Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on June 4 in Kochi made a fine dissection of the environment ministry’s controversial order that said that cattle bought at cattle fairs cannot be slaughtered.

The order is a clear backdoor entry into beef ban and on personal food choices, foisting extreme Hindu right wing ideologies on the unsuspecting public, irrespective of religion, pretty much withholding their constitutional rights.

In Kochi to attend a function, Prasad said: “The notification talks only about the cattle market not being a place for the purchase of cattle for slaughter. It does not say that you cannot procure cattle from some farm or any other place.”

It is as fine a slice of the controversial beef as one can make, and he definitely did not explain how one can transport such cattle (bought anywhere) without being mauled by gau rakshak goons on the way. He also did not care to explain what he meant by “any other place” where this supposedly safe transaction could take place.

Prasad, in a political speech, though, said that the centre did not want to interfere in personal food choices. He, however, again harped on the BJP’s prime agenda of the future of India: protection of cows, saying it is “also a fundamental obligation of the state policy.”

The thrust of his speech was asking the state chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan to “find better causes for a federal unity”. He was speaking out against a proposed meeting of CMs to discuss the cattle sale ban.

—India Legal Bureau