus and Muslims, prohibiting both the consumption of alcohol and beef.
The latter has become a dangerous substance in almost all of India. Frequently, it is patrols of young Hindu supremacist volunteers who bring suspected lawbreakers to the police and, not infrequently, take the law into their own hands.
Very vegetarian Gujarat is the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was also its head of government at the turn of the century. The BBC has just recalled that time in a documentary that reviews Modi's inaction during the pogrom in which some two thousand Muslims were killed and hundreds of Muslim women raped in a few days in 2002.
This production has been censored in India, both on television and on social media. Although few in India are unaware of the accusations -of which Modi would be exonerated ten years later- the documentary provides a first British report, which directly accuses the VHP organization -in the same orbit as Modi's party- of having planned in advance the ethnic cleansing.
Students at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University wanted to screen the documentary on Tuesday, but saw the campus being disconnected from the electricity grid. This Wednesday there have been police arrests in other universities, such as Jamia Islamia, where the students tried to ignore the veto of the rectory, fearful of riots by the shock forces of Hindu supremacism.
The latest object of his wrath is Pathaan, the new film from star Shah Rukh Khan - whose name they loathe - for alleged offenses to their faith that hardly anyone else has seen. He leads the charge, so far no casualties, the same VHP.
