Book on beef-eating runs into trouble

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 8. The expert on ancient Indian history, Prof. D. N. Jha's bid to prove that ``beef-eating was not Islam's baneful bequeathal to India'' has run him into trouble with a civil court in Andhra Pradesh restraining the release, publication and printing of his book ``Holy Cow: Beef in Indian Dietary Traditions'', and the Animal Welfare Board of India demanding a ban on the book along with his arrest.

Admitting a petition of the Jain Seva Sangh and Adigoud (Vipra) Samaj, a Hyderabad civil court on Tuesday passed an interim injunction restraining both Prof. Jha and his publisher from ``releasing, publishing and printing the book'' in any manner till the next date of hearing on August 17. The petitioners had prayed that many references in the book were opposed to the religious sentiments and fundamentals of Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism.

The day before, the Chairman of the Animal Welfare Board of India, Mr. Justice Ghuman Mal Lodha, had written to the Union Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, demanding a ban on the book and the arrest of Prof. Jha and his publisher, Matrix Books, for bringing out the book ``which is highly objectionable, derogatory and injurious to Indian culture, particularly Hindu, Jain and Buddha religious traditions''.

While the publishers have decided to stop sending out books for sale in view of the injunction, Prof. Jha - who has been receiving threatening calls from mid-July warning of dire consequences if he published the book - plans to seek legal counsel. The book - which has been talked about in academic circles for a while - first ran into trouble when the original publisher developed cold feet and backed out at the last minute.

Insisting that there was nothing in the book that sought to hurt anyone's sentiments, Prof. Jha said the very purpose of writing it was to show that beef-eating was not unique to Islam and, thereby, counter the campaign that seeks to foster ``the false consciousness of the otherness of the followers of Islam''.

Of the view that the attack on his book was a product of the intolerant days the country was passing through, Prof. Jha said historical facts had never been palatable to all across the board. ``But, you do not ban a book because you do not agree with its contents.''

In particular, he is upset with Mr. Justice Lodha's call for arresting and prosecuting him and his publisher, and the latter's description of the book as an ``atom bomb explosion against our religious feelings and sentiments''. While speaking out against the book, Mr. Justice Lodha has donned three hats: That of the Chairman of the Animal Welfare Board of India, the Vice-Chairman of the National Commission on Cattle, and the president of the Rashtriya Goraksha Andolan Samiti.

To Mr. Justice Lodha's allegation of Prof. Jha using stray references to present a distorted picture, the historian said he was only strengthening the position maintained by very orthodox historians in the past including the likes of Bharat Ratna P. V. Kane and J. C. Jain. ``Jain is on record as stating that meat eating was not uncommon among early Jains, and Kane in his History of Dharmashastras shows that the vedic people ate beef.''

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