“The cow,” Mahatma Gandhi once said, “is a poem of pity.” Last week India’s sacred animal brought not pity but violence to the very doorstep of government. The occasion was a rally of 125,000 Hindus, who had come from all over India to pressure the government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi into enacting a national ban on cattle slaughter. Converging on a traffic circle near Parliament, the demonstrators at first listened peacefully to speeches. Then a sadhu (Hindu holy man), a member of Parliament, sprang onto the speaker’s stand. He had just been ushered out of the Lok Sabha, he cried, because he had demanded the ban on cattle slaughter. “Let us go and surround Parliament,” he cried.
The rush was on. In the lead were the holy men. Many were completely naked, and had pinned their ban-the-butcher pennants in their long matted hair for lack of any place else to stick them. Some shouted, “The cow is our mother!” Dancing like dervishes, the sadhus swung steel-tipped staves, axes and tridents to drive back police. Behind them surged the mob.
Repulsed by police with staves, the mob stormed the headquarters of All India Radio, invaded other nearby government buildings and residences, including the home of Congress Party President K. Kamaraj Nadar (he escaped through a back door). Other demonstrators set fire to 56 cars and buses and 26 motor scooters. In desperation, the police broke out rifles, began firing down Parliament Street to frighten away the rioters. In the melee, eight persons were killed, 111 injured.
The Unbowing Bosses. Another casualty was Home Minister Gulzarilat Nanda. Indira Gandhi has been under so much criticism in recent weeks for fail ing to take stern measures against In dia’s growing wave of rioting that she realized it was time to take decisive action. So, out went the 68-year-old ascetic who had served for the past 15 years in one Cabinet post or another.
Mrs. Gandhi had a scheme of her own. She intended to use Nanda’s ouster as an opportunity to reshuffle the Cabinet, which she had inherited almost intact from Lai Bahadur Shastri and had so far been unable to alter. Her plan was to give the Home Ministry to able Defense Minister Y. B. Chavan and install other favorites in the finance and commerce slots.
But the Prime Minister herself ended up a casualty of sorts. Learning of her designs, the Congress Party’s powerful regional bosses beat a quick path to her office and argued her out of the new appointments. In the end, she had to take on the taxing and potentially un popular post of Home Minister herself.
With the question of the breakdown of law and order looming as a chief issue in next February’s national elections, Indira Gandhi now was more on the spot than ever.
More Must-Reads from TIME
- L.A. Fires Show Reality of 1.5°C of Warming
- How Canada Fell Out of Love With Trudeau
- Trump Is Treating the Globe Like a Monopoly Board
- Bad Bunny On Heartbreak and New Album
- 10 Boundaries Therapists Want You to Set in the New Year
- The Motivational Trick That Makes You Exercise Harder
- Nicole Kidman Is a Pure Pleasure to Watch in Babygirl
- Column: Jimmy Carter’s Global Legacy Was Moral Clarity
Contact us at letters@time.com