ABSTRACT
At present India is witnessing a rise in murders of Muslims and Dalits under the rubric of cow-protectionism. While the Muslim deaths are legitimised through firmly establishing them as the other, the Dalit murders are treated as accidents, as cases of mistaken identity. The chapter tries to understand the specific nature of violence around the cow and its implications for democracy and citizenship in India. Over the years, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its other outfits have relentlessly tried to push forward an agenda of religious fundamentalism in upholding a Brahmanical patriarchal order. One of the important tools for this project is the cow or the gaumata (mother cow). This chapter explores the discourse around construction of cow as a symbol and how this has been used to propagate a particular type of legitimate nationalist symbol located at the intersection of caste, gender and religion. The cow is not just a national symbol, as an animal it is bestowed certain characteristics constructing it as the ideal feminine. The cow as a domestic animal embodied the domesticity so idealised by Brahmanical patriarchy. The violence legitimised through cow-protectionism is, however, a matter of political strategy at least for the ruling BJP. Its differential application in different states, the general conditions of cows in farms and dairies seem to suggest that this bogey is merely a smokescreen for the government to divert attention from other more critical issues of governance and their failure in meeting these.
