<div><strong>Mala Bhargava</strong><br><br>India is in the headlines. Not because the world is marveling at its economy that should by all rights have been growing on steroids, but because most of the country is squabbling over a cow. May her soul rest in peace, of course.</div><div> </div><div>The much-admired German chancellor, Angela Merkel will have arrived on Indian shores only to find leaders deeply embroiled in important bovine matters. She will also surely have smelt a bit of Kristalnacht in the air and wondered whether the Third Reich was back, having been successfully overcome by her own country. It has taken an age to get the world to understand that India is not that country where people live up in tree houses while snake charmers, elephants and of course cows roam the streets. Well, cows do roam the streets but that would only be to fill their malnourished stomachs with whatever garbage has been left over after the Swachch Bharat workers have done their bit.</div><div> </div><div>Luckily for the cows, that’s still quite a lot. Right now, quite a number of Indians would gladly trade in their entire political establishment for a nice juicy steak, so absurd has become the preoccupation over cow slaughter and consumption of beef. The flash point was of course the lynching of a poor old man who it is rumoured had stored cow meat in his house in Dadri village in Uttar Pradash and furthermore gone so far as to eat it. The least of India’s problems, cow slaughter is not illegal in all states in the country but the self-appointed guardians of Hinduism – or supporters of Hindu political parties, it is widely believed – have kept the pot boiling, having lit the fire. In the Dadri village, everyone has unanimously had it with politicians and Hindu firebrands and have asked for them to be kept out and leave the residents in peace.</div><div> </div><div>But it isn’t just in Dadri village that the tension has been simmering. All over the country, there’s been little talk of anything else with everyone aware that if it hadn’t been about beef, it would have been something else that is dividing people and spreading hate, fear and intolerance. It’s simmered to such an extent that the President has made what is seen as a reference to the murder of a man over his dinner when he asked Indians to not lose sight of the core values that make India the surviving and thriving civilization that it is. “We can’t allow core values of our civilization to be wasted,” said President Pranab Mukherjee, “The core values are that civilization has celebrated diversity, promoted and advocated tolerance, endurance and plurality.”</div><div> </div><div>Tolerance may, however, be about to take a bigger hit. While revering its cows, India has also been a large exporter of beef. Whether that’s cow meat or buffalo, is the tricky question. In Mathura, also in UP and the land of the god Krishna because of whom cows are considered holy in the first place, a beef testing lab received the sample of meat found at Mohammad Akhlaq’s house in Dadri, the reason he was killed. The lab however has made no report public and waits, perhaps for political nstructions. There will soon be other beef testing labs. The agriculture ministry has said that such labs will be set up in Mumbai at the ports to make sure no beef – cow beef, that is – escapes the shores as export. Perhaps those rendered jobless in the meat industry – abattoirs, packagers, tanneries and ore – will find new jobs in beef testing.</div>
