- The Indian society stands polarized courtesy of the political class attempting to milk by embracing the labyrinthine caste conundrum needs no elaboration. The way our political leaders irrespective of party affiliations, ideologies, and philosophies have usurped our society’s underlying currents of caste lines, it’s well nigh impossible to keep the issue from creeping up in several forms. The quotas and reservations in the government jobs and educational institutions are a case in point. Add to this the aggressive stand adopted by the right-wing activists in asserting their viewpoints by adopting extrajudicial methods only further vitiates the already muddied societal harmony. As you are aware, one such method is cow vigilantism which has taken deep roots of late.
PC: Scroll.in
- Across the country, cow vigilantism hits the headlines making us wonder whatever happened to the rule of the law of the land. Mind you, when vigilantes get a free hand from authorities, tragedies like what happened in Haryana recently get accentuated. As reported recently, in late August, SUV-driving cow vigilantes in Faridabad, Haryana killed a 19-year-old. The murder reminds one of 17-year-old Junaid’s lynching in 2017 by vigilantes on a train as he was returning home after Eid shopping in Delhi. Junaid was reportedly accused by the attackers of consuming beef. The men were arrested and bailed. No surprise as the case hangs fire to date. Lynching cases by cow vigilantes reached an unnerving high in 2016-2017.
- UP, Haryana, Rajasthan, and parts of Bihar and Jharkhand are the most affected. But it is a crime that has takers in every state. July saw communal lynchings in Bengal. The other day, an old man on a Maharashtra train was heckled and assaulted, accused of eating and/or carrying beef. The details matter little for these were vigilantes, goons who smell blood at the sight of vulnerable citizens. It is telling that the shock over the Faridabad teen’s death centered around the fact that he, a Hindu, was mistakenly targeted. It’s equally telling that vigilantism – winked at by various governments – doesn’t evoke society’s outrage, let alone consistent and swift police action. But the police and authorities should be very scared, not only the public.
PC: Indiafacts
- In 2021, SC sought Parliament to enact a law to establish lynching as a separate offence with punishment. NCRB put out statistics in 2017 on lynchings given the killings by cattle vigilantes. The category was discontinued, IPC didn’t define lynching. In 2018, SC said no act of a citizen is to be adjudged by any kind of community under the guise of protectors of law. That is exactly the point authorities unsee, in states where such self-appointed or govt-sanctioned vigilantes flourish, from beating up truckers to lynching anyone who they thought was not kosher. Inarguably, lynchings are complete lawlessness. No government in its right mind would allow such extrajudicial help. But as Haryana finds out, the genie is out of the bottle, and the bottle is tossed aside.
