India has been witness to several incidents of communal violence in the name of the cow, beef and cattle since 2014, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government came to power (“Two suspected ‘cattle thieves’ lynched in Assam’s Nagaon,” May 2). No strong action is taken against the vigilantes, making the common man feel that by normalising the violence of non-state actors, the ruling party is sponsoring an assault on the Indian state itself. It has become very easy for some of the so-called ‘cow protectors’ to kill Muslims and later justify it, knowing that the law enforcement machinery will back them and will take action not against them but, on the contrary, against the victims.
If this flirtation of the state machinery with vigilantism continues, India, like Israel and Pakistan, could soon become a democracy that provides unequal treatment to different communities.
Imtiyaz Shamim,
Aligarh
