Lately the social media is abuzz with news of people bring lynched in public by “Gau Rakshaks” in public for consuming beef. Cow vigilantism came to national spotlight Mohamad Akhlaq was killed in his own house in Uttar Pradesh’s Dadri under suspicion of possessing beef, which later turned out was not even beef but only mutton. This wasn’t the sole incident only, what followed was a string of public lynching, beatings and shaming for people suspected of being involved with cow slaughter industry. Incidents like this, this and this one where the person was merely transporting cows to his dairy farm and still got tagged as a cow smuggler; subsequently beaten to death, show us the dark underside of mob justice in India.
What’s more, the Indian Government responded to the matter by imposing a ban on cow slaughter altogether in the wake of these incidents. It’s ironic that India, which accounted for 20% of all the beef exported last year used to be one of the biggest beef exporters in the world.
Yes, we all know that here in India we worship cows like Gods and for a majority of population, which consists of mostly Hindus, eating beef is prohibited. But then It’s quite peculiar when it’s put this way; why was it so that these cow empathetic groups suddenly decide to raise public outcry when India has been so heavily involved in the beef export for so long?
Most people are taking the obvious path and blaming the Right Wing BJP which currently holds power in India. But then declarations like these show that the party inherently holds no specific opinion on the matter and is merely cashing in on the issue.
Which brings us back to the real reason for why so many people are being killed or beaten in the name of Cow Vigilantism?
All the fuss about cow vigilantism in the recent months has brought to the surface the glaring difference between the progressive and a stagnant lot of the population. All these incidents were carried out by people which archaic mentality and outdated beliefs. People should be more attentive towards issues that matter. But its not so and the Mainstream Media makes it a point so as to sensationalize every topic which has absolutely nothing to do with the well being of people but merely acts a decoy to sway the national attention from more pressing matters like poverty, lack of education and corruption in India.
This is only possible because even though we are stepping into 21st century as a progressive nation, a majority of population in India is still gullible and is emotionally sensitive about their beliefs, which the political parties make good use of to lure in voters by sympathizing with their causes. This was taken to a whole new level by the opposition party in Kerala where they slaughtered a calf in the street and fed it to bystanders. This act demonstrates the lunacy of the people involved in the policy making business in India.
The cow vigilantism issue is one of the many hyped issues which are causing mass distress and confusion among the general population. Where as people living in urban cities are mostly unaffected by the issue, people in rural are fully gripped in the Cow Vigilantism mania.
It’s one thing to ban the sale of beef legally throughout the country but its given a personal touch when we read about “Gau Rakshaks” beating someone to death.
So is the Government actually trying to solve the issue? Would the people who suffered be compensated? Will the perpetrators of the lynching ever be brought to justice? Probably not so.
But we can be assured that more of such issues would keep coming up to dominate our T.V screens and front pages of our Newspapers to keep the population engaged in unimportant stuff while the politicians do their bidding in the back ground.
Good Journalism and Good Governing should be focused on eradicating such trivial issues instead of inflating them to take a free joy ride.