On Saturday, news had broken from Kerala that some members of the youth wing of the Congress party had slaughtered a cow in full public view and then had proceeded to cook and eat its meat. The apparent motive behind them doing so was to protest against the Modi Government’s decision to to ban sale and purchase of cattle from animal markets for slaughter.
After people were horrified by the incident the Congress High Command sprung into damage control mode and Rahul Gandhi ‘strongly condemned’ what he called a barbaric, thoughtless and completely unacceptable act. Rahul Gandhi though did not mention either Youth Congress or the cow in his statement, but it was assumed that he was referring to the same.
Now the police have proceeded to book the Congress activists under the IPC Section 428 and section (ii) of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960.
What also made news in relation to this incident is NDTV’s decision to first report this incident as a ‘buffalo’ slaughter and then further tone it down as an ‘Ox’ slaughter which was possibly its way of carrying out the ‘damage control’:
Here’s the transformation in serial order:
- First there was a buffalo, thus the cow was given a new identity:
- Then the buffalo started exhibiting wave particle like duality by existing both as a buffalo and ox at the same time:
- And finally the buffalo completely morphed into an ox:
The most plausible reason behind this transformation could be that cow slaughter evokes a very passionate response from the public, while buffalo and ox generate a mellowed response thus this was NDTV’s way of downplaying the whole incident. Or maybe it was a general incompetence that the Indian mainstream media is well known for.
Also, the reported video of the incident (graphic images are censored) clearly shows a calf getting slaughtered and almost all the media houses reported the incident as either calf or cow slaughter [1][2][3][4]:
https://twitter.com/binoyvinodan/status/868799676849545220
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsThis reporting of NDTV soon caught the eye of the people who then proceeded to react with anger, amusement, and disgust:
https://twitter.com/coolfunnytshirt/status/868848977717764098
https://twitter.com/YearOfRat/status/868842152918253568
https://twitter.com/LiberalsOfDelhi/status/868871794085822465
https://twitter.com/sureshnakhua/status/868857212944470016
https://twitter.com/Shanktan/status/868876258704273408
https://twitter.com/saket71/status/868925932131766272
https://twitter.com/KanchanGupta/status/869051938096263168
https://twitter.com/nobodyschoice/status/868855149770362880