#dnaEdit: Selective conciliation

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has finally hit out at cow vigilantes, nearly a month after the Una incident in Gujarat in which four Dalits were publicly flogged for attempting to skin a dead cow leading to widespread protests. In his first statement on Saturday, PM Modi said that cow protection was a cover for the anti-social activities conducted by these goon squads. He exhorted the vigilantes to prevent cows from consuming plastic and people from dumping them on the streets. Then, on Sunday, the PM attempted to address the specific issue of attacks targeting Dalits by telling gau rakshaks that “If you have to shoot, shoot me, but not my Dalit brothers”. Modi’s remarksappeared to be having some sort of salutary effect with the Patiala Police arresting the chief of a local Gau Raksha Dal.

Despite his statements, Modi will come to rue his inordinate delay in condemning the gau rakshaks. In the interim, the Dalits of Gujarat took to the streets to protest the state government’s inept and soft handling of the Una incident. With television and social media transmitting the horrifying visuals to homes and smart-phones, the repercussions of the incident will be felt nationally by the BJP, especially in the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. The BJP has all but lost the Dalit votes and it appears to be this  realisation that has stirred the PM out of his silence and deliver a ringing condemnation of the gau rakshaks. The irony that these cow
vigilantes drew sustenance from the sustained Sangh Parivar campaign against cow slaughter was also lost on no one. Before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Modi raised alarm about the “pink revolution” and the
rise in beef exports during the UPA government’s tenure. At the ground level, anti-social elements adopt such slogans of top political leaders to lend credibility to their vigilantism and extortion rackets. The failure of the police to act against vigilanteism also reflects implicit political sanction from state governments.

Not surprisingly, incidents of vigilantism and the mushrooming ofvigilante groups have been predominantly reported from states ruled by the BJP and its allies. But it is not just the Dalits who have been at the receiving end. In his exhortation to the vigilantes to spare Dalits, Modi forgot the other community which has been far more affected by cow vigilantism: the Muslims. Among those attacked from the Muslim community include cattle transporters, traders, alleged smugglers and ordinary men and women accused of having beef in their possession. If it was an instance of accidental oversight while delivering a speech, it could have been overlooked. But despite this
ambiguity being pointed out, the Prime Minister did not use his social media platforms to subsequently widen the ambit of his statement to cover Muslims too.

The Prime Minister went to the extent of saying that he would ask state governments to prepare dossiers of these gau rakshaks but shied away from demanding strict prosecution of those taking the law into their hands. The stock BJP response to all such incidents is that law and order is a state subject. After the Mohammed Akhlaq’s murder too, Modi waited several days before condemning the incident. Since then, incidents of cow vigilantism have been reported from Jammu, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh and the victims were mostly poor Muslims. With the Dalits, a community the BJP assiduously woos unlike the Muslims, now becoming the target, the tolerance towards the gaurakshaks has backfired on the BJP. Before they cause more dam age to India’s social fabric, police forces across the country must be directed to take stringent action against such groups by the Union home ministry.