Cowplomacy: Why Home Minister Rajnath Singh needs wake-up call

Rajnath Singh Ji, Union Home Minister, has suddenly woken up from a slumber to realise the country’s immediate need for anti-lynching laws. Since the BJP-led government took charge of the Centre in 2014, there has been an substantial rise in the cases of mob violence in the country.

A recent report by IndiaSpend, basing itself on the content analysis of news reports, concludes that “In the first six months of 2017, 20 cow-terror attacks were reported – more than 75 per cent of the 2016 figure – which was the worst year for such violence since 2010. The attacks include mob lynching, attacks by vigilantes, murder and attempt to murder, harassment, assault and gang-rape. In two attacks, the victims/survivors were chained, stripped and beaten, while in two others, the victims were hanged.”

However, Rajnath Singh Ji, still is of the opinion that the ‘anti-lynching’ law will be made, if needed. Perhaps, Rajnath Singh Ji wants few more people to be lynched to death for the law to be passed. In 2018 itself, 34 people were killed in 76 incidents of ‘mob violence’, related to rumours of child-lifting. 85 cow related lynchings took place since 2014, in which 45 were lynched. So in short, 161 incidents of mob-lynching took place under Modi govt, killing 79!

In other words, Rajnath Singh Ji has emboldened the unruly Hindutva fanatics and created a culture of sheer impunity. A number of people have lost lives, were alleged of either killing cows or smuggling cows. One year after Pehlu Khan was brutally killed by mobs, Akbar Khan too was killed by similar jobs who accused him of smuggling cows. The killings happen in the name of ‘cow’ mostly – considered holy in the cow-belt. However, along with Rajnath Singh Ji, most of the BJP leaders have turned ostriches.

Tourism minister Mahesh Sharma visited the funeral of the accused in Mohammad Akhlaq’s murder and gave a statement saying, “(the murder) took place as a reaction to that incident (cow slaughter). You must also consider that there was also a 17-year-old daughter in that home. Kisi ne usey ungli nahin lagaayi (nobody touched her).”

Mr Sharma, may we remind you that this analogy of yours is not only misogynous, but also violating human rights. A woman’s body doesn’t have to be violated for a crime to be registered.

M L Khattar, the Chief Minister of Haryana, went on to call the lynching a misunderstanding and reinstated bigotry by claiming, “They can be Muslim even after they stop eating beef, can’t they? It is written nowhere that Muslims have to eat beef, not is it written anywhere in Christianity that they have to eat beef.”

The BJP president, Amit Shah, made light of and was dismissive of a question on the apprehensions surrounding lynching deaths by claiming that “more lynching occurred prior to this NDA government” and that “there is no apprehension anywhere in the country”. This despite his claim in April 2017 that “action is being taken against cow vigilantes”.

Even the Prime Minister, forced to break his deafening silence, issued a seemingly ineffective warning to cow vigilantes during the Monsoon Session of the Parliament. Rajnath Singh Ji, too made light of the lynchings by stating that ‘1984 was the worst case of lynchings this country has ever seen and that previous governments have overseen lynchings too’.

Too bad, that human life in this country is reduced to a mere number and an analogy of an ill-informed politician.

The important questions to be posed to the Home Minister are: Why has it taken over four years to think on forming an anti-lynching law? What has emboldened these self-proclaimed gaurakshaks? Why are lives of cattle and livestock valued only in the cow-belt and not in other states? Well, let me sign off by saying that we don’t mind you worshipping cows and bullocks. We don’t mind you keeping them in your homes. But your bovine is not my divine.