If you see the issues that have captured national attention and generated debate in the last few months, they have been demonetisation, liquor ban on highways and the cow – its status and more importantly its slaughter.
On the first issue, much has been debated and written about demonetisation but in summary, its effects and impact on the Indian economy and society has been like what Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda man is known to have said – If you repeat a lie a thousand times then it becomes the truth. Ostensibly this measure was taken to control black money, corruption and in its spin off effects to reduce terrorism both foreign instigated and the Red terror within the country. Corruption has not reduced at all with the latest evidence of an Income-Tax Commissioner and a Dy. Commissioner of Excise in Mumbai caught while accepting bribes in the range of Rs. 1.25 to Rs. 2 crores. With this you can imagine the state of corruption in Bihar & UP. As for terrorism when the stone throwing reduced in the height of winter in Kashmir it was claimed it was because of Demonetisation. But later facts have now proved that nothing has changed in Kashmir both in terms of local unrest and cross-border terrorism and in fact it has got worse with terrorists attacking banks to access cash for which the government in its greater wisdom has shut down bank branches putting the general public into distress. Thus there has been no benefit of the Demonetisation measure to either the economy or the people apart from spinning off negative measures like having less cash in the economy resulting in continued difficulty for common people under the plea of promoting cashless transactions. The latter for a largely IT unfriendly population particularly in the rural areas and among the elderly who are not gadget friendly where it has created a problem of making this category averse to financial transactions. Such people are reluctant to leaving their comfort of closing any transaction completely at the time of its taking place by payment of cash rather than go through unseen and unknown agencies on whom they do not have any confidence of completing the transaction. They are also not aware of the manner of handling the transaction in case there are problems with it going through and the process of grievance redressal to correct the matter and in fact, they are simply not interested in needlessly going through these new methods. Thus this government under the plea of modernising our society is taking it back in time by limiting firstly, the number of people who voluntarily use these new methods since cash usage was a simple and universal process and secondly, breeding a class of touts particularly in the rural and urban slum areas who will claim to help those not aware of cashless transactions and in this process recover their pound of flesh and/or use their muscle to swindle and/or extort money from these hapless users. With all this evidence, our Finance Minister Arun Jaitley continues to tout that Demonetisation has been beneficial which seems to be akin to the ostrich burying its head in the sand and reading off from a prompting board buried there.
On the second issue of liquor ban near highways under the plea that it will reduce the number of fatalities caused by road accidents on the highways, the judgment though given by the Supreme Court, the highest court of the land, the judgment is somewhat debatable since there seems to be very little evidence of a direct linkage between drunken driving and road accidents. Additionally the distance limit set at 500 meters from the highways within which there cannot be any liquor served or sold has really set the cat among the pigeons across India both the State governments and the drinking public. Now look at it this way by moving the drinking from the highway within the sanitised distance of 500 meters to somewhere beyond that, are we not just shifting the location of the accidents in the majority of cases to more populated areas of our towns and cities. This will be the case all across India and therefore are we not increasing the number of fatalities by this judgment while the avowed intention has been to reduce it. In the tradition of jugaad that is a byword in India the judgment has had most of the States raising various interpretations on the method of calculating the 500 meters whether it as the crow flies or by the road distance or by the ‘motorable’ distance which problem has been further compounded now by the reduction of this distance to 200 meters for towns with a lesser population which has made the chances of the liquor vends being exempt more reachable. This reduction in distance is again not understandable since those who drink will drink irrespective of the ban and for the difference in distance of 300 meters exempted for smaller towns, makes one ask – Are the lives in these towns cheaper than in bigger cities? Another method being adopted by the States to work around the judgment is to call the highways passing through population centres as district roads or important roads. All these will only add to the Supreme Court spending more time on the matter to sit in judgment on the finer variations that the Indian mind can devise to get around the original judgment. A simpler method to resolve the issue was to strengthen the Highway Patrol service that is in operation in most States and have them do breathalyser tests on the highways for drivers on a random but frequent basis with substantial fines in cases found to be of drunken driving. Doing this rigorously along with a similar drive within towns and cities for about a year would get the message across that drunken driving is unacceptable on Indian roads and would thus definitely reduce the number of human fatalities. An overall issue related to alcohol and society is that in the developed world it is considered that a country with a higher per capita of alcohol consumption is more developed than one with a lower per capita figure. So are our measures to regulate alcohol intake a method to take the country backwards by way of international standards which we keep quoting and trying to emulate in all general matters!
We now come last to the last holy of holies and that is the cow. The cow is an animal, a useful animal at that since it gives us wholesome and nutritious milk. After its useful life it used to be killed to provide its meat – beef – to those with a taste for it or which comprised their normal diet and its hide was converted to leather in which process it provided for employment in the tanning and leather industry wherein it was used to make various items ranging from belts, purses, wallets, handbags, chappals and shoes. Thus the cow holding an important and respected position in our scriptures is also a practical animal which serves humanity in various ways. Therefore there is no doubt that we need to hold the cow in high esteem short of deifying it. For those now driving the agenda of putting the cow on a pedestal we need to ask them where were they all this while. There have been many instances across the country until now where stray cattle, many of these cows, have been neglected with some dying for want of fodder and water and it has been a common sight in our towns and cities of stray cattle wandering out of neglect on our roads creating a hindrance to traffic. Is it that the cow protectors have only now woken up that the cow is holy and needs protection? Do these gau rakhsaks realise that it is not enough just to protect but it is necessary to nurture these cows properly over their lifetime? There have been some suggestions that cows will be given Aadhaar cards which is another harebrained idea which will make those who are responsible to monitor these cards to be provided with special cow features recognition tools. Thus while recognising that the cow is a very emotive political tool and is being milked currently to the maximum extent, we should tone down these sentiments and moderate them by sheer practicality and common sense. The cow is a living being and it should be treated with respect it deserves as mentioned above and after its death if it continues to be of benefit to some of our brethren who eat its meat or who become gainfully employed from its hides, then so be it. An example in this regard is that some people donate their organs and/or bodies after death to others in need of organ transplantation or for medical research, notably the retired lady Judge Leila Seth who died recently who donated her body for research. So those who do this are motivated by noble sentiments since what happens to their bodies after death is unimportant to the living being. And when we can accept it for human beings then what is great about doing the same thing for the Holy Cow!
