Ramkrishna Dalmia first spoke out against cow slaughter

When Maharashtra recently banned cow slaughter and its chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis, claimed inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi, one man was miffed: Vishvanidhi Dalmia says the original champion of the cause was his father, Ramkrishna Dalmia (1893 to 1978), the controversial businessman who was once ranked third in the pecking order after JRD Tata and Ghanshyam Das Birla.

"Gandhi and (Jawaharlal) Nehru never wanted to make it a law. What Fadnavis is claiming is false," Dalmia says in the grand living room of his Sikandra Road residence, one of the many houses his father left behind for his descendants in Lutyens' Delhi - he had six wives. Not far, a marble cow takes pride of the place among huge canvasses of modern art and traditional paintings.

"Every day, he would feed the cow first before eating. He worshipped her and wanted a complete ban on cow slaughter. Gandhi knew how brutally and violently cows were killed. Yet, he did not favour a ban due to political reasons," says Dalmia's son from his marriage to author and poetess Dineshnandini.

He cites the published accounts of Gandhi's personal secretary, Pyarelal Nayyar, that say Dalmia wrote to Gandhi asking him to change his views on cow slaughter and recommend a law banning it. Gandhi wrote back, saying he stood by his decision. Unperturbed by Gandhi's rejection, Dalmia ran editorials in his newspapers, including one that advocated "cow economy as a cure for inflation". He was a practitioner of 'cow urine therapy', recently advocated by Baba Ramdev.

Dalmia launched the Anti-cow Slaughter League in the 1940s and hoisted the "Sacred Flag of Cow" on his 10, Aurangzeb Road residence, which he had bought from his 'fast friend', Mohammed Ali Jinnah. This incident finds mention in several accounts of the time such as Freedom at Midnight and Dalmia's memoirs.

Vishvanidhi wants the flag and the legacy back, which he believes legitimately belonged to his father. He plans to restart the Anti-Cow Slaughter League, by roping in all like-minded people including the cow wings of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. "We will seek the support of PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) and others also for this."

Dalmia's relationship with Nehru was fractious. "He is an ugly man with an ugly face and an ugly mind and an ugly heart," Nehru once said of the businessman. On August 7, 1947, Nehru wrote to Rajendra Prasad, on the agitation against cow slaughter: "There is something slightly spurious about the present agitation…Dalmia's money is flowing and Dalmia is not exactly a desirable person." The Dalmia family believes it was this prejudice that led to Dalmia's troubles after Independence - the Nehru government sent him to jail for financial irregularities.

Apart from religious reasons, Dalmia's accounts do not give too many details about his obsession with the cow. In her 1949 book, Halfway to Freedom, American photographer Margaret Bourke White attributes it to the fact that Dalmia was locked in perpetual one-upmanship with Birla. "Somehow, the younger, more personable Birla always managed to be first. Birla had adopted Gandhi; Dalmia began backing Jinnah. Birla helped finance the Congress party; Dalmia lent support to the Muslim League."

After Independence, Birla became the biggest businessman of India. "So, Dalmia made up his mind to be the business wizard for Pakistan," she writes. "But with the bloody Hindu-Muslim conflict, Dalmia suffered in Hindu opinion, which meant the Dalmia-Jain financial network suffered. The Pakistan investment had backfired. Too late to get on the Gandhi bandwagon, Dalmia must find a new cause."

The cow came to his rescue.