Write Comment     |     E-Mail To a Friend     |     Facebook     |     Twitter     |     Print

Home Minister Rajnath Singh said in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday that the government wanted a sense of fear in minorities to be replaced by confidence.

For the second day running, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh was forced to assure the Lok Sabha, amid noisy scenes, that the government did not endorse the anti-minority views aired by various right-wing organisations. “We want the sense of fear in minorities to be replaced by a sense of confidence,” he said.
A veiled threat
However, in the same breath, he issued a veiled threat to the Congress that had raised the matter during Zero Hour on Wednesday. “I am beginning to see a pattern in the way this issue is being deliberately raised, even bringing up incidents that took place four months ago. If I am given permission, I will come to the House with a full-fledged statement on how many anti-minority attacks took place during UPA rule, and how many during ours,” he said.

But when the Congress demanded that it be allowed to respond to the Home Minister’s statement, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan refused permission, saying issues raised during Zero Hour could not be converted into discussions.

Indeed, the Minister, she stressed, need not have responded. After a few minutes of heated exchanges between Congress and BJP benches, the Congress, led by party president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi, staged a walkout.

Earlier, the Speaker had even admonished the Congress for repeatedly raising the issue of communal statements and attacks on places of worship: “Day before yesterday also you raised the same issue. Every day it should not be,” she said even as she expunged some remarks made by K.C. Venugopal of the Congress on the lack of response from the Modi government to such episodes.

Mr. Singh’s response came after Mr. Venuogopal, who had raised the matter, pointed out that in the wake of the vandalisation of churches in North India, the Hindu Mahasabha general secretary had said: “Attacking a church is not illegal and violates no law”; “Narendra Modi-led NDA government should award and provide legal and administrative protection to Hindus who attack churches across the country”; and that churches were no longer places of worship “but factories for conversion of Hindus into Christianity.”

Mr. Venugopal said the Hindu Mahasabha leader had said his organisation would reward and protect Hindu youths who attacked churches and married Muslim girls. But despite such statements, and continuing attacks on churches, the BJP-led government had not taken any deterrent action.

‘No religious angle to beef ban’

Beef traders stage a protest at Azad Maidan in Mumbai against the ban on cattle slaughter in Maharashtra.

The Maharashtra government on Wednesday told the Bombay High Court that its decision to ban cattle slaughter was not connected to religion.

“Religion has nothing to do with it. That is not the State’s contention,” Advocate-General Sunil Manohar told a Division Bench of justices V.M. Kanade and M.S. Sonak, during the hearing of intervention application from various organisations.

The court too expressed the view that the scope of petitions challenging Sections 5 (d) of the Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act did not encompass the aspect of religion.

“It has neither been argued by the petitioners, nor the State,” Justice Kanade pointed out.

The remarks from the court and the State came when advocates intervening in the matter brought up the issue of religion in their arguments.

“There is a myth created by some people who overlook the aspect that the ban is related to agricultural economy. In the Sanatana religion, the cow is not sacred. It is made sacred because of its utility,” said advocate Rakesh Kumar, representing one of the petitioners.

Another advocate, Subhash Jha, representing the organisation Vardhaman Parivar, invoked the Mahabharata, in which Arjun saves the cow progeny. “Even our freedom struggle started with Mangal Pandey [sepoy working under the British East India Company who revolted against using cartridges which had cow fat as a lubricant],” he said.
‘Plenty of other things to eat’
 Mr. Manohar further said that Section 5 (d) which prohibits possession of the flesh of cow, bull or bullock slaughtered outside the State of Maharashtra was only a partial regulation.

“There are plenty of other things to eat. The court will have to decide if the right to eat a particular type of meat is a core right or a fringe right,” he said.

Maintaining that “no irreparable injury” would be caused because of Section 5 (d), Mr. Manohar said the petitioners’ case was not sustainable.