The Una Incident ? The Intellectuals Vainly Howl
The Una incident revealed starkly before the world the brutal, humiliating, oppressive face of gau-rakshak vigilantism. Four dalit flayers or skinners of animal carcasses were caught by a group of gau-rakshak vigilantes in Una Gujarat, stripped half-naked, tied to a car and dragged in full public view along the streets, taking turns to repeatedly flog them with iron rods. A video was made out of this hooliganism and spread through the mobile. The dalits said that they had flayed cow skin from a dead carcass but the gau-rakshaks turned a deaf ear. Subsequently, as this brutal incident went viral in the media with its shockingly disgraceful pictures, about thirty dalits belonging to this profession of flaying skins from carcasses of animals in different districts of Gujarat attempted suicides. The resurgence of violence of the gau-rakshak vigilantes and the assault and humiliation of the dalits has risen to a new pitch. But the Prime Minister sahab on opening his mouth after one month of the Una incident sees something else in this. He has said-- "Be wary of 'nakli' (fake) gau rakshaks, they have nothing to do with cow. Governments should crack down on them," PM Modi said. In another speech he showed concern for the protection of Dalits, who have been targeted by cow vigilantes, saying, "If you want to shoot anyone, shoot me, not my Dalit brothers." Thus he has divided gau-rakshaks ? fake and true. If these violent gau-rakshaks are fake, firstly, who have been behind their increasing aggressiveness? Secondly are dalits the only targets, on whose behalf Modi is even ready to face bullets?
In the recent years the so-called gau-rakshak vigilantism has become openly active and aggressive. Even before the uproar over Una incident could subside, in Madhya Pradesh two Muslim women carrying licensed buffalo meat has been accused by a mob for carrying cow meat, attacked and instead of providing protection, has been arrested by the police. About a year earlier in Dadri a mob incitement led to the lynching of Akhlaq. From different states there are continuous reports of mounting attacks either on the allegation of cow slaughter or for carrying or consuming beef. The targets are not only dalits but Muslims also.
By now it is clear that there is a modus operandi of these gau-rakshak vigilantes to instill fear in the minds of these sections of people. It has been seen earlier during the Bakri-Eid festivals of Muslims, and now more and more these attacks are being orchestrated at other times also. Hate and threat campaigns are being carried out by the gau-rakshak or Bajrang Dal or other Sangh Parivar outfits often in open collusion with the police. They search and barge into houses of the Muslims and even dalits, attack carriages carrying cattle or carcasses, mercilessly beating and abusing, insulting, even urinating on the poor dalit or Muslim flayers, often resulting in bloody deaths with little possibility of resistance. Video pictures of such violence are spread to create panic. Fear and alarm for the communities of Muslims and dalits with no one to question the brutalities. Neither the government and far more alarming, not even the large majority of the population.
All these, reveal how the communal gau-raksha campaign and assault on the Muslims is tied up with the upper-caste anti-dalit mindset. It was known that such anti-democratic communal forces and their ideology pervades throughout society. But now these forces are displaying their growing defiance, with total disregard for any law and any opposition. The founder of Gau Raksha Dal Punjab in its blog (dated 10 August 2010) says ?"This is the time not to [become a] martyr but to kill the killers of cows in India". Another Gau Raksha Dal from Rajasthan says ?"Mar dalenge Gau Mata ke hatyaro ko". The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal and numerous other outfits of extreme Hindutva organizations have established networks of such gau-raksha campaigns and organizations. It is not simply Una where dalits have been thrashed. In 2002 during the earlier Vajpayee regime five poor dalits were stripped and beaten to death in Duliana Haryana in front of the police for skinning a dead cow. Only recently in Karnataka dalits have been attacked by Bajrang Dal members for alleged cow slaughtering. The brutal results and those involved in it are all before us to see.
In such a situation, the BJP governments at the centre and the states, instead of taking drastic action against this violence on Muslims and dalits have always been seen to speak in a queer tone, trying to cover-up the blatant misdeeds. The Union minister for Social justice and Empowerment in the Narendra Modi government virtually certified the gau-rakshak teams by saying: "... These are all social organisations. It could be for gau raksha sewa dal, it could be for eliminating social evils; people keep forming these social groups and doing things. Someone may have informed them (about cow slaughter) and they would have rushed. What they need to do is find out its veracity and then go." He doesn't question the violence. He merely said that they should verify and then they are as if licensed to attack. The Maharashtra and Haryana governments following the footsteps of the Gujarat government have revised to make more stringent undemocratic, anti-slaughter laws that not only prohibit cow slaughter but prohibit old age cattle from culling and even punishment for carrying beef from other states with imprisonment up to 10 years. At the same time welfare schemes are being floated for cows [for the people, well, welfare schemes are being curtailed!] in BJP ruled states and by the Central government, seminars with RSS leaders are being held to highlight the socio-economic value of cow. The election manifesto of BJP talked of cow-protection leading a hate campaign against "pink revolution" accusing the then ruling Congress party government of giving large scale encouragement to killing and export of cow meat although it was well established that these have always been mainly buffalo meat. Modi was one of the bitterest campaigners. From behind their so-called promotion of ideas of socio-economic value of cow what has frequently come out is anti-beef hysteria and through it the anti-democratic ideology of Hindutva that is bent upon forbidding the rights of Muslims, dalits, Christians and others like the people of the North-Eastern states, to follow their own food-habits. Thus during the Akhlaq lynching episode, the BJP MP wrote in the RSS mouthpiece Panchyajanya that, in Vedas there is mentioned that, killers of cows should be given the punishment of death. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Sadhvi Prachi said, "those who consume beef deserve such actions against them". They are not at all apologetic about such lynching and violence. It fits with the "Mar dalenge Gau Mata ke hatyaro ko" slogan of the gau-rakshaks. It fits with the increasingly aggressive Hindutva outbursts and attacks on the Muslims in particular, and dalits, other minor sections, and also those like Dabholkar, Pansare who have been murdered, whose way of living vary or urge for democracy question their planned road-map of imposing Hindutva on this country. Through the recent Una incident these Hindutva forces have once again shown its caste-oppressive face. The true face of the Sangh organizations from beneath their mask of dalit wooing has once again been split wide open, nakedly showing the real beneath it.
So isn't this a particular brand of campaign and aggression of extreme Hindutva led by the Sangh Parivar outfits and their numerous branches that have created such a situation of blatant attacks in different spheres of life? The facts themselves clearly reveal that. But Modi speaking after one month of dithering tries to confuse us. He does not speak of the attacks on the Muslims suddenly separating out the dalits for displaying his sympathy for them. Only after this latest brand of "man ki baat" from the PM the police took cognizance of the video of blatant violence posted in the Punjab Gau-raksha Dal site for months and registered an FIR against its main organizer. Doesn't it smell of elections ? the nearing of Punjab and other state elections like UP with its sizeable dalit votes. Satish Kumar the organizer of Punjab Gau- Raksha Dal himself said that it is Modi's vote bank politics. It is further confirmed when suddenly Amit Shah starts having meals in dalits' homes in UP, RSS starts displaying feigned compassion for the dalits of Gujarat. Their bigger game-plan is Sangh organizations want to woo dalits into their Hindutva mission bandwagon. It must be remembered that in Gujarat itself there are numerous gau-raksha dals encouraged and supported by the state government. Erstwhile chief minister Modi took active role in it. And it is in Gujarat where dalits are despised and still now not allowed to enter 90 % of temples. Modi's "Gujarat model" continued with this oppression of dalits. Now he suddenly starts feeling for "dalit brothers" and puts the blame on "fake" gau-rakshaks to cover-up Sangh outfits misdeeds.
As usual the opposition political parties and a number of established intellectuals and who's who of society are seen to raise much hue and cry about the oppression of the Una animal skinners. But do they also question the policies that are giving rise to this aggressive, hate-mongering, that lead to such incidents in the name of gau-raksha? Without questioning that, and the way this society has evolved over since pre-independence, compromising with these communal and casteist forces, merely by criticizing such violent attacks isolatedly, such incidents can never be stopped. Rather utilizing the prevailing large scale communalization these forces are increasingly being allowed to acquire violent intimidating proportions.
For such a situation, even the opposition and other political parties cannot shirk their share of responsibility. Gau-raksha andolan and Gau-rakshak vigilantism is being used by the communal hsindu forces from the time of independence. During discussions the Hindu communal representatives in the Constituent Assembly wanted inclusion of provisions for ban on cow slaughter in the Constitution. But they covered it up hypocritically stating reasons of improvement in agriculture. Thus Pandit Thakur Dass Bhargava said, " From both points of view, of agriculture and food, protection of the cow becomes necessary." Seth Govind Das, another representative presented it in another way: "... Cow protection is not only a matter of religion with us; it is also a cultural and economic question." Ultimately the representatives of Indian big bourgeois section in leadership compromised and cow-protection was included in Article 48 of the Directive Principles of the Constitution, couched in the language of "The State shall endeavour to organise agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter of cows and other milch and draught cattle." Of course after much debate and opposition from some sections, especially from members like Ambedkar, who opposed the communal approach on this. The Congress party representing the big bourgeois of the country, compromised in this way with communal and casteist sections throughout, resulting in a fragmented, stunted democracy that still prevails. Historically they were not in a position to sweep away the communal, casteist divisions of old feudal society and arouse the masses for a real, secular democracy based on modern relations of class and at least recognition of formal equality of all before law, by pushing religious practices and beliefs to the personal domain. In 1919, when the Congress party led by Gandhi lent support to the Khilafat movement, in order to satisfy the rightist Hindu forces within its fold, the party offered their support to Muslim leaders in return for them supporting the ban on cow-slaughter. After adoption of Article 48 it was the Congress party ruled states which promptly enacted laws banning cow-slaughter. All these shows that the communal Hindu forces within the ruling Congress party, wielded substantial power in the echelons of state power, even under "secularist liberal" Nehru. To this day that is reflected in the constitution
But it was also a time, just after independence, when the communal Hindu right, led by RSS was on the path of reorganization after the arrests and ban on it, post Gandhi assassination. With its political wing the Jana Sangh just formed it planned Gau Raksha andolan as a comparative innocuous campaign to carry forward its Hindutva mission. They wanted a total ban on cow slaughter but the laws and courts still allowed slaughter of old, economically useless cows. Numerous gau-raksha bodies sprang up into activity demanding ban on cow slaughter. This Gau-Raksha andolan culminated in a violent November 1966 demonstration in front of the parliament. 8 people got killed. The home minister resigned. After that a government appointed committee was formed to study about possibilities of such a ban. That included Verghese Kurien the "milkman" and Golwalkar the RSS head whose debate shows the Hindutva communal world-view being sought to be imposed by the RSS leader.. While Kurien was opposed to a total ban as old unhealthy cattle had to be killed to save and maintain good breeds and production of milk, Golwalkar opposed and said "the cow has potential to unify the country -- she symbolizes the culture of Bharat". He tried to convince Kurien to agree on a total ban on cow slaughter saying, "I want to use the cow to bring out our Indianness, So please cooperate with me on this". Obviously ?Indianness' according to his ideology, the ideology of the RSS, means nothing but narrow, communal Hindutva and Bharat, to him a country seen only through the glasses of that Hindutva viewpoint, on the basis of which they want to form Hindu Rashtra. Does our PM's "mann ki baat" deny this ?
Thus those who want to really question the remorseless brutality on the dalits of Una or numerous other places, they'll have to question the communal agenda and the mission of the Hindutva forces, the Sangh Parivar et al, the role of this state representing a fragmented, distorted democracy that has still kept the oppression of communalist, casteist forces in tact, and not the least the compromising roles of all the parliamentarian political parties. The other facet to this reality is the condition of society and economy that once again establishes the fact that there still exists a large section of these so-called dalits, the oppressed castes and also Muslims who are still involved in these occupations of flaying or skinning in the midst of dire poverty and humiliation, as there are a large number of valmiki people involved in manual scavenging (1lakh 80 thousand ? as cited in Bejwada Wilson report and 8 lakh flayers of animal hide from carcasses ? TOI, 28th July, 2016). The National Commission on Cattle set up by the Vajpayee Government in 2002 also reluctantly admitted (para 167) that "extreme poverty and customary practices in the coastal areas and among some sections of scheduled tribes, scheduled castes and other backward castes also make them beef eaters." These are the sections whose family are butchered for a loan of '15 (Mainpuri, UP) or whose women are raped by the same men for the second time with full knowledge of the police.
Under the garb of projecting the economic importance of the cow, singling it out from utility of other bovine animals (most people in North India prefer thicker, richer buffalo milk), these Hindutva forces are putting up a ridiculous reasoning for banning even the old, diseased, useless cows from being slaughtered. This when the leather industry, the leather product business is operating in this country on a large scale, obviously on the basis of large scale social demand of leather goods. Then their logic veers into the realm of Hindu religion ? "cow is our mata". By invoking the beliefs of Hindu religion their aim is to utilise the backwardness of Hindu pschye of the passive majority of this country and impose their communal plans on all sections of society. They are readying themselves to impose this with total disregard for even the varying traditions of Hindu population living in different regions. Their communal, fascist mobilizations are already breaking up the unity of the workers and peasants and masses on communal basis. They are utilising this to extend their demand of total ban on cow slaughter to ban on beef eating also. Clearly all this is part of their bigger communal, fascist Hindutva mission that they want to impose in the coming days. Gau-rakshak teams are their aggressive cadres in this cause. The prevailing constitution, the state machinery, the laws and political parties are already tilted in its favour as seen. Thus with the political wing of the Sangh Parivar in power, this has become the opportune time for these forces to speed up their mission. It is more and more blatantly showing its oppressive face. Una is one striking example of it. But it has brought to the surface one more contradiction for them. They are realizing that they require more in numbers, they need to suppress and cover-up the caste oppression and strenghthen their Hindutva aggression on Muslims and other opponents fighting for democracy. So they are seriously intent on wooing the dalits into their fold. But their history of upper caste oppressive ideology and formation of forces are spilling out their real anti-dalit, anti-democratic character.
Of course the Muslims, their large number of common poor masses, have been passively at the receiving end, in spite of repeated assaults on them for beef carrying or eating or allegations of cow slaughter. The whole state machinery, the political parties i.e. the ruling system is neither able nor willing to stand up for the rights of minorities against the aggressive attacks of Hindutva. But the dalits of Una have stood up in protest against the attack on them. They collected and dropped trucks full of beef meat and remains of the carcasses in front of collectorate and other government offices in several districts of Gujarat in protest. Thousands of dalits have assembled and pledged not lift any more carcasses. They are no more ready to burden these occupations for society bearing such torment. This is the real gesture of struggle, against such oppressive forces, not those of the arm-chair critics, who do not see all this as part of the aggression of Hindutva. Those intellectuals only try vainly to appeal to this very ruling system for justice against these isolated vandalisms. Neither do they understand the rule of these oppressive classes, nor the fragmented, distorted democracy that is unable to deliver. It is for the masses of workers, peasants, oppressed classes and castes to unite and struggle for a real democratic system.
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