Pointing to a problematic aspect of beef ban laws, Supreme Court lawyer Menaka Guruswamy said on Thursday that fault lines in the legislation were religious which had remained unresolved since the time a cow slaughter ban was first mooted in India.
The Maharashtra government, which passed the controversial Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act, told the Bombay High Court last month, when advocates brought up the issue of religion while arguing on a petition, that its decision to ban cattle slaughter had nothing to do with religion.
“I do not think we should have the right to tell anyone what to eat and what not to eat. Nutrition and calorie requirement should be the criteria. We have to premise our choices on common entitlement to freedom. The fault lines are religious and that is problematic,” Ms. Guruswamy told The Hindu on the sidelines of a talk titled ‘From Revolution to a Constitutional Democracy: The promises of the Indian Constitution’.
Religious norm When the anti-cow slaughter legislation was first mooted, Muslim members of Parliament said it was a religious norm. “This conversation never got resolved. Thus, there were challenges then too, which were not resolved,” she said. Ms. Guruswamy, who was on the Supreme Court-appointed panel looking into the hazardous effects of plastic bags on grazing animals, said meat consumption and sources of meat had a certain pattern and hierarchy in India.
