Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a ‘Mahatma’ for some, one of the most mystified individuals of the current times for others. Every self-proclaimed intellectual, especially the one claims to be both left and liberal, shoot quotes of Gandhi as if they are the true inheritors of most of his improbable ideas.
Even though the Left-wing despised M K Gandhi all his life, for them he is one of the most sought-after historical heroes today. The left-wing ‘liberals’ has always misused and selectively reused Gandhi as a way to legitimise any agenda whenever and wherever they thought it was necessary. The left has been successful in reducing Gandhi to a ‘binary’, as any disagreement with reference to Gandhi is not only considered false but also evil. The right-wing all these years have happily acceded to this assumption and even now fall prey to these idiocies of the left almost every day. ‘The Gandhi and Gau-Raksha’ is one such grey area, carefully shaped into a binary of ‘good and ‘evil’ by the ecosystem. A social issue has now been skillfully converted into a religious trap by the left and its media minions.
Gandhi even with some turnarounds, all his life was a staunch supporter of Gau-Raksha. The idea to bring a Gandhian reference to Gau-Raksha here is for a reason that the left has always found solace in Gandhian thought when they abuse the rest, but deliberately distances itself from Gandhian thought whenever it contradicts them. This is one of the reasons why ‘Gau-Raksha’ is such a bad word today.
In a reference to Gau-Raksha by Gandhi in one of his essays, “The cow is the purest type of sub-human life. She pleads before us on behalf of the whole of the sub-human species for justice to it at the hands of man, the first among all that lives. She seems to speak to us through her eyes: you are not appointed over us to kill us and eat our flesh or otherwise ill-treat us, but to be our friend and guardian.”
If at all Gandhi to be believed and followed today, most of the Indians would either be termed as a ‘Communal’ or ‘Lynchers’. The left, with the help of its ‘Lutyens-cabal’, has successfully vilified the cause of Gau-Raksha and has suitably changed it into a religious issue, even though the Gau-Rakshaks or ‘Cow-protectors’ has been at the receiving end of the violence. The recent Alwar incident is a classic case of how a false narrative can be floated and successfully sustained for a long time so that one community can be demonised.
Alwar, a district in Rajasthan has been at the forefront of a media onslaught for a phenomenon called ‘Gau-Rakshaks’ and so-called ‘lynchings’ occurred in the recent past. The people of one community are being demonised for what they thought or as Gandhi would have put it, ‘Dharma’ of cow protection. The villagers of Alwar simply did what they were doing all along – to protect their cows against the cow smugglers, who were incidentally Muslims most of the time.
An incident had occurred at Govindgarh village of Alwar when a group of villagers had complained to the police officials on a suspicion of illegal cow slaughtering being done in one of their neighbourhoods. The police promptly entered the house and found out that three Muslim women were illegally running cow slaughtering business. The police recovered more than 220 cow remains in an area which is predominantly Hindu dominated. Killing cows in Hindu religion is prohibited since it is worshipped as a deity and illegal slaughtering in the state will invite up to 10 years of imprisonment.
However, all the five accused, including three women are out on bail and no progress has been made in the case yet so far. This laxity of the police has shocked the villagers and are now feeling disinterested to take up the cause of Gau-Raksha anymore. The Lutyens media chose to remain silent, as in this case the accused was from a Muslim community, which would have compromised the new narrative they had vigorously built after the death of another alleged cow-smuggler Rakbar Khan.
Rakbar Khan or Akbar hails from Haryana, a resident of Mewat was caught by a group of villagers at Lalawandi near Alwar for allegedly stealing cows from cow shelters. The villagers threatened him and registered a complaint against him for smuggling. Khan was arrested by the police but, later died in the police station due to a shock after he was thrashed severely. It was followed by severe condemnation across the country and was rightly so. But, what was shocking to watch was the sheer propaganda done by the ‘Lutyens cabal’ to demonise one community, in an attempt to cover up the illegality of cow smuggling and slaughtering.
According to a comprehensive investigative report by Swarajya, the whole incident was falsely attributed as a lynching, as ground reports suggest that all the claims by Rakbar Khan’s associate of purchasing cows rather than smuggling fall flat as the evidence points finger at a different direction. But, the media chose to present only one side of the story to make sure the members of the Hindu community are presented as a part of ‘Lynching’ machinery aided by the present NDA government. The report went on to suggest many similar incidents has been falsely presented with little respect for facts. Interestingly, one such story says that media went on to extent of directing a crime scene involving the local people as part of a documentary production and presented them as ‘Gundays’ and violent ‘cow-vigilantes’ next day.
These disinformation campaigns have shocked common rural masses the across the country and are now discouraged to continue the service of ‘Gau-Raksha’. The nexus of illegal beef industry, heavily armed cow smugglers, political parties and of course the intelligentsia has made sure that the mafia runs without any hinderances. The state despite strong laws against cow smuggling has failed both victims and those people against all odds fighting to end this menace. Most of the villagers have now begun losing hope of any action against the cattle mafia. In fact, some state governments have put heavy taxation on cow protection and also started putting bounties on Gau-Rakshaks.
The Gau-Raksha according to Gandhi was a gift of Hinduism to the world. The Gandhi, whom the left-liberals fantasise, would have sat on a Dharna for the cause of ‘Gau-Rakshaks’ rather than what left-liberals claim to represent the choice of personal liberty even if it led to violence and bloodshed.
