Gau rakshaks have shamed India 

The decades-old reputation of the Jana Sangh and its successor, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as a Brahmin-bania party has been reinforced by a series of recent events. First, its ministers Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya maliciously targeted supporters of the Ambedkar Students Association in the University of Hyderabad, leading to the suicide of a bright young student, Rohith Vemula.

Now, the ‘gau rakshak’s or cow protectors associated with the saffron brotherhood have run amok in Gujarat, beating up a group of Dalits for skinning a dead cow, which is their traditional profession. Nor is this the first time that the self-appointed saffron vigilantes have attacked or killed cowherds and suspected beef-eaters.

However, in these days of ever-present cameras and an overactive social media, the images of the Dalit boys being thrashed have fuelled Dalit fury and made the BJP run for cover. Probably for the first time, the holy cow a longstanding obsession with the Hindutva brigade has landed the BJP in deep trouble.

For a start, the party’s recent strenuous efforts to shed its upper caste image and project its pro-Dalit credentials have been shredded, apparently beyond repair. Any electoral gains which the BJP may have expected in the Uttar Pradesh elections next year by securing a section of the Dalit vote have become virtually unattainable.

The Dalits have now joined the Muslims in turning against the BJP because the violent antics of the saffronites have handed the pro-Dalit Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) the entire Dalit electorate. It will be a big boost to the party since nearly 20 per cent of the State’s population are members of this community.

To make matters worse for the BJP, a vice president of the party in the state described BSP leader Mayawati as a ‘prostitute’. Now, the cow, Arun Shourie had described the BJP’s policies as those of the ‘Congress plus the cow’, is proving to be an unholy obstacle to Narendra Modi’s modernisation plans. But the party must have now realized that curbing the anti-Muslim hotheads is not enough for the Hindutva storm-troopers can target other communities as well.

Even as the Dalit anger singes the BJP, the party will have to make up its mind to crack down on all the saffron fundamentalists, ranging from the proponents of those who advise Hindus to have more children to counter the Muslim ‘threat’ to the ‘protectors’ of the cow.’ Alienating the Dalits is the last thing which the BJP wanted at a time when its plate is full of other, seemingly intractable problems.

Among these is the continuing unrest in Kashmir, caused by the high-handedness of the security forces. The disturbances have emboldened Pakistan to hold joint patrols with the Chinese on the border of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, thereby putting another spanner in the works of Modi’s friendly overtures to Islamabad.

It is a truism that none of the Prime Minister’s various endeavours in the fields of foreign policy and industrial development can succeed in the absence of a peaceful atmosphere at home. It can even be said that as long as these goons were hanging to death Muslim cowherds in Jharkhand and forcing alleged beef-eaters to eat a mixture of cow dung and cow urine in Faridabad, the government took no more than routine steps like arresting the culprits.

It has also brought shame to India, for the cow fetish does not go with Modi’s Smart Cities and Digital India outlook. It is throwback to a dark period of Indian history when widows were burnt to death and the shadow of an ‘untouchable’ was considered polluting by the upper castes. The country can do without such regression.

By Amulya Ganguli