‘Call me after 9,’ a professor friend at Jadavpur University in Kolkata texted me a few days ago. ‘Right now, we’re all going off to the beef fest.’ A sort of ‘eatathon’, a beef fest involves the public eating of beef in protest at its government-supported banning in some states. Maharashtra has already brought in this legislation, which takes away from Muslims, Dalits, Christians and, indeed, beef-eating Hindus, an important item of food (thus denying them a basic democratic right), and scores a nationalist Hindu point, because Hindus believe the cow is sacred and should not be eaten.
Other rightwing-ruled states in India are considering following suit. Haryana, in the north, has already done so. And in Delhi’s neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh, the campaign is in full swing: slogans demanding gau mata ko rashtra pashu banao (‘make mother cow the national animal’) line the walls of buildings along the highway. It doesn’t matter that cows know little about religion or nation; they’ve become important in the battle for these inter-related turfs.
