Beef Ban

Brothers ! Sisters ! Listen !
Unite and hasten
To counter cow vigilantes
Forced religious conversions
Voice right to dissent
And rights of women empowerment
Release of illegal detainees
Without speedy trial and justice

Around 25 people protesting the ‘beef ban’ in Bangalore were arrested and put under police custody today. About 500 people marching towards the Bangalore town hall were stopped by the police and at least 25 were arrested. Jagdish Chandra , New Socialist Alternative (CWI-India) , Balan (AICCTU) ,Shankar (Politburo member, CPIML), Narasimha Murthy ( Human Rights Defender) Rajan Chinnaiah (Karnatak[Read More...]

The reason that I care about this food issue, although I personally can eat beef any day of the week that I may please since I live in the USA, is really simple. It ultimately goes back to the underlying theme of this poem: “First they came …” is a poem written by German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984). It[Read More...]

Last week, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has issued an anti-constitutional gazette notification– Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017 –banning cattle slaughter and introduced severe restrictions on the sale of cattle to prevent their killing. The order applicable to the whole of India, except the State of Jammu and Kashmir, says that[Read More...]

This is a brief account of what happened in the IIT Madras campus in the last two days. The central govt’s notification was a matter of serious discussion amongst students. On Sunday a group of students initiated the idea of holding a discussion on the issue, where cooked beef was also distributed. We shared the invite of the festival in[Read More...]

I wish the people in India the best of good fortune in this alarming situation taking place in India so as to end beef farming, the beef industry overall and beef consumption. What will the central government start to dictate next? Will it be clothing styles, lack of public schools for girls or people of lower castes, the diet that[Read More...]

The new rule notified under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act of 1960 banning cattle trade across India is clear encroachment of states’ rights. It will end federalism and will be a death knell for farmers. It is a virtual beef ban across India and also will destroy the livelihood of millions of farmers. The states have to[Read More...]

My harvest of poems
will be winnowed.
if done deftly,
the lighter shallow poems
blow away in the wind
while the heavier, meatier poems,
fall back onto the tray,
to become the fire in my belly
like beef.

In the recent past, one has witnessed violence being increasingly inflicted by actors such as Gau Rakshaks, Anti Romeo squads and Hindu Yuva Vahini. Violence by Hindu senas, Ram senas, Bajrang dal was always there. These are extra-constitutional actors aiming to impose a culture through usage of physical violence. Under the current National regime and State regimes in BJP ruled[Read More...]

  India is a mosaic of great cultures. Not now. The culture which we inherited from our founding fathers and martyrs who wanted to preserve the greatness would be ashamed to see India today. India today which is digital, India which is nuclear  and India one of the fastest growing economies of the world is now also the land of[Read More...]