Betwa Sharma: What BJP’s Re-election will mean To Muslim dairy farmers // Tavleen Singh: No justice yet for Pehlu Khan
NB: It is the RSS that is responsible for this brutal onslaught on poor people's lives. I appreciate Tavleen Singh's concern for justice for Pehlu Khan and other victims of cow-vigilantes (something rare among supporters of the Modi regime), but her wish for justice - which I share - is likely to remain unfulfilled. We have seen what has just happened in the Samjhauta verdict, not to mention 1984. The list of travesties of justice is endless, and began with Gandhiji's assassination.
We inhabit a culture of genocidal complicity; and criminals - especially those motivated by communal hatred - enjoy impunity. The 'idea of India' is much discussed nowadays. I'd prefer a discussion on what our high-minded elite thinks of the idea of murder
We inhabit a culture of genocidal complicity; and criminals - especially those motivated by communal hatred - enjoy impunity. The 'idea of India' is much discussed nowadays. I'd prefer a discussion on what our high-minded elite thinks of the idea of murder
The issue is beyond parties. The decline of judicial institutions represents the perversion of civil conscience. Communal ideology has a cross-partisan effect. The whole idea is to abolish the distinction between legal and illegal violence; and convert all of civil society into a war-zone. This is the elephant in the drawing room of Indian politics. If we don't call out this criminal conspiracy, we will be complicit in the destruction of Indian democracy, a choice an ex-President has already made. DS
NUH, Haryana — If the
situation was not so dire, Azmat, a dairy farmer from Haryana, believes he
would laugh at the absurd circumstance he finds himself in. After buying a cow
from another dairy farmer in a neighbouring village, Azmat is terrified of
making the short trip, around 12 to 13 kilometers from his village Jaisinghpur
in Nuh, to pick up the cow. He, together with another dairy farmer in his own
village, have already paid Rs. 40,000 for the cow, but neither man is willing
to travel the short distance to bring it home.
Cow vigilantes watch
the roads linking the villages and the highway like hawks, and any Muslim seen
with a cow runs the risk of a beating or worse. Azmat should know. The first
thing he did when stopped by a group of cow vigilantes in April, 2017 was show
them the receipt that said he had purchased two cows for Rs. 75,000 from a
government fair in Jaipur, Rajasthan. The cow vigilantes did not listen. They
tore up the receipt and beat him hockey sticks, belts and stones for a half
hour, he said. While Azmat, now 26
years old, survived the attack, another dairy farmer from his village,
55-year-old Pehlu Khan, who was beaten by the same vigilantes at the same time,
died after two days. Azmat, and many young dairy farmers in Jaisinghpur,
believe that cow vigilantes have the backing of the ruling Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP), and that is why they have managed to unleash so much violence in
the past few years.
If the BJP was to
return to power in 2019, and the writ of the cow vigilantes continues to run
large in Nuh, Azmat plans to give up dairy farming entirely. “One Pehlu Khan is
dead. We are afraid that a 100 Pehlu Khans could die,” Azmat said. “We are
already living half a life. We will be more scared than we are now,” he said.
“Living in fear is very tiring.”.. read more:
Tavleen Singh: No justice yet for Pehlu Khan
Arif, a scrawny young man who was with his father when they were attacked, spoke in an emotionless voice. “We cannot go to Behror. Last time we tried to go for a hearing, gunmen fired at our car in Neemrana. They warned us not to try going any further. So our lawyer is now trying to get the case transferred to Alwar.” In the same emotionless voice he told me what happened on April 1, 2017, when they were stopped by cow vigilantes in Behror. “We had two cows and two calves in the truck… and papers to show that they were bought at the cattle fair in Jaipur. They tore the papers up and looked at my father’s beard and said you are Muslims. Then they started beating us with hockey sticks and belts. They said they were from the Bajrang Dal. They beat us so badly that I am still in pain. There was so much blood in my eyes that I could not see.”
The police came half
an hour later and took them to the local hospital. By then their cows had been
stolen by the killers who also stole the Rs 70,000 that they had with them. Pehlu Khan’s widow did
not know what had happened to her husband and sons till three days later.
“Someone in the village saw the video on the Net,” she said, her voice
breaking, “and they showed it to me. That is how I found out what happened.” The family has given
up dairy farming and now rely on what Zebunia’s sons can earn by working as
helpers to truck drivers. They have no land and have been given no compensation
by either the governments of Rajasthan or Haryana. In the rough courtyard of
their small, crumbling house is parked a shiny new tractor. Someone from Dubai
gave this to them as a gift and they make some money from loaning it to those
who have land.
As I was leaving, Arif
said, “I don’t know why they did this to us. What is the difference between
Muslims and Hindus except that we pray to Allah and they pray to Ishwar?” His
words haunt me as did the video of his father being beaten to death. What is truly
troubling is that there is a Congress government in Rajasthan now and it has
done nothing to help Pehlu Khan’s family get justice. They were promised a
compensation of Rs 5 lakh that everyone seems to have forgotten about.
Everyone I talked to
that day said there was a “Modi wave”. If he becomes prime minister again, we
must hope that men like those who killed Pehlu Khan are jailed instead of
roaming free. Democracy is not possible without the rule of law. We must hope
that Modi remembers this if he becomes prime minister again....
see also
More threats and lies from the RSS
Delhi Police Archive on RSS activity in October-December 1947
List of serious criminal charges against new UP CM Yogi Adityanath
Julio Ribeiro - Burying Karkare: I cannot let these forces go unchallenged
Delhi Police Archive on RSS activity in October-December 1947
List of serious criminal charges against new UP CM Yogi Adityanath
Julio Ribeiro - Burying Karkare: I cannot let these forces go unchallenged
