Rising intolerance

One man has been killed for eating what an irate mob did not like what it thought he was consuming. The sheer illogic of such a tragic event may be hard to comprehend except when we see it in a chain of events in which intolerance has been revived after state policy opened up the debate on the ancient theme of cow slaughter in India. A Union minister’s analysis, which was not founded on investigation and facts, further muddled the picture even as another village in Uttar Pradesh struggles to find the communal amity that should serve as the very basis of life in a nation of such religious diversity.

The Union minister’s reconstruction of the event is risible when the facts actually point to a temple priest having confessed that he had been threatened into making a PA announcement in his village on a cow having been slaughtered in the vicinity. How quickly the issue got politicised nationally is owed to the age of instant communication. But the UP chief minister daring the Prime Minister on imposing a beef ban is needlessly confrontational. None of this is going to help UP, which is always on edge.

It is a sad commentary on contemporary life that one man’s food should be the basis of such a beastly reaction. The incident is not as suggestive of a pressing majority-minority issue as an attempt by fringe groups fuelled by self-importance to create trouble. The highest courts have tried to deal with the complicated subject of the beef ban. Truth to tell, recent events worldwide point to the fact that no ban is easy to impose.