In the end, it was the tail that wagged the dog. The BJP, to its great discomfiture, discovered that its mousy allies — who had cooperated completely on Pota, meekly given in on Gujarat, and gamely confined themselves to making tame noises over Ayodhya — could actually roar like lions when required. True, the Bill seeking to ban cow slaughter was so patently absurd, so patently designed for electoral purposes, so patently unenforceable, that there were many even within the ruling party who had second thoughts over its advisability. But so great was the temptation to beat Digvijay Singh at his own game of wooing voters through the blessings of Gau Mata — what with elections in Madhya Pradesh drawing closer by the day — that the party decided to go ahead and attempt to legislate on an issue that did not have constitutional validation and which had not figured in the NDA manifesto. The storm of protest that followed the move — not from the Opposition but, surprise, surprise, from diehard supporters like the Telugu Desam Party — should come as a salutary lesson for several reasons. One, it is a reminder that this is a country where the Anthropological Survey of India listed 4,635 ethnically distinct communities, at last count, each with its own discrete habits of life and ingestion. Two, that the ban on cow slaughter, apart from being an attempt to legislate on people’s behaviour, has seriously negative economic consequences — one estimate put the losses to sectors like leather and meat at Rs 750 crore. Three, as these columns have already pointed out, it would be better served by addressing itself to issues that impact the nation’s economic and social profile, and there is a string of important pending legislation begging for attention. Four, that in a coalition it is not just the BJP’s own political constituency that is of essence, but that of its allies. Finally, there is something illogical about a piece of central legislation seeking to ban cow slaughter being brought in under Entry 17 of the Concurrent List of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, which only states that there must be “prevention of cruelty to animals”. Ironically, if the BJP was embarrassed by the entire affair, the Congress, too, fared no better. Just a few days after breathing fire and brimstone in Parliament during the debate on the no confidence motion, the main Opposition party appeared beaten and lacklustre. And for this it only has its own dodgy, opportunistic politics to blame.
