“Myths of Holy Cow has been a Powerful Instrument in Communal Mobilization” : Brinda Karat

India’s constitution is aimed at protecting the rights of its people. However, these rights have often been breached in the recent past. And at present we are hearing bloodcurdling tales of barbarism committed on various sections of people, for reasons mundane as trading in cattle and not chanting certain slogans. Plus, the whole nation is currently discussing the issue of nationalism, more so in the light of events that took place in institutions of education eminence like the Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Hyderabad Central University. Newsclick interviews Brinda Karat, member, Polit Bureau, Communist Party of India (Marxist) to discuss the issue and various concerns India as a nation is facing. According to Karat, the country is facing a very very alarming situation. “This is a strategy of the Sangh Parivar to spread communal polarization on selected slogans, which they believe will arouse the so called Hindu sentiments.” Excerpts from the interview.

Rough Transcript:

Pranjal: Hello and welcome to Newsclick. In last few days we have seen series of events taking place like attack on cattle traders in Jharkhand who were brutally killed later and also beating of three students in Delhi because they did not chant a slogan. There is also an entire debate growing up around the issue of nationalism. The students communities is on the streets protesting against the government be it in Delhi or in Hyderabad Central University. To discuss the issue we have with us Brinda Karat, Politburo Member of CPI(M). Welcome to Newsclick. You also went to Jharkhand where two cattle traders werPranjal: Hello and welcome to Newsclick. In last few days we have seen series of events taking place like attack on cattle traders in Jharkhand who were brutally killed later and also beating of three students in Delhi because they did not chant a slogan. There is also an entire debate growing up around the issue of nationalism. The students communities is on the streets protesting against the government be it in Delhi or in Hyderabad Central University. To discuss the issue we have with us Brinda Karat, Politburo Member of CPI(M). Welcome to Newsclick. You also went to Jharkhand where two cattle traders were brutally beaten and then hanged and yesterday, such attack took place in Delhi where two students were beaten just because they did not chant something. I mean, so how do you describe this situation?

Brinda Karat (BK): It is a very very alarming situation and it is not happening in just one state. So clearly, this is a strategy of the Sangh Parivar to spread communal polarization on selected slogans which they believe will be able to arouse so called Hindu sentiments. So it is a very clear strategy and selected slogans. Everybody knows that the cow, the myths of the Holy cows has certainly been a very powerful instrument in communal mobilization for the last at least 100 years and in the present context, you have a Prime Minister who is giving a slogan and saying his Mantra is 'Vikas, Vikas, Vikas'. At the ground level, the Sangh Parivar is saying without 'Vinash, Vinash, Vinash' we can not maintain and take forward a Hindutva agenda and this is really, these are the two pillars and the two strategies. A combined strategy on which the government is working. Therefore, the issue of the cow we have seen it has shifted not just the holy cow, now it is all such animals, such cattle. So whether it is a bull or a buffalo these also now have been included because everybody knows cow slaughter is banned in this country and it is mainly bulls or buffaloes which have been slaughtered and even the exports are basically buffalo experts. I mean it is never been cow meat export, so beef export. Now that they have included the bull and the bullock directly effecting a very much wider section of people, particularly now, those in the cattle trade and there are so many big fairs which go on in India in particular seasons and farmers come, they exchange cattle, they sell cattle. Sometimes in a period of drought, there has been in the last two years, selling the animals is perhaps one of the only means of survival and when the things get a little better they buy animals again. So there was going to be a fair in Bihar. There was a fair last December and we found that the percentage of cattle which were brought and sold, there was a huge decrease. Why is that because of the fear that there will be this cow protection Samitys patronized by the Sangh Parivar in different forms who will then attack and also not just attack but there is an extortion racket also so give safe passage for the cattle to move from place to another.

What happened in Jkharkhand because we had a party delegation of the CPI(M) who went to both those villages and we met the family and what happened there was perhaps one of the most cruel examples of what this so called cow protection committees actually mean. Those 8 animals were bulls. There was not a single cow and one of the traders, if you call him trader was a 12 year child. A 12 year old child Imtiaz whose father having met with an accident could not herd the animals. So very deep forest and it is also a very stony path. So it is almost impossible for the father to have traverse than way and therefore, this boy was standing in for his father. He took eight of the animals and met the other cattle trader who is 32 year old Mujloom. It is very difficult for the cattle trader to do anything alone and we don't realize the impact of the absence of secularism on just ordinary lives and they were telling me, they have to plan to ensure either neighbours come with them or another cattle trader. It is not like just going to the market and selling something. They have to really plan for it. Why? Because of the vigilante group.

Pranjal: If you look at this entire this beef ban and the cow slaughter and the attacks that have been carried out from Dadri and now to Jharkhand, do you see an ulterior motive not only of polarisation for turning country into the Hindu Rashtra but putting the minorities into economic marginalization because it is also a means for the minority community to earn a livelihood.

BK: Well, that's not only limited to Muslims, there are so many other cattle traders belonging to the Hindu community which is why BJP MLA from Maharashtra said he is totally against the ban is precisely because in the entire Vidarbh region, Hindu farmers want to sell their cattle really finding that the cattle market is slow down precisely because of this absolutely irrational bans and totally communal campaigns. But the point that I am making is this whole context of nationalism now these feed into the idea of nationalism brand RSS. So you have this slogan Bharat Mata Ki Jai and what happened in Delhi is very very closely linked to that. You have a slogan which is suddenly has picked up as if this is the symbol of nationalism since when and for what? Why Bharat Mata ki Jai precisely because historically it does have religious connotations. It is linked to a particular phase in our history where those in the freedom struggle believed that equity in a nation with a mother and a mother with a godless would be an instrument to mobilize opinion against the British. So that was the particular base of the freedom struggle. Some people continued with that slogan in the particular phase of the freedom struggle. Some people continued with the slogan, it is certainly not the slogan which is only given by the Sangh Parivar. It did have a much wider acceptance and use during the freedom struggle.

However, there were so many others and RSS which had no part in the freedom struggle is deliberately selecting a slogan which they can then manipulate in the way they want. People like Owaisi who responded to Bhagwat's unnecessary call with the way that he did played the game according to the RSS and Muslims fundamentalist rules because both of them benefit from the communal politics. Their politics benefits from communal polarization and what is the impact of it, we saw it in Delhi where these three students, our party delegation met them and today in fact I went to meet the Chairperson of the minority commission and spoke to him about it because these students are completely terrorized. They are students from Bihar, they are studying in local Madrasa in Delhi, they are living in an area where they don't really have that many contacts and now this is coming in press and people are talking about it. They are really scared about the impact on the directly on their own lives, their security. How are they going to fight their case without any support because they are in a hostile environment creating in the context of selective slogans and now they are saying Bharat Mata Ki Jai. Look at the walls of Delhi they are saying Gomata Ko Rashtriya Mata Banao. So this is the agenda and this is something which has to be identified and is being identified.

Pranjal: The government Ministers and even the Prime Minister who loves to tweet on cricket match fails to acknowledge these attacks taking place. So on the same day, he is tweeting about the cricket match but people being hanged in Jharkhand or being beaten up in Delhi, no body is talking about it. Do you see a tacit consent of government in it.?

BK: Well, deafening silence is consent because BJP National Executive met day after the hangings took place the chief minister of Jharkhand was present in the national executive committee meeting and there was not a word about national executive meeting. They talked about nationalism. They wanted to teach the country RSS lessons about so called nationalism and they did not find it necessary even in a word to condemn the hanging of the constitution on that train Balurmath in Jharkhand because their understanding is which opportunity can be created or found to promote sectarian agenda of Hindutva.

Pranjal: When you are continuously talking about the nationalism the Sangh Parivar and BJP together are trying to appropriate various such figures of freedom struggle who have nothing to do with the either with the Sangh Parivar or with their ideology like Bhagat Singh, then they are trying to appropriate Ambedkar. How do you see this agenda of theirs?

BK: Absolutely appalling. I don't know whether it has any credibility with the people or India or or not. But everybody knows the very basis of Bhagat Singh's Martyrdom was precisely because he fought against such forces who he felt were playing the game of British Colonialism and he was dead against them. As far as constitution of India is concerned, it speaks to itself. How Dr. Ambedkar was totally against the very concept of religion as a basis for this state which is what the RSS believes in and therefore, they are poles apart. There is absolutely nothing in common with it too.

Pranjal: RSS had not presence also in the entire freedom struggle.

BK: Well, I would say, they had presence in that. Their presence was how to divide and therefore, in a way they played the game that the British was playing which is divide and rule. And the Muslim fundamentalist on the one hand and the Hindu fundamentalists and Communalists like the RSS on the other were basically helping the British in the game of weakening India and unity of it's people because when the unity of the people is weakened obviously, that is a very opposite of patriotism and this whole concept of nationalism because the whole concept itself is a concept which is geared towards aggression towards another and that is where nationalism is evoked. So in the freedom struggle, there was a contest in the nationalism which was the fight against British colonialism. Today, if we want to understand the concept of nationalism, obviously, it has to be linked to the defense of the sovereign nation against imperialism but they would prefer to utilize that using it to push an agenda which always says Pakistan as the greatest enemy.

Pranjal: Also, push their economic agenda side by side like recently, there has been 100% FDI in retail. So on the other hand they also try to open market for that market investment which sort of is also destabilizing the economy for the local level traders.

BK: Absolutely, that's exactly the point tht why they can promote a nationalism which is so devoid of fighting the actual issues fundamental to the development of India which must be a defense of our own economy against the predatory I would say economic invasion of big foreign capital which is the opening up of the market entirely for them.

Pranjal: I would like to come back to the Jharkhand issue. You have submitted a memorandum to the NHRC and also today to the minority commission. So what are the demands that the CPI(M) has raised in it?

BK: As far as Jharkhand is concerned, we have said that this has to be very closely monitored the case itself because there is an effort by the police to de-link it from any investigation into the activities of the cow protection Samitys. They are trying to make it out to be personal dispute or rivalry where there is nothing of that sort. It is entirely result of the cow protection Samitys being filled with criminals who keep the symbol of the cow in front for their criminal extortionist activities and it is very much linked to the slogans of the cow protection Samitys. So they merge together and these links are what Jharkhand government and the Jharkhand police under the BJP government do not want revealed and that is a very critical aspect where the NHRC has to play a role and of course, the issue of justice to the families because their main bread winners have been brutally killed in both the cases. So again with the background of this child Imtiaz and therefore, adding insult to the injury Chief Minister gives a compensation of one Lakh Rupees what is this? It is a shame. So we have asked the NHRC to send a team to look at the reality of situation of the families and immediately bring them some relief.

Pranjal: This would be my last question. Seeing in the situation across the nation. What's the way ahead for the Left Progressive Secular Section of the Society.

BK: There are multiple issues which are linked to the fight for secular values and as we have seen as far as cattle trade, as far as leather trade, as far as many of the areas where the Hindutva agenda is literally snatching away livelihood of vast section of people including the farmers of India. So all these issues need to be taken together and that is what we are doing. So we have the Kisan Sabha, we have the workers union and coming together along with other organisations working amongst youth, women, Dalit and minority sections to have a wider platform in which we can take up these issues. And today, we have to use every single that from available to us to fight this menace to India.

Pranjal: That is a very positive note to leave on. As the things proceed, we will be coming back to you on such issues. Thanks a lot.

DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for Newsclick are typed from a recording of the program. Newsclick cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.