Cow worship lands prison officials in trouble

The State Prisons Department has taken a serious view of a controversial cow worship rite held at the Open Jail at Cheemeni in Kasaragod last week.

The incident had snowballed into a political controversy after Administrative Reforms Commission Chairperson V.S. Achuthanandan described the ritual as a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ploy to “saffronise” jails and spread superstition. He had called for strict action against the “perpetrators”. Several other organisations had also echoed his sentiment.

A video clip of the ceremony showed saffron clad sanyasis accompanied by jail officials and prison inmates zealously worshipping a dwarf cow on the jail precincts.

The Superintendent had received the sanyasis at his office and escorted them to a shed inside where the rite was conducted. The ceremony ended with the participants acclaiming the “cow mother” in Hindi.

Director-General (DG), Prisons, R. Sreelekha, told The Hindu that no religious activity could be promoted as a “public activity” in prisons where inmates came from varied faiths.

Prisoners have the right to practise their own faith and all jails have provision for spiritual activities. However, prisons could not be used as venues to proselytise or promote one particular religion or another. An inquiry has been conducted and she required time to study the report.

Another official said Ms. Sreelekha was likely to conduct a comprehensive review of religious practices in State prisons to ensure that they confirmed to prison rules and did not go against the grain of the secular Constitution.

He said that prison rules allowed different religious groups to interact with prisoners.

At one point of time, the department had come under criticism “for” allowing proselytisation inside State prisons.

Consequently, the then DG T.P.Senkumar, mandated that groups or individuals seeking to spiritually or religiously interact with inmates get a prior police clearance.

Such persons were only allowed to meet members of their own faith to insulate the department from communally tinted controversies.