Spate Of Lynchings: A Big Challenge
Never before has civilised society witnessed such an unscrupulous act of protest than what India has fallen prey to. Ordinary people have become victims of the spate of lynchings in the recent past and that too, in the backdrop of the government’s decision. None other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to intervene to salvage harmony.
The spate of lynchings assumed even greater significance in the light of the fact that the Prime Minister expressed deep concern over the incidents on the eve of Parliament session. Taking exception to the incidents of lynching across the country in the recent past, Prime Minister made a terse comment in the all-party meeting -ahead of Monsoon Session of the Parliament- on July 16 to crackdown on cow vigilantism.
In order to allay possible attacks by the opposition on the issue during the Parliament session- that is starting from today- Modi asked the State Governments to initiate stringent actions against ‘hooliganism’ in the garb of Cow protection. He also sought sup-port from opposition parties to deal with the ‘communal violence' in the name of cow protection.
Subsequently, the Prime Minister made a series of tweets saying ‘All political parties should collectively denounced hooliganism in the name of cow protection. The State Governments should take stringent actions against such anti-social elements.’
The infamous practice of lynching that was carried out in the primitive age to settle scores appears to have regained its ‘lost glory.’ Apart from other parts of the country, Jharkhand has alone witnessed lynching of about a dozen persons so far. They were either lynched allegedly for kidnapping of children or trading cattle.
If seven persons including Shiekh Nayeem, Md Sajjad, Siraj Khan and Shiekh Aleem (of Saraikela), Vikas Kumar Verma, Gautam Kumar Verma and Gangesh Kumar (of Jamshedpur) were lynched in front of the police in Saraikela-Kharsawan and East Singbhum districts of the State allegedly for kidnapping children, four persons were lynched in Latehar, Giridih and Ramgarh districts for trading and slaughtering of cows.
More, lynching incidents pertaining to cattle-trade were recorded in UP and Rajasthan too.
In fact, with the elevation of Yogi Adityanath as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, stories of ‘aggressive politics’ have been scripted by the BJP to achieve an ulterior political agenda for Lok Sabha elections in 2019.
Contrary to a wild belief that minorities helped the BJP achieve its stupendous score in the UP elections and the subsequent appeal by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to his partymen to be humble, decisions by the Yogi Government and their impact on neighbouring States have started unfolding their ulterior motive. Yogi, who had been in controversies for stoking communal hatred in UP time and again, is claimed to have been entrusted with the task to keep the political situation under control by carrying out a reign of terror among a particular community by proxy.
Cashing-in on the demagogic initiatives by the Union Government to prevent cruelty against animals, the Yogi Government kicked off offensives against a particular community to begin with. The Yogi dispensation in UP ordered a blanket-ban on slaughterhouses being run without licences in the light of the Union Government’s decision to make it mandatory that cattle could neither be bought nor could they be sold at markets for slaughtering.
Even as the Government is steadfast in its denial about exercising the alleged coercive measures against a particular community in the garb of putting a ban on slaughterhouses across the State of UP, thousands of self-styled secular activists from a particular community have been arrested for running illegal slaughterhouses in the State. Persons arrested on charges of dealing in illegal abattoirs have been claimed to have proximity to non-BJP forces and they worked in league with the opposition in the recent elections.
Incidentally, if the BJP has pegged its target for the 2019 elections by ‘foisting’ Yogi, opposition parties have started strategising their moves, too. Although neither the Samajwadi Party nor the BSP has launched any offensive against the crackdown on minorities by the State Government so far, hectic confabulations and parleys are on to work out multi-pronged strategies to counter the Government moves.
If sources privy to the Samajwadi Party high command are to be believed, the party prefers to tread warily while dealing with this complex issue. The beleaguered SP leadership can neither afford to earn the displeasure of the Government -- inside or outside the house -by projecting some prominent minority faces, nor can it ignore the community for obvious reasons.
Consequently, the SP high command has refrained from putting up any controversial face to deal with the Government. In a strategic-move, the post of the Leader of Opposition in the State Assembly was not conferred upon the party’s prominent leader and its Muslim face in the State, Azam Khan, with the possible threat of reprisal from the Government while discussing minority issues in particular. But at the same time, the party could not ignore his political potential to rope in the minority vote-bank. The party resolved to use him to the hilt to mobilise his community members against the Government’s autocratic move.
However, Azam Khan had staked his claim to be the Leader of Opposition in the house in the light of the fact that he not only won his own seat but he ensured the victory of his son, Abdullah Khan, too, who made his debut in politics in the recent elections.
Reacting to the Union Government’s decision, Khan asked why cow slaughter was still legal in West Bengal and Kerala. He said that if cow slaughter was not permissible within the ambit of the law, it should be banned across the country.
He, however, questioned the rationale behind the ban. He contended that it seemed quite contradictory that if animals were butchered in slaughterhouses having government's permission it was proper, but if they were slaughtered in unlicensed places, it became illegal. He cautioned the Government against its dubious role of harbouring political vendetta in the garb of carrying out legal and illegal businesses.
The impact of the crusade by the Yogi government has been felt in BJP-ruled Jharkhand, too. The Raghubar Das government in Jharkhand has also initiated action against slaughterhouses being operated without licenses. As none of slaughterhouses were found legal -- most of them either failed to get their licenses renewed or were unable to produce valid licenses to run abattoirs -- the Government has ordered to shut down all slaughterhouses in the State. As per the set norms, a slaughterhouse that culls more than ten animals a day must have a license, the department concerned revealed.
Consequently, meat shops across the State were closed down. The decision is claimed to have affected not only the livelihood of meat-shop owners and their workers but would lead to starvation-like situation in zoos where carnivorous animals were served with goat and buffalo meat every day. Carnivorous animals need 80 kg to 90 kg of meat every day. The two main zoos at Ranchi and Jamshedpur in Jharkhand have sent SOS to the government asking to make meat available for animals forthwith as their stocks were running dry. Pet-lovers are also in a fix to deal with the situation.
The governments of UP and Jharkhand, however, failed to consolidate their grip over the lunatic-fringe in the wake of enforcing the decision. Encouraged by the government's decision, a section of radical forces started targeting members of a particular community -- involved in meat-trade in particular -- ostensibly to settle scores that eventually led to a breach of peace in many parts of the country.
Consequently, apart from persons from a particular community were lynched in Jamshedpur, Giridih, Latehar and Ramgarh districts of Jharkhand on the charges of trading and slaughtering cattle, the spate of lynchings in connection with the cattle trade-rage was witnessed in other parts of the country too. On June 22, 15-year-old Junaid Khan was lynched and stabbed to death by a mob in a Mathura-bound train for allegedly possessing beef. Pehlu Khan, a dairy farmer in Alwar, Rajasthan was lynched to death for transporting cattle in April this year, and Mohammad Akhlaq was lynched to death in Dadri, UP, on suspicion of possessing beef in his house in 2015.
Besides, spurt in incidents of lynching other than anti-cattle trade have also been reported in the recent past across the country. On May 18, seven people were lynched in Jharkhand near Jamshedpur suspecting a group involved in kidnapping of children in the region. Likewise, on May 2, a man was lynched at Sohi village under Bulandshahr of UP after he eloped with a woman from a particular community. The UP police claimed that members of Hindu Yuva Vahini were involved in the lynching. On April 30, a mob lynched two men –Abu Hanifa and Riazuddin Ali – in Nagaon district of Central Assam suspecting them as cow thieves. On April 21, Cow vigilantes attacked five persons of a family – including a nine-year-old– at Reasi district in Jammu and Kashmir.
Reacting to the incidents, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, however, condemned, “I want to say a few words and express sadness on some of the things going on. No person in this nation has the right to take the law in his or her own hands in this country. Violence never has and never will solve any problem.”
He further warned ‘killing people in the name of protecting cow is unacceptable.’
But the pertinent question is what has led successive Governments in the past in these States to allow operation of slaughterhouses without licenses and what led the present dispensation of Yogi and Das in UP and Jharkhand, respectively, to suddenly crack down? It may now sound speculative, but the fact is that the BJP that received a thumping majority by cashing-in on sensitive issues such as construction of the Ram temple to polarise votes in UP, is mulling ways to practice the poll-plank in other States too before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
