Symbolic acts without immediate tangible consequences can sometimes hold long-term implications when appropriated as a signifier in a political struggle. By itself, >the ink-and-oil attack on Engineer Rashid , an independent member of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, might appear to be little more than a copy-cat act by the Hindu Sena following last week’s >paint attack by the Shiv Sena in Mumbai on Sudheendra Kulkarni. Both were meant to appeal to the core Hindutva constituency that remains deeply suspicious of both India’s Muslims and Pakistan. For the Shiv Sena, it was an attempt to regain some of its hardline supporters who had moved over to its ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party. For the lesser-known Hindu Sena, this was its moment in the sun. However, in the context of the >unrest in J&K over the >ban on beef , and a >‘beef party’ organised by Mr. Rashid, the attack will doubtless be seen as an act of grave provocation in the Kashmir Valley. After the Jammu and Kashmir High Court upheld the validity of an old, hardly implemented law banning cattle slaughter, and protests broke out across Kashmir, Mr. Rashid, no doubt to provoke the Hindutva elements and make political capital, organised a ‘beef party’ to draw attention to the opposition to the ban in Muslim-majority Kashmir. The Hindu Sena seems to have obliged Mr. Rashid by feeding into the discontent in Kashmir over the issue. The result is the front-staging of the sense of political alienation among Kashmiris.
The J&K High Court, whose decision to uphold the beef ban law first led to pro-beef protests, did well to later refer the decision back to the executive; the issue is not one of any infirmity in the legislation, but of its need and practicality. What Mr. Rashid sought to achieve by hosting the ‘beef party’ was only helped along by the Hindu Sena when it threw ink at him. To treat this attack as another instance of the lunatic fringe makes no sense as it was the BJP that first targeted the independent MLA. Indeed, the attack must have seemed a minor irritant for Mr. Rashid, who had earlier been beaten up by BJP members in the State Assembly. Neither the Sena nor the BJP in J&K would qualify as the fringe; and without the acceptance of such violence by sections of the ruling establishment, many of the fringe groups would not have mustered the courage to carry out these brazen attacks. Clearly, Hindutva elements have a vested interest in fomenting unrest in the Kashmir Valley. In this, they are a mirror image of the jihadists in Pakistan, unsettling relations between India and Pakistan at every available opportunity. Unless such elements are put down with a heavy hand, the consequences would be far greater than ink and oil on someone’s face.
