‘Lynchistan’ Protests – The New Award Vapsi

Mob violence in the past

During the morning of 31-Oct 1984, while I was in school in Delhi, one of my classmates mentioned that the there had been an attempt to assassinate the Prime Minister, but she was unharmed. My response was that of disbelief at the assassination attempt but as the day progressed in school, it was confirmed that the Prime Minister had indeed been shot at, and that she was in hospital. In spite of the conservative reporting by Doordarshan in those days, before evening it was known that the Prime Minister had breathed her last in the morning itself.

The following morning newspapers reported that the car of the then President of India (a Sikh) was stoned as he returned from a foreign trip and his motorcade headed out of the airport. May be well worth asking how commoners wanting to express their anger against Sikhs in general, became aware of the President’s confidential itinerary. Or perhaps the report wasn’t true and was published by an obliging newspaper to justify what was to unfold over the next few days.

In the evening my father and I ventured outside to have a look at what was happening in our neighbourhood and beyond. We may have gone for a 2-3 hour walk, from Rajendra Nagar to Rajendra Place via Shankar Road and returning via Pusa Road. The streets were empty and one could smell burning rubber from the cars that had been set on fire. By the time we returned, it was dark. The atmosphere around was such that I was very afraid that a mob was going to attack our neighbourhood, including our house at night, and that we may not be able to protect ourselves.

What happened in reality was quite the opposite. During the early days of November, scores of Sikhs were slaughtered in and around Delhi to “protest” the assassination by the Prime Minister’s Sikh bodyguards. Reports have indicated the number of Sikhs slaughtered was at least 3000. And this butchering happened over just 3-4 days.

The new Prime Minister, explained the pogrom with “when a giant tree falls, the earth shakes”. Then and now, this sounds like a justification for the mass slaughter. In spite of the Delhi police and army at his disposal, Rajiv Gandhi failed to prevent or even reduce the targeted slaughter in the national capital. It is another matter that none of our conscientious “Idea of India” types protested this unforgiveable failure of the Union government. Or perhaps there were protests which received limited publicity since media presence in India was limited to government controlled mediums. But for sure they wouldn’t have been as widespread as we’ve seen during last week.

Like the targeted mass slaughter of 1984, there have been expressions of widespread violence across the decades in different parts of India. Just a couple of them are the violence after the death of Kannada actor Rajkumar, and over the Cauvery water dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The most recent episode of the last happened as recently as September 2016.

So, when a fairly large group of people express themselves with violence or extreme violence, what is the cause? In the specific cases cited above, are we to assume that thousands of Congress workers were so overcome with murderous rage at the assassination of their leader that they spontaneously spread across a city and went about “expressing their grief” by slaughtering Sikhs day and night for three days? Perhaps that’s what Congress would like us to believe.

When the popular Kannada actor, Rajkumar passed away in 2006, Bengaluru had to shut down for a day since there were violent mobs going around causing destruction and attacking the policemen trying to control the situation. Were they expressing grief at the death of their hero?

There has been violence over the Cauvery water distribution between Karnataka and other states. In 2016 Karnataka was asked to release 15000 cusecs of water, which they weren’t willing to. This decision by the Supreme Court was followed by violence in Karnataka, the burning of 36 buses in Bengaluru owned by a Tamil Nadu based transport company.

So, are we to assume that each member of a mob expressing himself or herself violently, is essentially doing so to express anger on a development they don’t agree with? For sure, some people do ex press their anger with intimidation, threats and even violence. But there are also people who use mobs as an opportunity to express their inherent dangerous urges. There are people who want to loot, burn, cause mild or extreme harm around them, for which they may not get away, except when they blend with a mob. Not based on scientific analysis, but I am inclined to believe that the majority in a “mob” belonging to this category. And this ugly side of human nature can surface anywhere, not just in our country.

How is India different since 2014?

About two years ago, in a horrifying incident, middle-aged Muslim was beaten to death in Dadri in Uttar Pradesh based on the accusation that he had stored beef in his house. Law and order is the responsibility of the state government. No serious questions were asked of the then Chief Minister of UP, nor its Home Minister. Instead, this barbarism was blamed on the Prime Minister of India. It is another matter that in three years as Prime Minister, indeed over sixteen years of being a public servant, he has not issued one statement that is against any non-Hindu community. On a couple of occasions when his MPs have uttered objectionable statements against Muslims, he has publicly spoken against it.

We all know a section of Indian society loves to hate Narendra Modi, citing the Gujarat riots of 2002 as their justification. The riots in Gujarat lasted a few weeks. About a thousand people were killed, of which approximately 3/4^th were Muslims and 1/4^th Hindus. It has been credibly documented that there is a history of Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat. There have been riots caused in the past which cost more lives and property than those in 2002.  Compare that with targeted killing of 3000 Sikhs over just 3-4 days. Yet, those who love to hate Narendra Modi, our “liberals”, don’t utter a squeak against Congress, but will do what they can to malign the current Union government in general and Narendra Modi in particular.

During some years of the rule of Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh so many rapes were reported that it caught the attention of the UN Secretary General. Possibly to give the impression that there are fewer crimes in UP than was being claimed, Mulayam Singh, the then Chief Minister’s father once denied the existence of gang rapes, claiming they were “not practical”. But given the real state of law and order in Uttar Pradesh, were their protests on the tony locations of Delhi and other major cities against the failure of the Chief Minister or his father’s coarseness and insensitivity? I can’t recall any! So, are our Lynchistan liberals OK living with rape and not with lynching?

For sure, there have been a few incidents of what have been labelled ‘cow vigilantes’, in which some Muslims have brutally beating and killed on suspicion of killing cows or illegally smuggling cow meat. All of this is being linked to the “beef ban” imposed by the government a few months ago. In reality, the central government has not banned consumption of beef. All that has been banned is the sale of cattle in cattle markets for the purpose of culling them. Are the participants of this new-flavour-of-the-protest-season, the #NotInMyName movement, not aware of this fact? Or is there an attempt to mislead masses simply for the sake of maligning Narendra Modi? The ban on cow slaughter has been imposed in the past in several states by state governments. And some of them have never been BJP-ruled states.

Diversity-related killings – recent and in the past

No doubt Muslims have been targeted in some incidents. But I personally find it very hard to believe that a group of cow-worshipping people are so enraged by the alleged killing of a cow that they choose to kill the human beings accused (or not) of killing it. It sounds a crazy theory!

The young man killed in a train in Haryana was killed over a scuffle unrelated to beef, although initially it was attempted to give the impression it was another “beef killing”. Clearly, it was a targeted and murderous attack because the victim was a Muslim. But what’s the basis for blaming it on the Prime Minister of a country? Why can it not be argued that members of the mob were venting their ugliest urges of their own accord when they came across an easy target?

Resentments, including violent ones, against those who do not look, think or behave like us exist in every society, including our own. Fellow Indian from our far eastern states have been victims of taunts and violence for some time. When this happened during UPA rule or in Congress-ruled states, no one cast aspersions on the largely mute Manmohan Singh. Diversity-related violence or mob violence has happened in India before May 2014. Please also read details here and here.

Selective trauma

The lynching these Not-In-My-Name-wallas are not protesting is that of a Muslim police officer in Srinagar, who was beaten to death and his bleeding body dragged on the streets by a mob of Muslims who mistook him for a Hindu. And then there have been dozens of brutal killings in Left-ruled Kerala of RSS-aligned Hindu men, some in the presence of their families – including children. Why is the trauma selective?

It’s also worth noting the dangerous games played by members of mainstream media (and here) along with the Not-In-My-Name-wallas. Foreign media too does not exactly do a thorough (or honest?) job of objective reporting on India.

A democracy allows, and must allow the right to disagree. But our Not-in-my-name brigade is, quite ridiculously attributing lynching, which is not a new phenomenon in India, to a single individual. By all means disagree with a politician based on your own values, but it is every citizen’s duty to be intellectually honest in the public domain.