COCHIN, India - As a Hindu, Anil Kumar is expected to revere cows, not eat them, and his taste for beef defies one of Hindu nationalism's most fervent causes.
Cows are treated as goddesses by most in the Hindu majority. But Kumar has been free to eat beef since he was young - his mother thought it would make him stronger - because he lives in southern India's Kerala state, where leftist governments have long defended the slaughter of cattle as a fundamental freedom.
In the name of religious tolerance, Indian governments have long resisted pressure to impose a nationwide ban on cattle butchering, because millions of Indian Muslims and Christians - and even many Hindus - happily eat beef.
But a national election is coming, and the voice of Hindu nationalists is getting louder. To some in the opposition, it's no coincidence that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's coalition government, which is dominated by Hindu nationalists, is moving to make it a serious crime to injure or kill cattle.
Last month, Vajpayee's government brought the Prevention of Cruelty to Cows bill to Parliament. If it becomes law, anyone caught killing cattle will face a prison term of from two to seven years, and a fine of up to $220 for each dead animal.
The law would also punish those who injure cattle, with a fine of up to $110, prohibit the sale of beef and end the legal export of cattle.
Like many Muslims and Christians opposed to the proposed ban, Kumar thinks leaders of Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party are cynically trying to stir up passions with the proposed ban. "This is not coming from inside their hearts," he says. "People in power must have tasted beef in their [college] hostels."
Kumar started eating beef when he was in high school, breaking the traditional Hindu taboo with his mother's encouragement. She thought a diet of red meat would toughen him up to defend the family's privileged status as Brahmins at the top of India's rigid caste system.
"The feeling slipped into the minds of high-caste Hindus that we are useless because we are not aggressive," says Kumar, 38, state sales manager here for a home appliance company. "When I was a child, my mother used to say, `People who eat beef are stronger.'"
At the time, Kerala's Communist government was taking land from Brahmins and giving it to their low-caste Hindu, Muslim and Christian laborers. Kumar's mother thought vegetarianism had weakened the Brahmin resolve, he says.
