Dadri lynching: Is this what has become of the idea of India?

The murder of a 50-year-old man at Dadri, just 45 kms from Delhi, over rumours that his family consumed beef raises just one question: where is India headed? Taking cue from a clutch of governments banning beef possession and then putting restrictions on meat eating during religious festivals, zealots have now signalled their intention to commit murder for the cause of the holy cow. The imposition of legal or social sanctions on traditional food habits by governments and communities in a climate of religious polarisation was certain to head down this path of violence and senseless loss of life. The murder of Mohammad Akhlaq signals an escalation of communalisation with dangerous implications for individual liberties and religious freedoms. We have seen communal violence erupt over alleged desecration of religious scriptures and structures and even over stray fights between members of different communities. But rarely, if ever, has it happened that a family is attacked within the confines of its home by a mob, over the choice of meat it consumed. A lakshman rekha has been crossed and the day could soon be upon us when both society and the state are allowed to enter the private confines of homes on the pretext of upholding social morality and religious strictures.

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 In the Dadri incident, the victims have testified that they had always maintained good relations with their Hindu neighbours. They have also insisted that the meat discovered in their house was mutton, indicating the role of troublemakers and rumourmongers in stoking communal tensions. While the political or cultural affiliations of the mob are not known, the political dimensions of the crime are hard to ignore. A fraying of social relations has been in evidence in Western Uttar Pradesh ever since 2012, after the Samajwadi Party came to power. This culminated in the Muzaffarnagar riots in 2013 in which leaders of the SP and the BJP have been reportedly implicated in the Justice Vishnu Sahay Commission’s report. Politicians have not been content letting matters rest, evident in Amit Shah’s “badla” remark and Azam Khan’s acerbic responses during the Lok Sabha elections.

The BJP’s phenomenal sweep in the Western UP belt, far from restoring normalcy, saw the birth of new slogans and campaigns like love jihad and ghar wapsi. While cattle theft has always been a source of communal tensions in rural UP, there is no evidence of Akhlaq or his son, who is critically injured, having indulged in such actions.

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A local BJP ex-legislator Nawab Singh Nagar is on record saying that the victims would be responsible for what happened, if they had consumed beef. In his words, the crime was “not the outcome of a conspiracy, but excitement that got the better of the mob”. Nagar’s defence of murder amounts to devaluing and dehumanising Muslim citizens. More importantly, his statement also reveals why this cannot be treated as an isolated incident or a local outrage. Alarmingly, groups of bigots have been allowed to enter the socio-political mainstream and have even begun to dominate it. The agenda that is unfolding will not end with beef ban or cow slaughter. It is our lifestyles, social freedoms, personal choices, identities, political beliefs and our cultural diversity that are under attack from the saffron Taliban, if we may stick that label to such murderers and hate merchants. The BJP may well continue to boast that the investment climate and the ease of doing business have improved in India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But none of that matters or will matter if the country’s minorities have to live in fear of their neighbours and the Hindu right wing outfits.