Cow as Weapon

Jai Sri Ram

Yesterday’s editorial of a prominent Malayalam newspaper, run by the Catholic Church in Kerala, was about a Christian pastor being bound and forced to swallow cow dung in Odisha. A 40-member gang of Bajrang Dal thugs attacked the pastor who was leading a prayer service at his residence. The man was subjected to extreme indignities. Cow dung was the attackers’ ultimate weapon.

Such incidents are not about Christianity vs Hinduism. They are about power masquerading as piety. About humiliation replacing debate. Fear being used as cultural pride. How pathetic is a religious faith that needs another human being to be publicly degraded to feel secure!

There are religious conversions happening in many parts of the country in spite of absurdly rigorous laws against it. A simple question that the Bajrang Dal or any such upholder of the Jai Sri Ram jihad should ask themselves is: Why do people choose to abandon their inherited gods and the much-glorified ancient heritage that chaperones the gods? If people give up their original religion and gods just for a few material benefits, as claimed by the Hindutva army and which is probably true, why can’t these culture-guardians provide similar material benefits instead of wasting money and energy on violent and destructive activities?

Thousands of crores of rupees are being spent on construction of temples and other religious places in India now. Why not spend a fraction of that money on the poor Hindus who go with their begging bowls to Christian pastors and then get converted by their charity?

If so many laws and more thuggery couldn’t stop conversions, it’s plain common sense to assume that the remedy lies elsewhere. It’s about economy, not gods. People want food, not glittering temples. People want dignity, not rhetoric.

If you have to force excreta into a human mouth to make people switch their gods, then there’s something seriously wrong with your religion or the way you understand it. Sanatan Dharma, as you call it, cannot be so scatological. Come on, rise from that muck and show something better for people like me to begin to appreciate the war-cry of Jai Sri Ram.

There were more than 700 attacks on Christian churches in India in 2025 alone. Most of the attacks took place in the Hindi belt. And more and more people from the same region seem to be converting to Christianity! There’s something seriously wrong, right? Anyone with plain common sense will understand that the attacks aren’t achieving the purpose of intimidating people away from seeking dignity. Yet the Bajrang Dal and other organised thugs of India’s right wing keep doing the same thing. Probably they know nothing better.

If you keep doing the same thing, you will keep getting the same result.

Okay, I can understand that every society has its due share of rogues. Every society also has its police for dealing with them. What has India done to deal with its goons and thugs who misuse the name of Lord Rama so blatantly? As the editorial mentioned in the beginning of this post says, India’s rulers won’t need even 24 hours to restrain these thugs. But they won’t do it. Because they have allowed their sectarian politics to stoop so low as to make their perceived enemies swallow excreta.

The editorial also draws the reader’s attention to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s report which warns of the possibilities of mass atrocities against minority communities in India soon.

The editorial concludes thus: “Cow dung is mere excreta. Let the carriers of a religious and political disease not fester a culture with that body waste. Kerala should take the lead.”

I’m ready to be a part of any movement that takes such a lead. 

“When faith needs to humiliate another human being to survive, what is being protected is not religion but insecurity.”