Vigilantism of GauRakshaks- lies peddled by media

Every once in a while, cow protection and associated vigilantism makes news in the national media. It is not difficult to guess that any time Hindu ideals and beliefs are up on stake, the national media and so called leftist intelligentsia tries every text book trick to denigrate their traditions. The same people who want to protect temple elephants and ban them for Hindu rituals one day can be seen advocating the importance of beef eating for exercise of individual freedom the next day. Can you find a better example of cognitive dissonance?

But all this drama, arguments and counter-arguments, is noise and makes it hard to focus on underlying reasons for vigilantism. To understand the real problem afflicting Bharat, one needs to go deeper and understand. India is a weak state which likes to legislate new laws every other day but which are difficult to enforce. Lets talk about simple case of stealing. Have you ever tried to register a case with the police for normal theft? Police is usually disinclined to catch thieves and would hardly pay any attention to solve such crimes. So, what happens once in a while?

Every once in a while people catch some thief red-handed and give a nice thrashing to make an example out of it. Does it work? May be it does or may be not. Is it civilized way of dealing with petty thieves? Probably not. What does it points towards? It points toward a weak state which loves to legislate but cannot enforce law. But do you think petty thefts and thrashing is the only reason for low belief of people in the system? Think of the “Being Human” superstar Salman Khan and his dalliances with different law enforcing agencies. It take two decades to decide on simple cases of blackbuck hunting and running over sleeping pedestrians. What is the end result of such farcical trials? Most witnesses go hostile or suddenly disappear and make a finer human out of Mr Being Human.

Examples abound through out the country, but once in a while some people decide to outrage on one or the other issue. With this information, now go back to the case of cow protection. Most states in India have cow protection laws which like other laws do not get enforced properly. But do you think the media really cares about it? Actually, if you read Indian Express, they prefer lax implementation of cow protection law. Here is Kancha Ilaiah on this issue:

Sadly, the Congress itself initiated enactment of cow protection laws in different states that have negative implications for Dalit and Muslim livelihoods. But the Congress did not implement such laws forcefully as long as it was in power at the Centre and the direction to the states was to wink at them. The police must have also been given a direction to go slow on the implementation. Not that there were no “gau raksha” minded officers who did not book cases with the help of cow protection squads. There were some, but they were few and far between.

Well one cannot expect Kancha Ilaiah to put aside his hatred for Hindus under any discussion but here it has taken completely different direction. The beef eating intellectuals and the media cabal are trying to force upon the majority the idea that lax implementation of laws is what is need of the hour. Well, Indian state is weak enough to not implement any law seriously, so it is not anything new on cow protection either. What makes the position of such scholar dubious and even more stupid is that if state i.e. governments were implementing cow protection law seriously, there would have been no need for vigilantes. The reason that vigilantes exist is because the state is lax in its implementation.

Cow protection vigilantism is no good. But if the state does not enforce law, those who are emotionally involved will take some action given the state has itself enacted the law but does not want to enforce it. As a failed banana republic,citizens have to act on their own sometimes. This apathy towards public service extends on all levels of government and not just cow protection. So next time when you blame a cow vigilant, think if you ever cheered a mob which was thrashing a thief? May be people in gated civilized cocoons didn’t face any such incidences but it is a common spectacle in many parts of the country. The cattle class face such security problems everyday & depend on local support to feel safe. So although unfortunate but they have to thrash culprits once in a while as the state has shown complete dereliction of its duties.

So, cow vigilantism is just another face of state failure. Better enforcement of cow protection should bring down cow vigilantism because people would not have to enforce cow protection themselves, and not increase vigilantism as claimed by the liars in the media. The death of cow thief Akhlaq at the hands of angry mob was over-emphasized by the whole media, but they completely failed to report on police apathy and negligence towards other similar reports of theft before the mob decided to teach Akhlaq a lesson, which as we all know went out of control and lead to his death.

And don’t forget that the usual suspects will try to divert the attention towards food habits and oppression of dalits and club them with Muslims, but that does not even lie at the heart of this matter. For now, cow protection is part of legislation and hence it is duty of the state to religiously enforce it. All concerned citizens should think about how to improve the public service delivery. So ignore all the noise and think about why Indian state has failed to deliver on public services and enforcing rule of law. Cow vigilantes signify a deeper malaise afflicting the Indian state.

Image Source:

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/22/africa/mundari-tribe-cattle-photography/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cnn%2FCVMu+(CNN+Top+Stories)