The Dalit upsurge

Dalits and Muslims united at a rally in Ahmedabad on Sunday and pledged to abandon the age-old practice of disposing of dead cattle and cleaning up sewers by entering manholes. Demanding freedom from social oppression, they also decided to march for “independence” from Ahmedabad to Una, where four Dalits were beaten up for skinning a dead cow. Dalits and Muslims have increasingly faced murderous assaults, not only in Gujarat but also Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana. With Patel unrest simmering, the outgoing Anandiben government in Gujarat has piled up more troubles for the BJP ahead of assembly elections.

Criminals masquerading as Hindutvawadis or gau rakshaks seem to think that they have a licence to attack anyone suspected of possessing beef, or even if it is buffalo meat and deny people their legal right to eat what they want or do what they like to earn a living. The hooligans have taken upon themselves the job of deciding whether a crime (cow slaughter or possession of beef) has occurred and how to deliver instant punishment, which ranges from extortion, flogging to lynching.  No need is felt to go through the established justice system. The police either remains a mute spectator, failing in its duty to enforce the rule of law, or joins the thugs in delivering quick “justice”. The standard response of the Union Home Ministry in every serious incident is the same: “Law and order is a state subject. Justice will be done and the guilty will not be spared”. 

One need not cite data to state the obvious: atrocities against Dalits and Muslims have multiplied in the two years of the Modi regime. The suicide by Rohith Vemula, the killing of Akhlaq and the JNU eruption have all aroused revulsion against atrocities on Dalits and Muslims. The Gujarat rally’s planned assertion of “independence” is reminiscent of mass support Kanhaiya Kumar’s Azadi speech evoked. In each of the above cases a forceful response from the PMO was missing. The studied silence of an otherwise voluble Prime Minister has been taken as support, which perhaps it is, by mobs operating in the name of “holy” cow.