( Courtesy : Cartoonist Satish Acharya, https://www.facebook.com/cartoonistsatishacharya/)

Cow vigilantism which has received tremendous boost since the ascendance of BJP at the centre got its first fitting reply in Gujarat recently. The way in which a self-proclaimed Gau Rakshak Dal – owing allegiance to Shiv Sena – attacked a group of Dalits in Una (11 th July 2016) who were skinning a dead cow, publicly flogged them, led them to the police station charging them with cow slaughter and even circulated a video of the whole incident on social media to spread further terror, has caused tremendous uproar.

Thousands and thousands of Dalits have come out on streets in different parts of the state, gheraoed government offices, damaged government property, enforced state-wide bandh and tried to bring the government to its knees, demanding severe punishment to the guilty and strict action against the police and government officials who failed to act upon their complaint when they were being publicly brutalised.

The wave of protests has still not ebbed. The anger still simmers. Protest rallies still continue.

There have been thirty incidents of suicide attempts by Dalit youth protesting the Una incident within a span of just one week. People across political spectrum are appealing to the angry youth not to resort to this extreme step and continue with peaceful struggle. Undoubtedly, Una incident and the consequent dalit assertion is proving to be a great turning point in the history of the dalit movement as Dalits have ultimately realised that politics of Hindutva is no friend of dalits and in fact, it is geared towards strengthening and further consolidating the purity and pollution based caste system.The growing disenchantment of Dalits with the politics of Hindutva was very much evident when their protests reached Narendra Modi’s home town of Vadnagar itself  where thousands of dalits participated in a militant demonstration blaming the Prime Minister himself and BJP for the brutal thrashing of Dalits.  Videos of the protest showed many Dalit people shouting, “Hai re Modi…hai-hai re Modi,” – modification of a slogan used by women during Hindu funeral processions.The outrage has rekindled memories of the militant assertion in early eighties led by the earlier generation of young dalits wherein they had fought to defend policy of reservation and also dared to take on the Hindutva formations head-on.

It has also been a great learning experience for ordinary dalits in the state who comprise around eight per cent of the population and who were largely co-opted by the Hindutva formations in their project of hate and exclusion. One unique form of struggle adopted by the protesters this time has rattled the ruling elite tremendously and has the potential of nationwide resonance. It involved throwing of carcasses of dead cows at government offices, outside the houses of prominent politicians, removal of which became a strenuous affair even for the establishment. A large section among them have even boycotted work of collecting dead bovines and have even declared that henceforth they are ready to die of hunger but would not take up the occupation again. In fact, by this simple act Dalits have rather issued a warning to the Manuvadi/Brahminical forces that the day they resolve to leave all those ‘dirty’ professions. for which they are stigmatised, a catastrophe like situation awaits them. One of the activists who ‘pioneered’ this unique form told a correspondent that they have stopped doing it to teach them a lesson
 

 “The gau rakshaks beat us because they think the cow is their mother. Well, then, they should take care of her and pick up her carcass when she dies.”

 

Fact finding reports which have appeared in sections of the media tell how the police did not stop the perpetrators on their way and also took hours to lodge a simple FIR and arrest the criminals. There are even unconfirmed reports that local police had even tipped the Gau Rakshak Dal about the skinning of the dead cow. The complicity and connivance of the local police is evident also in the fact that despite enough proof available with it in the form of the video of the incident about involvement of more than thirty people in the thrashing incident, it has kept number of arrests limited at eight only and is trying to portray it as an one off incident.

The unfolding dalit outrage which found the state government in deep slumber has brought to the fore many other similar recent incidents where Dalits had come under attack at the hands of Gau Rakshaks and the silence maintained by the police which had even refused to entertain complaints lodged by the victims. It has also given a vent to pent up anger of the dalits against daily humiliations and discrimination faced by them, widespread existence of exclusion and untouchability in social life, denial of basic human rights and manifold spurt in atrocities in the state in recent times and failure of the powers that be to take proactive measures to curb the growing menace.

The criminal acts by the Gau Rakshaks and the impunity with which they are ready to take law into their hands which has received nationwide attention has also been an occasion for the senior members of the bureaucracy to speak out about the menace they have become all over the state. Chief Secretary of the state G R Gloria is reported to have told a national daily that
 

‘These vigilantes are self-proclaimed gau rakshaks but in actual fact they are hooligans’. According to him there are as  many as 200 cow vigilante groups  in the Gujarat who have ‘become a law and order problem because of their aggression and the way they take law into their hands’ and government is going to take strong action against them.  The Chief Secretary was even categorical in admitting that lower level police personnel are hand in glove with these vigilantes. 
 

It is worth emphasising that not some time ago even the Punjab-Haryana high court while ordering CBI probe into the death of Mustain, a transporter at the hands of members of  another ‘Gau Raksha Dal‘ in Kurukshetra, Haryana (March 2016) had underlined the growing criminalisation of the Cow Protectors who work with impunity. It said that so called cow vigilante groups constituted with the backing of political bosses and senior functionaries governing the state, including police,
 

“..[a]re bent upon circumventing law and fleecing poor persons ferrying their animals, be it for any personal domestic use or otherwise…Apparently even the senior functionaries of the police are hand-in-glove with such vigilante groups.
 

Dalit anger witnessed on the streets of Gujarat – variously described as Dalit rebellion by a section of the commentators – has had spiralling effect in other parts of the country as well, and has also helped galvanise the entire parliamentary opposition camp which has even demanded that there should be immediate ban on all such Gau Rakshak Dals and all such miscreants who operate under its name and engage in mayhem. Members of parliament on the floor of the house have denounced all these vigilante groups who are targeting Muslims as well as Dalits, brutalising them in very many ways and on occasions lynching them and explained how the policies and programmes of the powers that be has made a conducive atmosphere for their proliferation and demanded ban on them.

The manner in which cow is being moved at the centre stage of politics and where mere a rumour that it is being slaughtered somewhere gives miscreants a licence to take law into their own hands with due connivance of the police and administration, is being compared with neighbouring Pakistan where the ‘crime of blasphemy’ serves similar purpose. Pakistan has lost many precious lives and many more are rotting in jail due to its refusal to check religious fanatics for whom the blasphemy laws have become a tool to intimidate innocents. Concerns are being raised whether India would similarly go ‘Pakistan’ way – unable to stop erosion of secular principles in polity and facilitating further legitimacy to faith in social-political lives.

The open letter by Lalu Prasad Yadav to PM Modi in the aftermath of the Una incident captures the prevalent mood in the country wherein he had described how actions by cow vigilante groups – which are receiving state patronage – has created an ambience of terror and intimidation among farmers, tribals, dalits and all those people who are engaged in cattle trading. In his open letter he has directly blamed ‘RSS as well as PM Modi’ being responsible for this state of affairs.

While the BJP and RSS having lost battle of perceptions are busy counting losses in the aftermath of the Una incident, and assessing its electoral fallout, the misogynistic remarks by a senior leader of the BJP targeting Ms Mayawati, leader of BSP and who has been Chief Minister of UP, has added further fuel to the fire. It is a different matter that all their ‘regrets’ about these remarks expressed on the floor of the house have proved to be an eyewash and at ground level they are trying to be on the offensive again utilising similar condemnable remarks allegedly made by fellow politican of the BSP.

Coming close on the heels of demolition of Ambedkar Bhavan, in neighbouring Maharashtra by a BJP led government – a decision which it regrets now because of spurt in voices of opposition to this act  – and the nationwide mass movement which emerged after the ‘institutional murder’ of scholar Rohith Vemula of Hyderabad Central University, and the alleged role of few central ministers in letting it happen and a series of anti-Dalit actions and controversial statements by its top leaders targeting the community, or their attempts to discontinue the policy of affirmative action for Dalits and Adivasis, the unfolding Dalit anger has also seriously dented their well-planned strategy of consolidating their base among the Dalits at an all India level. Undoubtedly Dalit outrage has not only put the saffron dispensation at the state as well as centre on the defensive and has put paid to their well calibrated strategy of appropriating Ambedkar by projecting him as a ‘Hindu Social Reformer’.

Whatever might their claims vis-a-vis Hindu Unity, this incident – which was no exception and was part of a unfolding pattern of denying basic human rights to Dalits, intimidating them and using them as stormtroppers for their anti-minority actions  – has laid bare the essentially Manuvadi/Brahminical core of their ideology based on exclusion and hate. In fact their worldview is basically anti-thetical to any vision of dalit empowerment/emancipation or for that matter inclusive development. And it has further demonstrated that their feverish attempts notwithstanding to aggravate tensions between dalits and muslims at grassroot level on flimsy pretext, in their worldview of Hindu Rashtra both of them are equally dispensable. The unprecedented fury shown by the Dalit masses in a state, which has been ruled by the Hindutva forces for more than 15 years, and was projected by them as a unique ‘Gujarat Model’ of development prior to the elections to the Parliament in 2014, has shaken them to the core and has left them scrambling for solutions. They are slowly realising that the assertion of the Dalit masses has the potential of disrupting all their political calculations in the coming elections to different state assemblies – Punjab, UP and Gujarat itself – which are scheduled to be held in 2017.

Another ignoble aspect of the present phase of ‘Dalit Uprising’ is the role of the media which (barring exceptions) seems to have become a handmaiden of Hindutvas exclusion centred politics. A cursory perusal of the coverage of the corporate funded and controlled media demonstrate that it has refused to report Dalit mobilisations on massive scale which have consistently challenged and questioned Hindutva politics. A representative example of their Varna dominated, anti-dalit worldview can be had from the way they completely under reported the massive gathering in Mumbai recently where more than 1.5 lakh people had gathered to protest the demolition of Ambedkar Bhavan by the BJP-Shiv Sena regime. Forget  being watchdog of democracy as it is being projected elsewhere, forget its role of being objective in reporting events and analysis, it seems much happy in its metamorphosis of being spokesperson of the powers that be- a situation much worse than what existed during emergency when ‘it was asked to bend and decided to crawl’

It need be underlined here that the depredations of the cow vigilante groups are not limited to Dalits alone, in fact, Muslims have been their chief targets – as a cursory perusal of events since last two years makes it obvious. The latest in the series happened to be from Gurgaon where two Muslim transporters were attacked by a Gau Rakshak group and were fed with cow dung laced with urine since they were found to be carrying cattles. A video of the said incident had also gone viral. A leader of the group even claimed on camera that they have done it to ‘purify’ them of their sins. And since Haryana happens to be a BJP ruled state – which is also contemplating forming ‘Cow Protection Force’ much on the lines of Home Guards and has also appointed a special officer of the IAS rank to curb ‘cow smuggling’ there was no action against the perpetrators.

It was only last year that Palwal in Haryana witnessed communal riot like situation. The immediate trigger for the situation was the cow vigilantes themselves who had attacked a truck carrying meat and had spread a rumour that it was carrying beef. Police reached there within no time and instead of taking action against the perpetrators charged the driver and owner of the truck with criminal conspiracy and sent them to jail. The very next day government announced that all cases filed earlier against ‘cow protectors’ would be withdrawn immediately making it obvious that how it would have no qualms if similar actions occur in future.

End of December last year, village Banokhedi, district Karnal ( Haryana) witnessed indiscriminate firing by a cow vigilante group on a canter (mini-truck) which was carrying people – most of them belonging to minority community – who were travelling from Punjab to UP for the coming Panchayat elections. (Refer : Lok Lahar, 14 Dec 2015) It led to death of one youth and serious injuries to several others. Cow vigilantes attacked the truck in middle of the night and what was more worrisome that there were few policemen also with them. Later five people were arrested among them there were two policemen as well.

The menace of cow vigilante groups is not limited to one particular area or state, it has spread all over the country.  Few months back cow vigilantes had lynched two youths belonging to minority community ( one of them a minor) near Latehar, Jharkhand and left them hanging on tree, as they were also found carrying cattles and the cow protectors wanted to ‘teach them a lesson’. Sarahan village, District Nahan ( Himachal Pradesh) was witness to an attack on a group of minority youth by cow vigilantes (Oct 2015) which led to death of one them and four others were seriously wounded. Cow vigilantes alleged that the youth were engaged in cow smuggling. Last year similar group attacked a Kashmir bound truck with petrol bomb which led to the death of  a young man Zahid (19 years) because of serious burn injuries. It was only few months back that Mehbooba Mufti, Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir wrote to Chief Minister of Punjab how people from Kashmir who are meat exporters and traders are being regularly brutalised in the state by self-proclaimed Gau Bhakts. .

It is futile to imagine that BJP – an affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh -would rein in Cow Vigilantes, just because Dalits are feeling outraged over some incidents involving them or sections of judiciary or even executive are appalled at their transgressing of Constitutional values and principles or the peace and justice loving people of the country are reminding the Pracharak turned PM that he had declared in the august house of the Parliament that for him ‘Constitution is the most sacred book now.

We should never forget that the Sangh Parivar, operates through its vast network of what are known as anushangik ( affiliated) organisations – with a strict division of labour between them – to further the agenda of Hindu Rashtra.  In fact, it would leave no stone unturned to deflect attention of the people from its essentially Varna mindset which refuses to even acknowledge that  assertion of Dalits has basis in the age old hierarchy based system. They would be ready to go to any extent to silence all such voices which are questioning them, challenging them and are in a position to put roadblocks on their ‘path to victory’. An inkling of what is in store for all such voices can be had from the unprovoked attack on a public meeting protesting Dalit atrocities in Gujarat organised by a Dalit group in the heart of the capital itself by an organisation which is alleged to be close to the Hindutva Brigade.

Ongoing attacks on Dalits in the ‘model state of Gujarat’ or an overall spurt in atrocities against Dalits presents before all those Dalit leaders a pertinent question who had joined the Modi bandwagon before his ascent to power and in a way helped sanitise his controversial role in the Gujarat carnage (2002 )when he happened to be Chief Minister.  Whether the likes of Athavales, Udit Rajs and Paswans would still cling to aprons of power, further facilitating whitewashing of this essentially anti-Dalit and anti-oppressed regime or would listen to the clarion call given by the Dalits on the streets of Gujarat that without fighting RSS and Modi led BJP, dalit emancipation cannot even be imagined.

The unfolding Dalit outrage also poses important question before the Dalit movement itself. Whether anger witnessed would just peter away or would be able to reinvigorate the radical agenda of Ambedkarite politics centering on caste annihilation and fighting capitalism and would present a systemic challenge before the Manuvadi-Hindutva forces forging alliances with like-minded forces. Parties like BSP have lot many things to answer on this issue.

No doubt, unfolding cow vigilantism and continued silence maintained by the net-savvy PM over attacks on Dalits and minorities has further exposed the real agenda of this government. Analysts are predicting that the ruling dispensation will have to pay heavily because of its essentially anti-Dalit worldview in coming elections to state assemblies. What is still unclear that how all such forces, formations who are opposed to the agenda of Hindutva and are keen to defend secularism in the country and further democracy to the grassroots level, are strategising so that the exclucivist agenda of Hindutva is delivered a crushing defeat not only at the electoral level but at the social level also and what role a reinvigorated left is ready to play in the unfolding situation. It remains to be seen whether there would be parallel realignment of various social – political forces at the ground level comprehending the menace the very politics of Hindutva presents before the country.

The present moment in the country’s history is pregnant with tremendous possibilities and demands a creative, energetic and strategic intervention from the revolutionary left.

One is reminded of the historic slogan raised during anti-fascist struggles in 30s which declared that ‘Fasicsm Will Not Pass’. It was a time when a united front of communists, anarchists, socialists and republicans had come up and were fighting shoulder to shoulder which was also joined in by non-party people from town and country, because everyone had realized what a victory for fascism would mean to Spain.

Perhaps there is need to learn from all such experiences and forge broadest possible unity to confront its 21 st Century avatar in this part of Asia and declare from rooftops that ‘Communal Fascism Will Not Pass’

Courtesy: Kafila.org
 

The post Cow Vigilantism as Terror appeared first on SabrangIndia.

पिछले कई बरसों से हम गुजरात मॉडल , इसके झूठ और अधूरे सच से जुड़ी कहानियां सुन-सुन कर थक चुके हैं। यह बात याद रखना जरूरी है राज्य में 2002 के जघन्य मुस्लिम नरसंहार के  दाग मिटाने के लिए 2007 के बाद इस मॉडल की बिक्री और और मार्केटिंग शुरू हुई।

ऐसा नहीं है कि दूसरी सरकारों और राजनीतिक पार्टियों के दौर में सरकार में बैठे बड़े लोग और सत्ता के केंद्र रहे संस्थान अल्पसंख्यक विरोधी पूर्वाग्रह से अछूते थे। 1969 में अहमदाबाद , 1970 और  1984  में बांबे-भिवंडी , 1983 में नेली, 1987 में हाशिमपुरा  और 1989 में भागलपुर  के बर्बर दंगों के दौरान राजनीतिक संस्थानों के पूर्वाग्रह दिख चुके हैं।  लेकिन  2002 में गुजरात में जो हुआ वह 1984 में दिल्ली के सिख दंगों के दौरान भी नहीं हुआ था। उस दौरान गुजरात में दंगाइयों और राज्य के बीच हद दर्जे की मिलीभगत दिखी। इस मिलीभगत ने ही इस बड़े दंगे को फैला दिया। राष्ट्रीय मानवाधिकार आयोग की रिपोर्ट और अभी भी चल रहे जाकिया जाफरी केस (20 जुलाई से इसके फिर शुरू होने की उम्मीद है) इसके सबूत हैं।

 पिछले साल गुजरात मॉडल एक बार फिर बेपर्दा हुआ, जब एक युवा और बिल्कुल अनुभवहीन लेकिन राजनीतिक तौर पर ताकतवर पटेल समुदाय से जुड़े नेता हार्दिक पटेल ने सरकार को चुनौती दी। हार्दिक के नेतृत्व में हुए विरोध प्रदर्शनों ने गुजरात के मॉडल की पोल खोल दी। देेश में पिछले कुछ साल से चले आ रहे नव उदारवादी नीतियों की वजह से रोजगार की रफ्तार कम रही है। गुजरात इस ग्रोथ मॉडल का प्रतीक बन कर उभरा है। हां, इस मॉडल में कुछ लोगों और कॉरपोरेट घरानों ने अकूत संपत्ति बनाई है।

 गुजरात के इस विकास मॉडल के बावजूद ओबीसी पटेल जाति के लोगों में हताशा और बेरोजगारी है। उनके पास नौकरियां नहीं हैं। क्या देश को इसी गुजरात मॉडल की जरूरत है? क्या अगले साल चुनाव का सामना करने जा रहे उत्तर प्रदेश, पंजाब या फिर गुजरात को विकास का यही मॉडल चाहिए।

पिछले एक सप्ताह से गुजरात सचमुच जल  रहा है। यह भयानक आग सौराष्ट्र के उना से शुरू हुई। मरे हुए जानवरों की खाल उतारने के आरोप में चार दलित युवकों को लोहे की छड़ों से पीटा गया। कार की जंजीर से बांध कर पुलिस स्टेशन तक घसीटा गया। हमला करने वालो ं ने उनका वीडियो बना  कर उसे वायरल कर दिया। हमलावरों ने उन पर गोहत्या का आरोप लगाया। हमला करने वाले  दरबार जाति के लोग थे। उनका  आरोप था कि ये लोग गाय को मार उसकी खाल निकाल  रहे थे। जबकि सौराष्ट्र में रहने वाले दलितों के अपने बोन मिल हैं और जहां मरे हुए जानवरों का चमड़ा उतारा जाता है । राज्य में गो-हत्या और बीफ बेचना अपराध है। लेकिन मरे हुए जानवरों की खाल उतारना अपराध नहीं है। फिर भी बेकसूरों को इसकी सजा दी गई।

एक सप्ताह पहले ऐसी ही एक घटना पोरबंदर के सोधना गांव में हुई जहां दबंग जाति की एक उग्र भीड़ ने रामा सिंगराखिया  नाम के एक दलित की गला रेत कर हत्या कर दी। जाने-माने दलित आंदोलनकारी और सीनियर एडवोकेट वालजीभाई पटेल ने सबरंगइंडिया को बताया कि पिछले कुछ महीनों के दौरान दलितों पर ऐसे कई हमले हुए हैं लेकिन राज्य के राजनीतिक नेतृत्व या सरकार ने अब तक इन घटनाओं की कड़ी निंदा नहीं की है।

पिछले दो-तीन दिन से उना की घटना का भारी विरोध हो रहा है। लेकिन कथित राष्ट्रीय अखबारों में इसका आंशिक कवरेज ही दिखा है। कश्मीर के मामले में एक्सपोज हो चुके टीवी एंकर चुप हैं। साफ है कि यह राष्ट्रीय नहीं कारोबारी (कॉमर्शियल मीडिया है) मीडिया है। 

अब इंडियन एक्सप्रेस औैर कैच न्यूज की कुछ खबरों ने इस घटना के एक खतरनाक पहलू को उजागर किया है। उनकी खबरों में कहा गया है कि दलितों पर हमला करने वाले आरोपियों में से एक मुस्लिम युवक के पिता ने कहा कि हमलावरों ने पिटाई करने के लिए उसके बेटे पर दबाव डाला ताकि लोगों को यह पता चले कि गौ-रक्षकों के साथ मुसलमान भी हैं।

इन घटनाओं के बाद ही आरएसएस प्रमुख मोहन भागवत हिंदुओं के सिपाहियों के बचाव में कूद पड़े। गुजरात में विश्व हिंदू परिषद की इकाई ने भी दलितों की इस बर्बर पिटाई की निंदा की। आखिर क्यों? 2002 में राज्य में मुसलिमों के खिलाफ हमले में दलितों को ही मोहरा बनाया गया था। सांप्रदायिक ताकतों ने अपनी गंदी साजिश को अंजाम देने के लिए दलितों का ही इस्तेमाल किया था।  उस दौरान हिंदुत्व के सिपाहियों की तरह उन्हीं का इस्तेमाल किया गया था।  मेहसाणा, आणंद, दाहोद और पंचमहल जिलों में मुस्लिमों पर हमले करने वाले पटेल समुदाय के लोग थे। लेकिन शहरी इलाकों में हिंसा के लिए दलितों का इस्तेमाल किया गया।

बहरहाल, इस घटना के पीछे की असली साजिश मुद्दे को एक बार फिर मुस्लिम विरोधी बना देना है। दलितों  की पिटाई के मामले में पूरे राज्य में आंदोलन  उठ खड़ा हुआ है। ट्रैफिक रोका गया, बसें तोड़ी गईं, टायर जलाए गए। सुरेंद्रनगर कलेक्ट्रेट समेत कई आला अफसरों  के दफ्तरों  में गाय के कंकाल फेंके गए। बीएसपी प्रमुख मायावती ने संसद में मामला उठाया।  गुजराती टीवी चैनलों ने शांति की अपील की।  इसके बावजूद  पिटाई के लिए गिरफ्तार किए गए नौ लोगों को दलितों  ने गौ तालिबान का सदस्य कहा। आखिर इस पर हमारे कॉमर्शियल टेलीविजन ने बिल्कुल चुप्पी क्यों साध ली?

अब इस बात को खुले तौैर पर स्वीकार करने का वक्त आ गया है कि इस हमारा कॉमर्शियल टीवी मीडिया देश के लोगों के राजनीतिक सरोकारों की नुमाइंदगी नहीं करता।  कश्मीर में विरोध प्रदर्शन और फिर उसके दमन के मामले में हम इस मीडिया की खामी देख चुके हैं। यह मीडिया सिर्फ पहले से तय राजनीतिक और और कॉरपोरट सुर अलाप रहा है। यह राष्ट्रीय शर्म का मामला है।      

The post गुजरात मॉडल और हिंदू राष्ट्र के दलित appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In 2015 the Gujarat Model stood exposed when a young, raw leader of the state’s otherwise politically powerful Patels, Hardik Patel, led a protest that showcased the hollowness of the claims. Jobs are hard to come by in any case over past years under neo liberal India, but Gujarat epitomizes ‘jobless’ growth. A few select individuals and corporate houses amass disproportionately high assets; they also fund and feed their select man and men in the political class, but even communities like the Patels who are among the OBCs in Gujarat, bear the heat and anger of frustration, unemployment, joblessness. Is this the model the country wants or needs? Is this the development that Uttar Pradesh, or Punjab, or even Gujarat that go to the polls next year want?

Over the past week, Gujarat has been burning. Literally. It began with a horrific incident at Unha, Saurashtra. Four Dalit youths who skin dead animals for a living were thrashed with iron rods, chained to a car and dragged to a police station, their ordeal captured on video by their assaulters who accused them of slaughtering a cow. The victims were targeted assaulters from the Darbar caste that accused them of killing a cow for the purpose of selling beef when all that the Dalit youths had done was skin a cow that was already dead.  Dalits from Una town in Saurashtra owned a Bone Mill and had been skinning animals for that purpose. While slaughtering cows and selling or consuming beef is banned in the state, skinning of dead animals is not illegal.

This incident comes fast on the heels of another gruesome attack on Dalits about a week ago: Rama Singrakhiya, a Dalit, was allegedly hacked to death by a dominant caste mob in Sodhana village of Porbandar district. Leading Dalit campaigner and senior advocate Valjibhai Patel told Sabrangindia that there had been a series of such attacks in past months and yet no words of sharp condemnation from the state’s political leadership.

In the latest attack on July 12, reportedly, a vigilante group pounced on the four, beat them up with iron rods and sticks and chained them to their car before leaving them at Una police station. The car had the nameplate of a Shiv Sena member.

The accused also filmed the assault. The video taken by the assaulters themselves has since gone viral on social media. Though a large crowd had gathered at the place, no one seemed to forward to rescue the Dalits. A video is said to have gone viral on the social media.

Since yesterday protests have been raging all over the state, newspapers have  covered them partially (though not in the ‘national’ editions) and yet television anchors –already exposed for their irresponsible role in Kashmir – have been silent. This is not a national but a commercial media. Now we have confessions reported by The Indian Express and Catch news that tell an even more sinister tale. The father of one of the nine people arrested in Una, Gujarat, for the assault on Dalits they accused of cow slaughter, alleged on Tuesday that his son, a Muslim, had been forced by the others to beat up the Dalit men to prove Muslims are just as anti-beef as gau rakshaks.

 The boy's father reportedly said: "I had sent my son out to buy bananas from a shop near the bus station. But as he reached there, Pramodgiri Goswami and others came there in their car and pulled the four Dalits out of the vehicle and tied them to the car. My son stopped there out of curiosity. While he was watching from a distance, others in the gau rakshak group asked him to take a turn to beat up the Dalits and thereby show that Muslims also stood against cow slaughter… Pramodgiri thrust a strip in his hands and exhorted him to beat up the Dalits."

In a nutshell, this innocent bystander was compelled by a set of hoodlums—out to protect the cow mother –to beat and thrash Dalits. How cynical can you get? The boy's father said he had evidence on video to prove his claim. The boy is 17 years old, says The Indian Express. He was arrested on Monday night and sent to Rajkot's Observation Home for Boys. The man said: "I admit that he has beaten up the Dalit brothers and, therefore, he is guilty. But he was made to be part of the conspiracy without him knowing what it would mean."

 Kiritkunar Joshi, deputy superintendent of police (SC, ST Cell), said: "The teenager is a friend of another accused named Deepak Shiyal. The boy had gone to Mota Samadhiyala riding pillion on Shiyal's motorbike. But, as of now, there is no evidence that the boy beat up the Dalits in Mota Samadhiyala also."

Quick to come to the rescue of the foot soldiers, Mohan Bhagwat of the RSS and even Gujarat’s Vishwa Hindu Parishad has condemned this ugly beating of Dalits. Why? As we saw in 2002, it is Dalits who have been used and abused to carry out the filthy designs of communal forces, against the state’s Muslims. They are the foot soldiers of the Hindu Rashtra. Except in the districts of Mehsana, Anand, Dahod and Panchmahals where many Patels were among the accused, in the urban areas it is Dalits (including Chharas) who were used as mobs for violent ends.

But what is truly conspiratorial and sinister about the fallout now, sinister designs to turn this issue into Muslim-bashing once again, that even despite agitations all over the state, despite the fact that traffic was stopped on highways, buses broken down, tyres burned, three truckloads of cow carcasses dumped at the Surendranagar Collectorate, carcarsses of cows dumped in other government offices; des[ite the fact that Mayawati, leader of the Bahujan Samaj party raised the issue in the Rajya Sabha and the upper house of Parliament was adjourned yesterday; despite the fact that Gujarati television channels appealed to people for peace; Nine persons were arrested in what Dalits are terming as part of the ‘Cow Taliban’ the commercial television media is utterly silent. Why?

It is time to loudly acknowledge that this television commercial media does not represent democratic concerns or the Indian people and in fact, as we have recently seen –in its coverage of the protests and subsequent repression in the Kashmir valley– is actually beating to pre-determined political and corporate drums. This is a matter of national shame.
 

The post Dalits in the Hindu Rashtra, A Close Look at the Gujarat Model appeared first on SabrangIndia.