By Rajiv Shah The Gujarat state assembly may have cleared a law allowing an extremely harsh punishment entailing a maximum of life and a minimum of 10 years imprisonment for cow slaughter. However, in less than month after the Gujarat Animal Preservation (Amendment) Bill, 2017 was passed in the absence of the Opposition Congress, with the visitors’ gallery packed with saffron-clad Hindu priests, Gujarat’s Dalit organizations wonder if the law would apply to those who force cows to consume plastics along with leftover food offered to them. Passed eight months after self-styled cow vigilantes brutally beat up four Dalit boys on suspicion of cow slaughter in Una, a small town in Saurashtra, the new law goes so far as to make offences under the amended Act non-bailable. The Bill was cleared amidst Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani declaring, “I am not against any food”, but in the same breathe adding, he wanted to make Gujarat “shakahari (vegetarian).” One of those who has decided to c