June 30, 2017

#NotInMyName - the true voice of compassionate India

located:	India
editor:	Shadi Khan Saif

With the right-wing nationalist Narendra Modi in power since May 2014, India’s economic growth has indeed accelerated, but so has hate crimes against religious minorities, fundamentalism and intolerance that pose a grim challenge to the very core of this vastly diverse society and largest democracy on earth. There has been frightening increase in incidents of mob violence across the country that have targeted Muslims and lower-caste Hindus ‘Dalits’ on one pretext or the other.

According to an IndiaSpend content analysis, Muslims were the target of 51% of violence centered on bovine issues over nearly eight years (2010 to 2017) and comprised 86% of 28 Indians killed in 63 incidents. These issues are mostly related to cow which is considered ultra-sacred by the hardliners that have killed a number of Muslims for buying, selling or consuming its meat.

As many of 97% of these attacks were reported after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government came to power in May 2014, and about half the cow-related violence – 32 of 63 cases – were from states governed by the BJP when the attacks were reported. Of the 28

Indians who died over the seven-year period, 24 were Muslim, or 86%. As many as 124 people were also injured in these attacks. More than half (52%) of these attacks were based on rumors.

In the first six months of 2017, 20 cow-terror attacks were reported – more than 75% of the 2016 figure, which was the worst year for such violence since 2010.

The attacks include mob lynching, attacks by vigilantes, murder and attempt to murder, harassment, assault and gang-rape.

Clearly annoyed and apprehensive about this disturbing trend, thousands of Indians took to the streets this week in various parts of the country to disassociate and disown this madness. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has also spoken out against cow vigilantism, saying, “killing people in the name of protecting cows is not acceptable”.

But, it is the vigilant Indian civil society involving men and women from all walks of life that has made it clear to the extremist forces that they would not accept this mob justice in the country of Gandhi, global icon of non-violence and tolerance.