The lynching last week of Mohammad Akhlaq in Uttar Pradesh’s Bishara village by a mob that accused him of storing and eating beef became an issue for the Centre only after it got attention in the international media and it transpired that some of the suspected assailants had direct links with the Bharatiya Janata Party.
A week after the 52-year-old blacksmith was killed, the Modi government’s principal spokesperson — and Union Finance Minister — Arun Jaitley told NDTV in New York: “India is a mature society. We have to rise above these incidents because they certainly don’t bring a good name as far as the country is concerned. And I have also said that they can amount to policy diversions.”
Alluding possibly not just to the perpetrators but also to prominent members of his party who had made a series of communally polarising remarks in the aftermath of the horrifying episode, Mr. Jaitley said it was the responsibility of every Indian, “in his actions or comments, to stay clear of unfortunate or condemnable incidents of this kind.”
These polarising remarks have ranged from Culture Minister and BJP MP (for the area in which the killing took place) Mahesh Sharma’s insistence that it was just an “accident,” to open threats to members of the minority community by the likes of other party MPs Yogi Adityanath, Sakshi Maharaj and Sanjeev Baliyan, a Minister in the Modi government. The last named is an accused in the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots like party MLA Sangeet Som.
As Akhlaq’s family left the village, seeking refuge in Delhi, such comments have gone virtually unchecked, barring a report filed by the police with the District Magistrate of Gautam Budh Nagar district recommending filing of FIRs against Mr. Sharma and Mr. Som (as well as BSP leader and former Minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui).
But with the episode damaging the BJP’s image not just nationally but internationally as well, the Centre is now making some feeble moves. The Home Ministry, in an advisory to all States, first said there would be “zero tolerance” for incidents that “attempt to weaken the secular fabric of the nation and exploit religious sentiments.” Mentioning the Dadri lynching, the advisory said the States should “take strictest action as per law... without any exception,” while asking the U.P. government for a report. On Tuesday, Home Minister Rajnath Singh called the incident “unfortunate”; on Wednesday, he scaled up his comment, saying the strongest possible action would be taken against the perpetrators.
But thus far, the Centre’s efforts at damage control after the Dadri lynching has been calibrated: while the Modi government does not want the incident to give the country a bad image abroad, as Mr. Jaitley said, it has fallen short of sending out a really strong message to BJP members or the larger sangh parivar, possibly because it feels that the current “beef politics” will pay it dividends in the Bihar polls critical to its future. That is perhaps, why, Prime Minister Narendra Modi — who had in the run-up to the 2014 polls, talked eloquently of the “pink revolution” (a euphemism for growing beef exports) — has remained silent.
