Holy cow: say goodbye to food, expression and freedom

For the people who missed our panel discussion on 13 October '15, here is a brief narrative of what took place.

Discussion was on the topic- "Holy cow: say goodbye to food, expression and freedom". 

Venue- Seminar Hall, School of Humanities, Silver Jubilee Campus, Pondicherry University

  We had our four panelists from different fields- Dr Sudha Sitharaman from Sociology department, Dr. Jaffar Ali from Green Energy Tech, Dr. Anil Pratap Giri from Sanskrit Department and Dr Jaya Sankar Babu from Hindi Department. Around ninety people turned out  for the event.

  Dr. Sudha imparted various socioeconomic dimensions to the issue of beef ban. She also emphasized that our tolerant social construct was being dismantled by this act and that it is frightening. Dr. Jaffar Ali talked about the Islamic views on the issue of beef ban. Citing about beef imports, he also tried to reiterate that politics and economy had a great role in beef ban rather than religion. 

   Dr.Anil Pratap spoke on the rig-vedic/ vedic periods and about the evolution of rituals and food habits through time in India. Dr Jaya Sankar talked about the freedom of food habit and individual choice to practice any food habit.

   Panelists also discussed about the various constitutional laws which enable governments to enforce beef ban in India. They also expressed concerns about recent rise in hate crimes across our country like Dadri lynching. The discussion was very much successful in triggering many questions in our minds. Few of them were- In a secular country why should any religion have a say in granting any right to an individual? On what parameters would government consider an animal holy? Is it legal for a government to take away livelihoods of thousands of people? Why is possession of beef considered more heinous crime that raping in some states?    

  After the panelists had spoken, the panel was opened for questions. Audience expressed their views and concerns which ranged from segregation, discrimination based on different grounds in India, politics of beef ban in historical and present times etc. A student from Sri Lanka expressed his views too, which revealed a similar situation existing in a part of Sri Lanka.