Kajol's beef apology on Twitter in the time of gau rakshaks
"India has two types of beef eaters — one who actually loves the meat, but doesn't necessarily get to eat it, and the other who gorges on rumours about beef."
The latest victim of Indian cow lovers is Bollywood actor Kajol. Thanks to a video she uploaded on her Facebook and Instagram, the actor has been sufficiently trolled for her culinary preferences, something that is nobody’s business. But since this is India we are talking about, it is of course, everyone’s business.
The video was about a feast she had at her friend's restaurant. In the video, Kajol asks her friend Ryan to explain the dish that he made for. It was “beef pepper water with dry lentils and dry beef”.
Dear lord! Beef?
The actor, at the end of the short video, taking a dig at India’s love for cow-vigilantism, sarcastically remarks, “We are going to cut his hands off after this.” It is odd to witness mainstream actors taking digs at mainstream political trends, but thankfully the social media restored the balance on the internet by trolling her socks off.
While Kajol has since deleted the video, thanks to all the trolling, DNA After Hours does have a copy of it on their Instagram.
In fact, Kajol even tweeted a clarification on Twitter, saying that it was the perfectly legal buffalo meat, and not cow meat.
— Kajol (@KajolAtUN) May 1, 2017
“I am issuing this clarification because this is a sensitive matter that may hurt religious sentiments, which is not my intention,” she said. Thank goodness! Had she not tweeted that, gau-rakshaks would have happily gone and attacked her, the restaurant and the chef for serving meat that they thought belonged to a religious deity.
If only Mohammad Akhlaq or Pehlu Khan had had the good sense to tweet what kind of meat they had, they would not have had to pay for it with their dear lives. After all, no one is safe from these vicious vigilante groups who attack people and establishments on the basis of hearsay.
Barely more than a month ago, the manager of Hotel Hayat Rabbani in Jaipur was roughed up by a mob over rumours of serving beef.
According to reports, the owner of the hotel, Naeem Rabbani, has alleged that after taking his manager into custody, police brought him back among the cow vigilantes to calm them down. He was also slapped around and manhandled in police presence. While the owner of the establishment vehemently denied ever having served beef, the meat - that looked like chicken legs - was sent off to a forensic lab. What good use of resources.
Rabbani, who held a press conference with his staff a day later, said: “A repeat of Dadri had been averted."
This is not the only instance of a cow-mob gone wild. Cow-vigilantism is no longer a phenomenon limited to cow belt of north India anymore.
Just a couple of days ago, a mob allegedly lynched two men to death, in Nagaon district of Assam suspecting them to be cattle thieves. The mob continuously thrashed them with sticks while chasing them for about 1.5 km, from Kasamari in Nagaon to Jajori.
"When the police reached the spot, they were being thrashed by a mob of villagers near Kasamari grazing reserve under Nagaon police station. The team immediately took the men to hospital, where they succumbed to their injuries," said Nagaon superintendent of police Debaraj Upadhay to PTI.
In April this year, 55-year-old Pehlu Khan and his men, who were dairy farmers from Mewat, were attacked by gau rakshaks in Behror area of Alwar, on National Highway 8. The gau-kashaks were so brutal and merciless in their attack that Khan succumbed to injuries. Khan had all the necessary papers with him that proved beyond a sliver of doubt that they weren’t transporting the cows for slaughter. They were going to sell the milk of the cows purchased. But of course it is a little too much for anyone to expect bigoted goons to look at paperwork.
This makes one wonder, is a clarification tweet going to suffice? Or will the wrath of cow-nazis fall upon Kajol as well? But whatever be the case, tweet about your meat. You never know, it might just be what saves your life in these troubled times, when random people think it is okay to kill people, just because they don't agree with their diet.