India has been pushed into an unnecessary debate on whether beef should be banned or not. This is a wrong question to ask in a country where the emotions of Hindus are linked with the cow, which they revere. The real question is whether a person should have been lynched when it was presumed that he had consumed beef. Even this allegation was based on false rumours. It looks as if the Hindu extremists have come to dictate their views of the religion. 

It is a blessing that the debate on beef did not last long. The discussion had begun to polarise the society. Maybe, this realisation made Prime Minister Narendra Modi say that Hindus and Muslims should come together to fight poverty, not each other. He kept quiet for a week and would not have probably taken an equivocal position but for public pressure. Even what he ultimately said was so tepid that it looked like he was merely going over an exercise.

It seems as if the Rashtriya Syamsewak Sangh (RSS) had come to feel that the BJP government under Narendra Modi would be exposed to unforeseen dangers if the extremist fringe went on harping on beef. The Muslims would have felt more insecure. This made RSS pipe down. Not long ago, its stalwart L.K. Advani candidly admitted that it was possible for the BJP to have an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha with the support of Hindus but it would be difficult to administer the country without Muslim cooperation. Yet this has remained on paper.

If the Sangh Parivar had felt so strongly about garnering the Muslim support, it would have taken appropriate steps for the participation of Muslims. For it, the Muslims do not really count in the affairs of the country. Take the central cabinet for example; only one seat has been given to Muslims and that too of minor importance.

Still worse is the distance which is increasing between the two communities. There is hardly any interaction between them. Both seem to live in a world of their own. This is primarily because of polarisation which is deepening and which the Sangh Parivar is purposefully cultivating.

This point has been brought to the fore by the return of Sahitya Akademi awards by some six eminent literary figures, including Nayantara Sehgal, Jawaharlal Nehru's niece. In their letter, they have contended that the space for free expression is shrinking day by day. Indeed, they represent the country's ethos. The saffronisation that the BJP is imposing cannot be acceptable to a society which has been nurtured in the values of free expression and pluralism. It is unfortunate that the RSS and BJP leaders have not realised this basic fact so far.

Modi, once the RSS percharak, should draw a lesson from the communal rioting at Dadri, near Delhi. A Muslim was lynched on the basis of a rumour that he had consumed beef. Even if he had, there is no law forbidding eating beef. True, all the states, except two or three, have banned cow slaughter but none of them have banned eating beef.

 Modi should realise, if he has not done it yet, that pluralism is the whiff and whoop of the society. Even if some extremists in the Sangh Parivar do not like this, there is a preponderant majority which believes in the idea of India: democracy, secularism and egalitarianism. No doubt, there are pockets in the country where the majority has an unbridled say and denounce pluralism. But this is not true about the nation as a whole. It has full faith in the free say of minorities and will defend that say.

Those who declare on TV screens that they eat beef are not serving the cause. In their efforts to register their secular credentials, they are doing more harm through their chest beating.

The country's focus should have been on the lynching of Astaq Hussain who was dragged from his house on the rumour that he had consumed beef. Even if it is a fact, the question arises, whether a person who eats beef should be killed. Nearly all states in the country have banned cow slaughter. The directive principle of the constitution also says: "The State shall endeavour to organise agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle".

 The matter of eating beef was registered as a case at the Supreme Court of India. The judgment stated that it was up to a person whether he wanted to eat beef or not, and it was no crime if he decided to eat it.

The real fact is that a fringe segment of Hindu extremists have made beef an issue to polarise the society for electoral purposes. In the same way, the Hindu extremist organisation Shiv Sena, confined to Maharashtra, has also given the state a bad name. Not only has the Shiv Sena sullied the reputation of democratic structure of India but has also besmeared itself. Shiv Sena's founder Bal Thackerey had realised the futility of violence and had come to condemn it. This helped Shiv Sena gain acceptability and have its nominee in the chair of chief ministership.

Still, the democratic functioning is not to the liking of Shiv Sena's new breed. Blackening the face of Surinder Kulkarni, a respected journalist who has pro-BJP leaning, is the way in which the Shiv Sena functions now. The uproar over this incident should make the Sangh Parivar realise that India's soul is secular. And so it will stay.

The writer is an eminent Indian columnist.