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A report written by
Danish A Khan was published in The Milli Gazette (16-31 August 2002). It
claimed that even Lord Mahavira ate meat. This was based on research
available in print as well as on the Internet. We received a very long
rejoinder from Mr. Bal Patil, member of the Maharashtra State Minorities
Commission (MSMC), refuting the claim made in the MG article. We asked him
to provide us a shorter rejoinder which he failed to provide us in time
for our next issue, so we promptly published a reasonable summary of that
long rejoinder in the previous issue.
On March 10 we received a letter dated "4th January 2003" (sic)
stating that the MSMC has unanimously adopted the following resolution in
its meeting dated 26th February 2003: "The Commission condemns and
takes a strong exception to the tendentious, false and highly derogatory
comments made by Shri. Danish A. Khan in his article "Nationwide ban
on cow slaughter mooted" published in the Milli Gazette dated 22nd
February 2003 stating that Bhagwan Mahavira ate meat which is injurious to
basic religious faith of the Jain and Buddhist communities. The Commission
calls upon the editor of Milli Gazette and the writer Shri. Danish A. Khan
to tender an unqualified apology and publish it prominently in the Milli
Gazette" Signed/- M. A. Khandwani, Chairman, Maharashtra State
Minorities Commission, and forwarded to us by Ms. K. S. Syed, Officer on
Special Duty, Maharashtra State Minorities Commission.
We tender unconditional apology to our Jain brothers and sisters whose
sentiments have been hurt. However, to put the matter in perspective to
show that we did not fabricate this claim. The claim is based on research
available in both print and on the Internet, especially the recent
research of Delhi University professor DN Jha "Paradox of the Indian
Cow: Attitudes to Beef Eating in Early India" (http://www.ercwilcom.net/
~indowindow/sad/godown/history/dnjha.htm) or his book Holy Cow —
Beef in Indian Dietary Traditions and his interview in The Week (August
26, 2001) where he replied to a question, "When you try to establish
that the Buddha or Mahavira ate beef, you are hurting sentiments? They
should read the book and try to produce counter evidence. That is how you
react to an academic work. Not by burning it. This means you are trying to
control academic research. They will have to ban many things including the
Vedas. Ban P. V. Kane's History of Dharma Sastras. Ban all the dharma
sastra texts where there are references to beef-eating"
(http://www.the-week.com/21aug26/events8.htm).
Editor
(1-15 April 2003)
See also:
Nationwide ban on cow slaughter mooted
Lord Mahavira was not a meat-eater
Mr Bal Patil's rejoinder
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