Politics & Power Quote by Indira Gandhi

A line like this lands with the dry bluntness of someone who has stared at India’s fault lines up close and decided euphemism is a luxury. Indira Gandhi isn’t making a culinary argument; she’s diagnosing political cowardice in a democracy where symbolism routinely beats policy. The cow here isn’t dinner, it’s a sacred proxy for identity, belonging, and power. To say “cows can be eaten” is to touch the live wire connecting religion, caste practice, rural economics, and communal fear - and to admit that the state, however modern on paper, governs in the shadow of taboo.

The specific intent is twofold: to expose the limits of “rational” governance, and to name the opportunism that grows inside those limits. Gandhi’s phrasing - “no politician… daring enough” - frames truth-telling as a test of courage, not evidence. That’s the subtext: in mass politics, leaders don’t lose office for being wrong; they lose office for disturbing the myths that keep coalitions intact. The masses are cast not as villains but as the terrain politicians must fearfully navigate, a quietly elitist but also pragmatic admission from a leader steeped in realpolitik.

Context matters: post-Independence India was still negotiating what secularism meant in practice, while cow protection had already become a potent majoritarian slogan and a flashpoint for communal tension. Gandhi’s remark reads like a warning: when politics refuses to speak plainly about sacred symbols, it doesn’t preserve harmony - it surrenders the public sphere to whoever weaponizes those symbols first.