New Delhi - An installation of a floating cow made by two artists for an exhibition in the northern Indian city of Jaipur was taken down by police after complaints by Hindu activists, one of the creators said on Sunday.
The plastic cow attached to a balloon was floating above the open exhibition area of the Jawahar Kala Kendra, an art and culture centre, when it caught the attention of activists on Saturday.
The makers of the installation for the Jaipur Art Summit - Anish Ahluwalia and Chitan Upadhyay - were briefly detained and questioned by police.
“Our installation was about how plastics are bad if ingested by animals, but it was misinterpreted as cruelty to the cow,” Ahluwalia said.
Police official Mahendra Gupta said: “We got a call to inform us about this installation. When we checked it out, there was no description on it or below it to explain what it was trying to show.”
“Some animal rights activists and other groups complained that it looked like the cow was being treated badly so we took down the installation. We wanted to prevent any trouble.”
Ahluwalia said the organisers of the exhibition decided not to have it suspended mid-air, but standing on the ground.
India's Hindu majority regards cows as holy, and it is illegal to kill them in several states including Rajasthan, of which Jaipur is the capital city.
Allegations of cow slaughter have inflamed communal tensions in India in the past.
Earlier this year, three Muslim men were killed by Hindu mobs after being accused of eating beef.
DPA
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