Prominent Muslim voices have asked the prime minister to declare the cow a national animal and therefore ban its slaughter across India. The head of the largest body of clerics, Jamiat Ulma-e-Hind president Maulana Arshad Madani, said Muslims would have no objection to this, since it would stop mob lynchings.

Madani said when the majority of the country's population considers the cow sacred and gives it the status of 'mother', there should be no political compulsion for the government to avoid declaring the cow as the national animal. Former vice-president Hamid Ansari also weighed in on this and repeated what Madani was asking for.

Laws criminalising the possession of beef were first legislated in 2015, in Maharashtra, then Haryana, which began a spate of violence we call ‘beef lynchings’. Other BJP states followed and the lynchings continue.

Those who support a nationwide ban on cow slaughter say it is a constitutional requirement. So why has it not been implemented? Let us examine the matter.

Article 48 of India’s Constitution is a directive principle, meaning that it is guidance and not law. It reads: ‘The State shall endeavour to organise agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter, of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle.’

There is something unusual here. The........

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