Let me understand this right. The Shiv Sena and MNS are against a meat ban in Maharashtra because they don’t want to give in to the Jain community’s demands. Fine.
But when it comes to banning beef to protect “Hindu Sentiments”, the same parties support it!
Why these double standards? If you cater to one religion, you have to cater to all of them. Personal preferences for meat aside, what I want in a government is consistency. It is unacceptable to play favorites with individual religions. And yes before anyone asks, I’m also against playing favorites with Islam (you just know that someone is going to bring that up right?).
I’m against a beef ban because of the reasoning behind it – not because I have anything against cows. Making laws to appease individual religions is total bullshit and shouldn’t be condoned. People wax eloquent about nonsense like how the cow is so peaceful and all. And chickens? Screw those evil traitorous chickens! And don’t let the conniving pigs get scot free either!
But India’s idea of “secularism” is so very different from the west. Over there, it means pandering to no religion. In India, it means pandering to all religions. Given this difference in definition, why are parties like the Shiv Sena and even the courts against a meat ban to preserve the sentiments of Jains? They’re a religion too right? If Hindus get a beef ban, Jains should get a meat ban.
No special treatment. That’s all I’m saying. Maybe we Indians need to think long and hard about this whole idea of pandering to “sentiments” in the first place. The government needs to be blind to religion. It has to pretend that religion and caste don’t exist, and that everyone is a citizen of India – nothing more.
Shhh!!! Dont speak the truth, I need people like you to stay safe.
Ok. Jokes aside. I dont think most Indians question what Secularism means or how that translates into our everyday lives. We justify anything in the name of religious sentiments. And we are very easily offended. Somehow Religious Right always precedes an Individual Right, in spite of claiming to be a Secular Nation. It makes me wonder if we have allegiance to our Nation or to our Religion… And if it is religion, then we need to re-define the idea of Patriotism.
I have a long list of secular grievances, here are a few – I don’t want any “special/personal law marriage acts” I would rather have a Marriage certificate with Monogamy(I know every religion had polygamy at some point of time or another) as the Law. I don’t want the special festival holidays on the work week calendar, but just “Floating holidays” that people will take according to their religious affiliations. I want Moral Policing to be a crime with a sentence of Life in Prison, but that could never happen cause they will claim infringement of religious right. I would like Noise Laws to be implemented so that our population doesn’t go deaf with all the Religious Loudspeakers during their festival time. I don’t want holidays for Birthdays of those dead and gone no matter how Important their contributions are, instead, I want people to emulate what those people had in character. I wish people do right cause it is Right and not because it was written as Right in some book in a time that was way different than what we live in therefore irrelevant… But, it isn’t so. I wish it was though.
In reply to Mysoul
Though I’m an atheist myself, I have no objection to people following whatever religion they want as long as it doesn’t affect me and there’s no harm done. Meat bans and beef bans affect me. Personal marriage laws don’t affect me per se (My wife and I married under the 1954 Special Marriage Act), but it’s a matter of principle that the government shouldn’t have separate laws for different religions.
Of course, nonsense like too much noise and all affects me too :(
I have read a fair amount of your posts and there tends to be something missing in most of them. You fail to grasp a big picture or do your research.
The statement that “the west” is not selective with its religions is just wrong. The USA is based around Christianity and some of its fundamental laws can be traced to the 10 commandments.
That aside governments often choose groups side to get what they want. I’m not saying it’s right but that’s how it works. It’s time to open your eyes to what is going on around you. Start being the journalist you claim to be and talk about the facts, ask questions, and leave your short sighted opinions out of it.
In reply to Brian
“Some of its fundamental laws can be traced to the 10 commandments”
Like what? “Thou shalt not kill”? That’s hardly unique to Christianity. I don’t kill people even though I’m an atheist. As far as the US goes, the separation of church and state is a well established principle. In fact, most of the 10 commandments are not legally enforceable. Adultery is perfectly legal, so is disrespecting your parents and bowing before graven images.
And journalist? Lol, I’m not a journalist – I’m a blogger! The entire blog is about my opinions and I’ve never tried to hide that fact :P
It is all about Majority and Minority nothing else.
Bhagwad….I think all beings whether humans or animals have the right to live and have no powers to snuff the lives out of each other unless it is a question of territorial encroachment! The cycle of life takes care of who eats what.
In reply to Sunita
I personally think that killing for eating is perfectly fine. I am of course against the mistreatment of animals as happens in the regular meat industry, but that’s a discussion for another time!
In this case, I’m against double standards. Cows are as innocent as chickens, goats, and pigs. If people really cared about animals, they would ban the killing of all of them, not just cows.
simply put, when people are heavily biased in one direction, they can violate the principles they supposedly hold or that the country supposedly enshrines in its constitution, and not see any contradiction, unless it is specifically pointed out to them. And even then, many people will still view the (religion / credo / whatever) as more important, and therefore not care.
In reply to tehy
I agree. And I view it as my job to specifically point out those contradictions!