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.
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. 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.
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. 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.
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.
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. 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