Bonding over the dead cow
Id-ul-Zuha was marked by an unusual rite in Lucknow recently. Instead of the customary goat, a cake was “sacrificed” by a Muslim who said he wanted to spread “the message of humanity”. It was a well publicised event organised by the Rashtriya Muslim Manch (RMM), the Muslim outfit of the RSS to rope in “nationalist Muslims”. The cake cutting captures the crass politics of the day with even biryani disappearing from the menu.
For the community it is not the goat so much as the cow that is at the heart of the explosive religious intolerance that is imperilling their lives and the livelihoods. The cow politics of the ruling BJP and its cohorts has resulted in the lynching of several Muslim cattle traders for allegedly taking cows to the slaughter. The most horrifying was the killing of a Muslim in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, after rumours were floated that he had eaten beef at home. Equally, the dalits who fall outside the Hindu caste system, have been at the receiving end of violent politics.
Caste antipathies are ingrained in the Indian psyche and little excuse is needed to abuse or assault those in the lowest strata of society. That the dalits are regularly killed across the country despite the special constitutional safeguards they enjoy is neither surprising nor new. But that they are being thrashed ferociously for carrying out their traditional occupation of clearing or skinning dead cows is a consequence of the muscular politics of cow protection unleashed by the BJP, not least by Narendra Modi before he became the PM. Self-styled gau rakshaks are running amok, and boasting about their lawlessness. Visceral hatreds vented in this way would have gone unchecked if the normally docile dalits had not revolted against the public flogging of seven men of their community in Una, Gujarat.
The unexpected revolt has inspired the other unfortunate victims of Hindutva’s rabid cow politics, the Muslims to make common cause with the dalits. Politically more organised than the Muslims who have no leader to shepherd them, they have joined the dalit in the fight against “the RSS agenda of cultural nationalism” which is “clearly anti-dalit, antiAdivasi, anti-minority and against all oppressed sections”.
The alliance has been tried before in the past but was undermined by a history of manipulated antipathies between the two communities which has resulted in bloodshed. Hindutva forces have often deployed dalits and tribal people to attack Muslims during communal riots, most notably in the communal frenzy of 2002 when close to 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in Gujarat.
The dalit rising in Una has been marked by significant Muslim participation. They have shared the dais with the dalits and spoken out against the attacks on “their dalit brothers”. As the revolt spread to other states it seems that the newfound unity is deepening with organisations like the Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind throwing its weight behind the campaign.
For the saffron party which is preparing for three crucial state elections in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, this new bonding could result in a major political churn. The BJP needs the support of the dalits especially in Punjab where they account for 32 per cent of the population and in UP where BSP, the dalit party led by Mayawati, appears all set to capture the state in 2017. Mayawati is already building on the emerging unity by forming a core team of local and regional dalit-Muslim leaders.
This would be disastrous for the BJP which was able to win over the dalits in huge numbers in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. To dissuade the dalits from consolidating such an alliance, a senior BJP functionary has raised its favourite bogey, Pakistan, to warn of them of loss of identity. BJP general secretary P. Muralidhar Rao says history has shown that whenever the Muslims and dalits got together the latter were “wiped out”. In other words, they would all be converted.
The BJP strategy is clear. It will woo the dalits because of their numerical strength and their clear-cut identity, while showing the Muslims they do not matter anymore in the BJP’s electoral or political calculations. Modi has reinforced this impression with his overheated rhetoric “shoot me if you must but not my dalit brothers” post Una. On the horrific lynching of Muslims cattle traders, one of them a 12-year-old boy, by saffron vigilantes the Prime Minister has maintained a studied silence. This makes one wonder.
If the BJP manages to rein in its storm troopers and take the dead cow out of the equation will the dalit-Muslim alliance last? By arrangement with Dawn