By Dushyant Shekhawat
We entered a new chapter in Indias history this Monday one that is marked by the mob as the paramount authority in public life. The killing of inspector Subodh Kumar Singh in Uttar Pradeshs Bulandshahr is proof. And even as the news continues to send shockwaves throughout the country, the UP CM seems more concerned about cow slaughter than the murder.
In the wake of Mondays violence, Adityanath held a meeting in Lucknow on Tuesday with high-ranking officials from his government, including the chief secretary, DGP, principal secretary (home) and additional director general of police (intelligence). It took until Tuesday morning because on the day the killing occurred, Adityanath was attending a laser show in Gorakhpur, as reported in The Wire. After the meeting, Adityanath told his officials that tough action needs to be taken against those who carried out cow slaughter, according to the official press release. Threats to the lives of cattle were taken into consideration and the policemans death was not even acknowledged. It took until the next morning after much media outrage for an announcement that the CM would visit the family of the murdered cop. Scratch that. Adityanath stayed put in Lucknow, while the policemans family travelled to meet him from their home in Etah. Inspector Singhs son Abhishek told reporters at the meet, I plead with the society, people of my generation, please dont get into cow and communal politics. My father used to say above all, be a good citizen.
Its a plea that in all likelihood will fall on deaf ears. Our priorities are clear the lives of cows are more important than those of citizens, and public servants even. What seemed like a bad joke a couple of years ago has become reality. In a debate on Mirror Now, a Bajrang Dal spokesperson made the organisations stand clear. Gai insaan nahi?! countered Balraj Dungar, when the anchor Faye DSouza asked him whose life is more important a persons or a cows? His response does not come as a shocker anymore; in fact this is what one has come to expect from the Dal, the organisation to which the prime accused in the cops killing belongs.
It truly feels like we are living in an episode of Black Mirror, a dystopian reality where the sister of a slain policeman mourns how the CM can only chant gau, gau, gau while her brother gave up his life.
The UP governments initial response to the Bulandshahr isnt some big political faux pas. Its their official plan of action. Two days on, the Adityanath government is not making a half-hearted apology. In fact, it believes that the incident is part of a bigger conspiracy, and hence all those directly or indirectly related to cow slaughter should be arrested in a time-bound manner. So naturally, arrests had to be made. Acting on an FIR filed by Bajrang Dal member Yogesh Raj, who is coincidentally the prime accused in the inspectors murder, police arrested two 11- and 12-year-old Muslim boys for cow slaughter, detaining them for a few hours before releasing them when they learned the accused were not in the village where the carcasses were found. Meanwhile, Raj himself is absconding, and releasing videosproclaiming his innocence over social media from locations unknown to the police.
It truly feels like we are living in an episode of Black Mirror, a dystopian reality where the sister of a slain policeman mourns how the CM can only chant gau, gau, gau while her brother gave up his life. Add in Adityanaths claims of a cow-slaughtering conspiracy, and youve got one wild script. But perhaps reality is stranger than any fiction, because there are reports of a conspiracy afoot just not the one Adityanath is worried about.
The slain inspectors sister Sunita Singh stated that she believed her brother was killed by the police, because of his involvement in the investigation of Mohammed Akhlaqs lynching. Even the Director General of Police in UP, OP Singh, smells something fishy in the way the violence unfolded on Monday. The incident in Bulandshahr is a big conspiracy. This is not only a law and order issue. How did the cattle carcass reach there? Who brought it, why, and under what circumstances? he told NDTV.
Clearly, the policemans death is an inconvenience to those who seek to use the incident to further their hardline Hindutva agenda. The fact that all the accused belong to right-wing organisations like VHP, Bajrang Dal, and BJP youth wing, is no surprise, nor is the way that Suresh Chavhanke, editor-in-chief of Hindi news channel Sudarshan News attempted to link the violence to the Muslim ijtema taking place in Bulandshahr in several tweets posted on the same day. Even after the UP police fact-checked him on Twitter, clarifying that the violence had nothing to do with the ijtema, Chavhanke did not delete his posts, choosing to leave his fake news out in the public sphere.
Adityanaths reluctance to address Subodh Kumar Singhs death is a dog whistle to the rabid Hindutva lynch mobs.
We should all become familiar with such fear-mongering and attempts to drive a communal wedge in society before next years election, because the baffling response to Bulandshahr feels like the prologue to a very dark chapter in our history. Where the CM is protecting cows over people and the PM is busy attending Priyanka Chopras wedding reception, turning a blind eye to the murder of police officer and a 20-year-old local. Adityanaths reluctance to address Subodh Kumar Singhs death is a dog whistle to the rabid Hindutva lynch mobs, declaring open season on those who stand between him and his vision of Indias future.
In a column titled The Ease of Killing a Policeman in Adityanaths Uttar Pradesh, journalist and editor Harish Khare skewers the governments tendency to look the other way when mobs run riot, even when it costs a policemans life. He paints a picture of an India where ordinary citizens live in mortal fear of falling afoul of the mob, where dissent against the majority can be met with a violent demise. At the end of the column, he signs off with the chilling prediction that its Bulandshahr today, India tomorrow.
And that, is frightening.
This article has been written by Dushyant Shekhawat.