The solemn and heartfelt manner with which the Indian Air Force corporal Mohammad Sartaj conducted himself at a TV programme despite undergoing a grave tragedy of losing his father Mohammad Akhlaq to a lynch mob, left many misty eyed. Probably that was the only take away from the infamous killing in Dadri in Uttar Pradesh, where a man was killed based on beef eating rumours, to assure us that all is not lost even in this bleak moment. The India our founding fathers had visualised still lives on in some pockets.
The fact that a lynch mob can enter the kitchen of a house and attack a family for the type of food they were having provides a chilling reminder of the rising tide of hatred and communal polarisation in the society.
The political class, the chief architects who brought things to such a pass, have once again showed that whatever be the tragedy they cannot see anything beyond electoral arithmetic and political mileage. In a way Union Minister Mahesh Sharma's statement that the incident happened due to 'misunderstanding' was unwittingly true.
The cow vigilantes picked up a wrong household - one with hardly any blemish. None of the family members faced any criminal charges and one of them had even donned the Air Force uniform to serve the country - hence very high on deshbhakti quotient.
Moreover it later came to be known that the meat in the refrigerator was not beef as alleged. But the supporters of the lynch mob would have none of it, because for them rumour is the fuel and the medium of communication ranges from good old loudspeakers and word of mouth to new age WhatsApp. They are working overtime posting photoshopped pictures of cow remnants and other rabid campaigns in social media, which would make late Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels rest assured that at least in India his credo would last another millennium!
Just imagine if the meat in the refrigerator was actually beef, then it would have been 'advantage' lynch mob (to use a tennis analogy). They would have gone to town saying 'justice' has been done as the killers of our 'mother' have been avenged and some favourably disposed newspaper columnists would have marshalled extreme forms of sophistry to rationalise the killing as 'spontaneous reaction' to 'hurt sentiments'. The fact that possession of beef or its consumption is not prohibited in Uttar Pradesh and Akhlaq had not broken any law would have been relegated to a footnote for the academia, edit pages or TV studios to chew on.
Or think of an even grimmer scenario of beef being found in a house where some family members have a criminal past, a la Sohrabuddin Sheikh. That would have been godsend and the lynch mob would have easily got away with their savagery. Anyone criticising the legality of the lynching would have been branded as supporters of cow killers and desh drohis fit to be exported to Pakistan. "He was anyway a criminal, then why are you speaking on his behalf" would have been the taunt, and the average IPL-fixated Indian Pappu would have nodded in agreement.
The fact that Sartaj had an air force uniform on his back, helped the family land on the positive side of 'good Muslim, bad Muslim' binary, but others may not be that lucky and hence need to be very afraid.
Also Read: Bangalore Beat
The fact that a lynch mob can enter the kitchen of a house and attack a family for the type of food they were having provides a chilling reminder of the rising tide of hatred and communal polarisation in the society.
The political class, the chief architects who brought things to such a pass, have once again showed that whatever be the tragedy they cannot see anything beyond electoral arithmetic and political mileage. In a way Union Minister Mahesh Sharma's statement that the incident happened due to 'misunderstanding' was unwittingly true.
The cow vigilantes picked up a wrong household - one with hardly any blemish. None of the family members faced any criminal charges and one of them had even donned the Air Force uniform to serve the country - hence very high on deshbhakti quotient.
Moreover it later came to be known that the meat in the refrigerator was not beef as alleged. But the supporters of the lynch mob would have none of it, because for them rumour is the fuel and the medium of communication ranges from good old loudspeakers and word of mouth to new age WhatsApp. They are working overtime posting photoshopped pictures of cow remnants and other rabid campaigns in social media, which would make late Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels rest assured that at least in India his credo would last another millennium!
Just imagine if the meat in the refrigerator was actually beef, then it would have been 'advantage' lynch mob (to use a tennis analogy). They would have gone to town saying 'justice' has been done as the killers of our 'mother' have been avenged and some favourably disposed newspaper columnists would have marshalled extreme forms of sophistry to rationalise the killing as 'spontaneous reaction' to 'hurt sentiments'. The fact that possession of beef or its consumption is not prohibited in Uttar Pradesh and Akhlaq had not broken any law would have been relegated to a footnote for the academia, edit pages or TV studios to chew on.
Or think of an even grimmer scenario of beef being found in a house where some family members have a criminal past, a la Sohrabuddin Sheikh. That would have been godsend and the lynch mob would have easily got away with their savagery. Anyone criticising the legality of the lynching would have been branded as supporters of cow killers and desh drohis fit to be exported to Pakistan. "He was anyway a criminal, then why are you speaking on his behalf" would have been the taunt, and the average IPL-fixated Indian Pappu would have nodded in agreement.
The fact that Sartaj had an air force uniform on his back, helped the family land on the positive side of 'good Muslim, bad Muslim' binary, but others may not be that lucky and hence need to be very afraid.
Also Read: Bangalore Beat
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