After ten days of his first warning to Cow Vigilantes, Prime Minister Modi used the occasion of all-party meeting ahead of monsoon session of the parliament, to repeat his warning.
It appears Modi ’s advisory to Cow vigilantes against mob lynching was not even acknowledged by the vigilantes. All and sundry have questioned Modi’s silence on the lynchings. When he spoke, he was criticised for speaking so late.
True, lynchings are absolute horror to happen as they only present the dark face of our society. Then, so are rapes, kidnappings and murders. Even if we go by official data that comprises only reported offenses, about a hundred murders and rapes happen in India daily. Of these, only one rape case has generated a national outrage forcing the government to change the law – yet failed to prevent rapes from happening. The most discussed murder of last year was by Indrani Mukherjea, who killed her daughter.
Pro-government news rarely sells in the business of media. That’s why scams involving ruling parties are oxygen to the media industry. However, intelligent are those who create opportunities when none exist. As BJP is seen a party representing Hindus and Cow vigilantes kill invoking the religion, these lynchings get a good coverage and be a point of discussion, despite being few in numbers. So, neglecting the general opinion of the government, the attacks by cow vigilantes were projected on 24×7 basis into drawing rooms and are exploited their news value to the maximum.
Many parties, organisations and nations that have grown to be exemplary have reduced after some time. Most of the times, it is underestimating the intelligence of common populace is the reason for the downfall. What media forgot when they decided to extract news value out of the mob lynchings, is how they are affecting the psyche of viewers.
Most of Hindus, despite loving and respecting Cows, don’t support attacks by vigilantes. At the best, they support Cow vigilantes handover any cattle smuggler to police and take credit for saving cows. Then there are reports that even police think personal scores are being settled in the name of Cow protection.. But, nobody can negate the fact that there are cases where in Cow vigilantes pursued and killed some cattle smugglers and traders. Yet, many Hindus are not vocal in condemning the acts of Cow vigilantes. They know that these Cow vigilantes are a menace to the society and they too may become victim to such vigilantes. Yet, they were silent.
Why there is no outrage by Hindus against Cow vigilantes?
Media should have investigated this issue with full courage and conviction. In other words, Media needs to do an introspection; what they were doing wrong so there is no outrage by Hindus. The answer is simple. Media, the so called fourth estate has lost its credibility. From the early days, when there were only newspapers, there were two types of media. One section simply reports and provides unbiased analyses, while the other one is used to propagate the ideology of the publisher/editor. Our politicians used the media effectively since the days of National Movement.
The unbiased media never affects people’ thought as the air of editorials is not thought provoking, but providing information. The other media is used to percolate the ideology down to the minds of masses. Even post independence, many parties used their mouth pieces to present their views on various subjects to their supporters. With time, the unbiased media had died its natural death. What remained is media owned by businessmen or politicians and in some cases, media persons patronized by politicians. The prejudice in the news is apparent. The comments by anchors for or against any party or community too are apparent. In their fight against each other, they forgot about the audience.
The news viewer is also an intelligent person who knows what is what. In the days of instant news availability, they too exercise a wisdom to watch what they know is a bit genuine. Of course, they may watch pure nonsense too, only for the sake of entertainment. But, average Indian citizen no more let news anchors (of all types) to affect his decision making process.
So, when the media and its guardians create a cacophony in the streets, the viewer is annoyed at their projection of the issue for various reasons. First of these reasons is the religious angle. Are these journos not the same ones, who shy away calling ‘Islamic Terrorism’ by its name? Despite millions of lives lost across world and many in India, these liberal journos explain how terror has no religion. But, in a nation as populous as India, less than one hundred incidents paint entire Hindu community in red. The term Saffron Terror was used to a great extent, without thinking about its ramifications. Average Hindu is abhorred by such blatant exaggeration of this term. Here is a community that suffered for a millennium and there are people blaming them. If we ask these journalists about what happened to Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh, the answer would be how bad they are and how good we are supposed to be. So, Indian Hindus are expected to behave good while their brethren disappear from other parts of Indian sub-continent.
Some intelligent journos try to explain how Hinduism and Hindutva are two different things. They try to invoke Vedas (as if they believe in them) to prove beef consumption was practiced in ancient India. Who cares really what ancient Indian ate? With time Indian society evolved and beef consumption has stopped. It was reintroduced only during the time of Brits to divide Hindus and Muslims. What these journalists don’t understand is the futility of invoking Vedas. Are they going to implement each and everything that was written in ancient scriptures including Manu Smriti? Well, No. The moment this question is raised, all the response we get is – Silence, with a capital S. All sections of Hindus understand that the media is using ancient scriptures only as a shield to avoid answering uncomfortable questions.
Second reason is not protesting attacks by Muslims with same loudness. There was an incident in Kerala wherein a catholic school was attacked for serving pork during Ramzan, despite clear instructions to students on which items have pork as ingredient and advised Muslim students against consumption. And, there are many more such incidents involving minority community that were ignored for lack of market value.
Should I talk about recent riots in Bengal or what happened to that Tripathi guy, whom even his family forgot? Why the media is afraid to shout loudly when it was the lives and property of Hindus that was destroyed? Why there were no candle light marches organised in their memory? Are they not human beings?
Third and final reason is people are fed up of the media bringing RSS into every issue that happens in the country, whether it is good or bad. People voted for BJP into power and not RSS. RSS happens to be the organisation that is fountainhead of the nationalist thinking that BJP represents. A large percentage of BJP supporters are not from RSS and many may not even support their philosophy. The rhetoric of blaming RSS for all things that have gone bad simply deflects attention from the issue. Even if the accused in one case is a BJP leader, bringing RSS only diverts attention from his personal stake in the attack.
Citizens do compare the past with the present. The continuous rant of ‘undeclared emergency’ by those who write admiring biographies of Indira Gandhi and claim Modi is a fascist are evaluated by citizens with required prudence and ignored. When those who presided genocide against Delhi Sikhs and Lankan Tamils talk of their blood boiling on lynchings, people too twist uncomfortably in their drawing rooms.
Such pretentious acts and talks by these journalists and their political masters are only pushing the neutral citizen to the right. The more they shout and the louder their voice, citizens are pushed further right. Today citizens have reached a state, they stopped reacting to even the prime minister. They became defiant. After all, it was their votes that made him the Prime Minister. If people listen to prime minister, why there would be robberies, rapes, kidnappings and murders? It is the voice of people that the government should listen. Leaders are forced to talk the language liked by people. And not the other way. After all, we are a democracy! Isn’t it?
In the case of Cow Vigilantes, however, there is a need to have a social reformer, who can convince the vigilantes about the supremacy of human life. Then, how can there be a social reformer for only a section of a society? There shall also be one for the other section of society that engages itself in provoking the vigilantes. As long as the society remains the same, PM’s words are ignored.
