Ahead of Eid Ul Azha, Saffron Brigade Raises Banner of Animal Rights

NEW DELHI, 06 July 2020 [Fik/News Sources]: Rightwing Hindutva organisations are always on the lookout for ways and means to create newer controversies involving Muslims and polarise society on sectarian lines. With the Eid-Ul-Azha approaching they seem to have made up their mind to use the occasion to carry out a hate campaign against the community over the issue of animal sacrifice during the festival.

This has come to light from the sudden surfacing of hoardings in Lucknow and Delhi ahead of the Muslim festival of sacrifice calling to shun animal sacrifice ahead of the Muslim festival of sacrifice. Fortunately, one such hoarding was removed in the Uttar Pradesh capital at the instance of a Sunni cleric who had raised objection to it. But the development points to a sinister design to vitiate the social atmosphere of the communally sensitive state at the time of Eid.

Purported to be put up by ‘People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal’ (PETA), such posters are bound to create disquiet in the community. The timing of the installation of the hoardings that calls for giving up all non vegetarian foods reflects on the anti-Muslim mindset, a hallmark of the saffron fraternity. If PETA was to carry out a campaign against animal slaughter, it would not have targeted any one community. Hence, some Muslim clerics woke up to the situation and expressed their displeasure over the hoardings designed to single out Muslims.

The hoarding in Qaiserbagh crossing in Lucknow with a giant-size image of a goat reads: ‘Mai Jeev Hoon, Maans Nahi. Hamare Prati Nazariya Badlen, Vegan Bane’ (I am a living being, not a mere meat. Change your outlook towards us and become a vegan). Logo of PETA appears at the corner of the hoarding.

For those who are not familiar with the term ‘vegan’, it denotes to a relatively recent concept that calls for abstinence from all non-vegetarian food including animal products like milk and egg. A person who subscribes to the philosophy of veganism and adheres to it in life is called a vegan.

As the pictures of the hoardings are widely circulated on social media, Maulana Khalid Rasheed Farangi Mahali, chairman of Islamic Centre of India, demanded immediate withdrawal of the hoardings through a letter he wrote to police. He said they hurt the sentiments of Muslims.

Pointing out that on such hoardings hurt the sentiments of lakhs of Muslims as there is a religious tradition of sacrificing goats the occasion of Eid-Ul-Azha, Maulana Mahali’s organisation wrote to the Commissioner of Police, Lucknow, making an appeal to take down the controversial hoardings.

He suspected that the hoardings were deliberately put up in a mischievous attempt to hurt Muslim sentiments. However, PETA, which is purported to be the author of the hoardings, is yet to respond to the call for their removal.

Meanwhile other Muslim clerics followed suit and objected to the hoardings. They all called it an attempt to “spoil the law and order situation in the state capital ahead of the festival of Eid-Ul-Azha.”

This is not the first time Muslims are at the receiving end of a campaign against animal sacrifice. Every time a campaign is launched against animal foods, it ends up targeting Muslims ignoring the fact that meat eating is not a Muslim monopoly.

Be it protection of cow or conservation of wildlife, the motive of those who raise such issues is always is to target one particular community as if rest of the country has nothing to do with these. If they were sincere in their intent, they would pressure the government for a blanket ban on animal sacrifice of all kinds.

As per the statistics, while 70 per cent of Indians are meat eaters, Muslims constitute only 14 per cent of the country’s population. Which communities does the rest 56 per cent meat-eating population belong to? This fact is conveniently ignored by the Islamophobes whose single-point agenda is to demonise Muslims and create a chasm between the two major communities of the country.