A barbaric, cruel incident took place near the small Gujarat town of Una on the accusations that a group of Dalit men had killed a cow for skinning. One of the assailants of the incident had proudly posted online, a video of it as a message of threatening not only the local Dalit men of the State but others too in the entire country. Is it a symbol of pride for the country? The genuineness involved in the accusation was also doubtful. It is being inferred that the group of Dalit men had only skinned the already dead animal. Whether it was killing the animal and skinning or skinning the already dead animal, who gave the authority to ‘cow protection’ brigades to take the law and order in their fold? A disorderly and anarchical action of higher magnitude on the part of the assailants! The group of Dalit men were stripped, flogged, bound and paraded. All these executions were projected online. What an aggressive audacity! This is not a stray and spontaneous incident.
A well planned execution of religious fundamentalism is involved in the actions of the assailants viz., so called cow protection brigades. The social fear inflicted on the Dalit group has got religious prescription. Yes, the religious scriptures discriminate its fellow men and treat them worse than animal. Not even a tinch of humanistic concern is sensible in the aggression.
A belated reaction from the aggrieved group got manifested in the form of statewide protests from Dalit men, ranging from the attempt for suicides resulted in the death of one person after consuming poison, dumping animal carcasses near a District Office, pelting of stones which led to one policeman succumbing to injuries, etc.
Starting from the Chief Minister of Gujarat who met and consoled the victims, the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister have condemned the assaults and atrocities inflicted on Dalit men. The safety of the aggrieved and the alike are of paramount importance. The action and reaction in the entire episode must not be construed from the angle of law and order maintenance. The genesis of audacity, exercised by the assailants and the supporting socio-religious factors must be openly opposed. The violent infliction should not be viewed as a behaviour of mob. The inhuman features, strengthened through religious scriptures must be weakened instead of upholding it under the wrong premise of anything religious should not be altered. In between the anti-religious and the inhuman practices, the later one must be weighed with significance. Let the fundamentalists listen and abide by the statement of Vivekananda who propagated the pride of their religious belief abroad. “You people, don’t bother about the assault on humans but seriously concerned about the hardships caused to cows”.
On the alleged beef storing and its eating, the cow protection brigades intruded into the house of Akhlaq at Dadri in Uttar Pradesh and killed him besides injuring grievously his son, who is serving in Indian Army, in September 2015. This atrocity was caused by the local saffron villagers. When it captured the attention of the whole country, it was considered as law and order problem. When beef eating was banned legally, which again is the infringement on the choice of freedom to eat, the routine legal course of action continues as the so called fastidious progress of proving with the evidence that the flesh, kept at the house of Akhlaq was beef. Even if it is beef or the flesh of anyother animal, who gave the authority to kill Akhlaq. The only difference between these two incidents – Uttar Pradesh affair is inter religious and the affair of the role model for the Governance of the State viz., Gujarat is intra religious.
Again one more incident of attack has taken place a few days back in Shanthipura Village, Sigmagalur District of Karnataka State on the ground of keeping the cow hide by the Dalit men at their home. The assaults were executed almost in the presence of law and order enforcing authority. Besides, the assailants had obtained anticipatory bail from getting arrested. It shows how the assailants had pre planned.
To arrest the implementation of provisions which are contrary to exercising fundamental right, a counter vigilante body must be formed especially in the cow belt area of the country. The fiery inhuman atrocity must be arrested from its further spread to the rest of the States.
All these incidents against the oppressed and the religious minorities have not emerged spontaneously. There is every likelihood of involvement of religious fundamentalists in all these incidents, well executed with pre meditated plan.
A country wide counter cow vigilantism is the need of the hour through suitable legislation by the central ruler. The provisions of the proposed legislation must be more stringent.
After all, the stringency is to ensure social harmony and sustain it throughout the country!
