If the Rashtra Pita (Father of the Nation) is the late Mahatma Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, can the Rashtra Mata (Mother of the Nation) be a cow? Yet, that is what Gorakhpur BJP MP Yogi Adityanath wants. The ‘Hindu Yuva Vahini’, an organization led by the outspoken votary of Hindutva, has launched a ‘missed call’ subscription initiative in Aligarh to solicit support for the cause of ‘sanrakshan’ (protection) and ‘samvardhan’ (nurturing) of the holy cow.
“Our initiative embodies the sentiment of every Indian,” the MP told the media. He said that since it wasn’t possible to secure this exalted status for the cow across the world (Vishwa Mata?), “we want it to happen at least in India”. Really? Then maybe the good Yogi can make a start by asking his party, which is in power in India, to enact a law banning the export of beef from India. India is the world’s third largest exporter of beef (it is likely to become No. 2 very shortly). Mr Adityanath will soon find that in Narendra Modi’s India, foreign exchange is the holiest of cows.
This is more grist for the mill for Shantaram Naik. On Thursday, Goa’s very vocal Congress Rajya Sabha MP said the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government (meaning Union Education Minister Smriti Irani) had demeaned the status of the Father of the Nation — Mahatma Gandhi — by directing all the CBSE-affiliated schools to remain open on Gandhi Jayanti last year. Never mind that it was for the sole and specific purpose of launching the Swachch Bharat campaign. Now that Yogi Adityanath has demanded that the humble bovine be made Mother of the Nation, our Shantaram has more ammunition for his shotgun.
Talking of Ms Irani, the eagle-eyed Bahu of the Nation, one Meenakshi Lekhi, an advocate and spokesperson of the BJP who often appears in the free-for-shouting matches on national television channels that pass for news nowadays, tweeted after Friday’s FabIndia fiasco that the entire episode appeared to be a ploy to draw attention away from the meeting of the BJP’s National Executive (NE), which is presently underway in Bengaluru. In case you think this is no big deal, please keep in mind that Ms Irani was deliberately snubbed by the BJP leadership and was specifically and conspicuously not invited to the BJP’s big NE conclave in Bengaluru. She was kept out despite being a Union Cabinet Minister, while Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, for example, was invited and is presently in Bengaluru, as a result of which he was not in his office and RDA Minister Francisco ‘Mickky’ Pacheco had to leave his resignation letter on the CM’s desk. Was the BJP leader accusing the Union minister of deliberately engineering the camera incident to draw attention away from the BJP National Executive and towards herself? We will never know, for Ms Lekhi shortly sent across a second tweet saying that she meant the media, and not Ms Irani, was the one giving the camera coup undue importance.
Ah, the media; that culprit of last resort. Whenever any politician or big bureaucrat shoots from the hip, or puts a foot in the mouth, it’s always the media that’s ‘dunnit’. Whether Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar gives a young girl avuncular advice about the perils of staying out in the sun too long or the BJP’s great Giriraj Singh prophesies that India’s recent history would have been dramatically different if the late Rajiv Gandhi had married a Nigerian girl instead of Sonia, as far as the Indian political and administrative class is concerned, it’s always the media that’s behind the mischief. We’re the ultimate whipping dog. Yesterday was ‘Say No to Dog Meat Day’, and a march against dog meat was organised in the morning in Panjim, of all places. What were the organizers thinking? That since beef is banned, Goans will take to eating dogs…? Still, maybe the ‘whipping dog’ media could have turned out in strength to bemoan its plight.
Holy week concludes with Easter celebrations, even as a three-day Judges’ conference, attended by Supreme Court Judges and High Court Chief Justices, ends in New Delhi today. It was mired in some controversy when Supreme Court Judge Kurian Joseph protested about the timing of the conference over Holy Week. Making amply clear that he was in no way striking a communal note, Justice Joseph gently pointed out that Christians have important religious ceremonies to attend during these days, and mentioned that programmes like this are not held during Diwali, Dussehra Holi, Eid, etc. Chief Justice of India H L Dattu steered clear of religion in his reply, which pointed out that the institutional interest should take precedence over the individual. True. In the United States of America (USA), one of the most overtly religious countries in the world, Good Friday is a working day, not a holiday. But then, the Hon Chief Justice did not reply to Justice Joseph’s observation (also equally true) that these ‘important’ institutional functions are not held during Diwali, Dussehra Holi, Eid, etc…
