Ziya Us Salam - Why Lynchings Have Become A Substitute For Communal Riots

By Dilip -
Indeed, lynching has replaced the age-old communal riot as a means of polarization. Lynching comes without the burden of guilt that used to accompany riots. It is more effective, lethal and sinister. It strikes at the very identity of the community. It is far more demoralizing than the traditional communal violence, but serves the same purpose as riots did in the years gone by: to engender a climate of distrust and fear. On one side are Hindus who begin to look at any Muslim, particularly those with conspicuous manifestation of being one, with distrust. In their mind, all Muslims are beefeaters. And, maybe, even cow slaughterers. Nothing wrong with that if you are in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and vast stretches of the Northeast, but often a fatal flaw in north and west India.

To those Hindus denied the benefit of education and economic cushion, a Muslim is one who deliberately provokes Hindus by eating beef. They do not know the reality or the history of beef eating in their own religion. For such a misled vigilante, the Muslim is the ‘other’ who must be shown his place. For him, a Muslim is what the latest video, real or fake, on WhatsApp shows him to be. Also, a Muslim is to be tackled, again, in the way those hooligans do in the lynching videos. That brings us to Muslims. With each lynching incident, the community slips deeper into fear, and into its own shell. And a community which is often told to join the mainstream slips further away.


In an item titled ‘Black Shadow of the Mob’ (Times of India, 29 July 2018), correspondent Himanshi Dhawan talked of how ‘fear and alienation is changing the way middle-class Muslims live, from what they pack for lunch, to how they’re naming babies’. The piece dwelt at some length on the perplex, insecure and increasingly insular world of a Muslim in urban India in 2018. It talked of well-known historian Rana Safvi’s experience of living not too far from Dadri where Akhlaq was lynched soon after Eid-ul-Azha celebrations. .. read more:
https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/why-lynchings-have-become-a-substitute-for-communal-riots_in_5c5d6f2ce4b0a502ca34c148?utm_hp_ref=in-homepage

see also
Muslim Teacher In Bihar Thrashed For Not Saying 'Vande Mataram' On Republic Day
Tavleen Singh - Anti-national nationalism
Mohd Asim - The Lynch Mob Now Goes for Naseeruddin Shah - Predictably
UP Cop Booked Yogi Adityanath Under NSA, Spent 20 Years In The Wilderness

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