By
IOL South Asia Correspondent
NEW
DELHI, December 1 (IslamOnline) - The National Commission for
Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (NCSCS) has come up with the
finding that the five Dalits (low-caste Hindus or untouchables)
lynched on October 15 this year were victims of "mistaken
identity". The mob thought they were Muslims.
The
Dalits were skinning a dead cow like their forefathers had been doing
for hundreds of generations to sustain India’s domestic leather
industry and export market. What they were doing was perfectly legal,
under license from municipal authorities. A mob of middle-and
upper-caste Hindus killed them, saying they had “killed” a cow.
The
lynching took place outside a police outpost at Jhajjar village in
Haryana state bordering the national capital. The Dalits were brutally
done to death as 50 policemen and senior district officials watched
without demur.
The
mob was led by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP-World Hindu Council) men.
VHP is an associated organisation of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
currently leading the ruling coalition at Centre.
The
Milli Gazette, an Indian Muslim fortnightly in English
published from New Delhi, was the first to report that the mob was
incited to “kill the five Muslims,” which it did happily. Hindus,
barring Dalits and some others in the south, worship cow as
“mother-goddess.”
It
was obvious from the Milli Gazette's account that the mob would
not have killed had it known that the victims were not Muslims and
that there would have been no hue and cry in that case.
Chairman
of the NCSCS, Bijay Sonkar Shastri, himself a member of BJP, said
Thursday, November 28, “The police were part of the conspiracy. They
knew throughout that the victims were Dalits, but did nothing to save
them. Instead, they helped the mob in the lynching.”
The
whole episode shows the deep hostility against Muslims in certain
sections of the society and the criminality of VHP and its allied
organisations in fanning that hatred.
Shastri,
a member of VHP’s affiliate BJP, sounded as if killing the five
young men would have been just had they been Muslims. Asked if it was
justified if the victims were Muslim, Shastri had no answer but to
say, “I am just explaining what happened in a surcharged
atmosphere”.
Shastri
did not explain who had “surcharged” the atmosphere against
Muslims. Of course, his own BJP-VHP and allied organisations that had
been running a vicious anti-Muslim propaganda campaign for last
several months in the name of a “cow protection movement” in the
area. The logic of the campaign: the cow is our holy mother and
Muslims kill it, so kill Muslims.
A
senior leader of VHP, Giriraj Kishore, told media men in New Delhi
after the lynching that “the life of a cow is more precious than a
man’s”. He quoted Hindu scriptures supporting this proposition.
 |
| One of the
lynched Dalits |
Giving
a new twist to the mischief, Shastri said that the mob consisted of
Dalits as well. This is quite plausible because Dalits do participate
in anti-Muslim violence. Just because they did not know the identity
of their men they could have killed them believing them to be Muslims.
This angle in the story could also be a VHP-BJP mischief because they
don’t want Muslims and Dalits to come together.
Shastri
dismissed the killing as inconsequential saying, “too much is made
out of Jhajjar.” That again shows the anti-Dalit, anti-Muslim
mindset. “Too much” cannot be made out of the killing of five
Dalits, but “too much” would certainly be made out of a similar
killing of upper-caste Hindus.
In
the days following the lynching Haryana chief minister Om Prakash
Chautala had announced that it was a “case of mistaken identity
which took place suddenly.” In a travesty of justice, the government
sent the dead cow for an autopsy, instead of bringing the culprits to
book. Fortunately, the autopsy report said the cow had died 24 hours
before the lynching.
Supposing
that autopsy report said the cow was killed instead of having died a
natural death? In that case, there would have been a far greater
justification for killing the five youngmen.
What
if the lynched were Muslims? Then the lynching would have been only
“natural” with no tears to shed and no compensation to pay to the
victims' families.
The
bigots are a little less hostile to Dalits than to Muslims. Even then
the victims’ next of kin are yet to get the financial compensation
announced by government.
