Cow vigilante violence refers to violence against those who are perceived to engage in cattle theft or slaughter. It is seen mainly in India, where cows are considered sacred to the Hindu majority. Many of the lynchings have been attributed to cow vigilantes who have taken it upon themselves to enforce laws against cow slaughter. In some states, the protection of cows, which are considered sacred in Hinduism, has been a significant issue, leading to violent actions against those suspected of harming or consuming cows.
Summary.
A number of incidents of violence have occurred. According to a June 2017 Reuters report, citing a data journalism website, a total of "28 Indians – 24 of them Muslims – have been killed and 124 injured since 2010 in cow-related violence". The frequency and severity of cow-related violence have been described as "unprecedented". The report stated that "Almost all of the 63 attacks since 2010 involving cow-related violence were recorded after Modi and his Hindu nationalist government came to power in 2014".
Targeting of Minorities.
A significant number of the victims of these lynchings have been Muslims, as well as Dalits (members of the lowest caste in India’s traditional hierarchy). This has raised concerns about rising religious and caste-based intolerance.
Before 1800s.
Cow slaughter has been punishable by death in many instances in Indian history. Under the Scindia of Gwalior state and the Sikh Empire, people were executed for killing cows.
The "Holi Riot" of 1714 in Gujarat was in part cow-related. A Hindu had attempted to start the spring festivities of Holi by burning a public Holika bonfire, a celebration that his Muslim neighbors objected to. The Muslims retaliated by slaughtering a cow in front of Hindu's house. The Hindus gathered, attacked the Muslims, seized the Muslim butcher's son and killed him. The Muslims, aided by the Afghan army, sacked the neighborhood, which led Hindus across the city to retaliate. Markets and homes were burnt down. Many Hindus and Muslims died during the Holi riot. The cycle of violence continued for a few days devastating the neighborhoods in Ahmedabad. The cow-related violence and riots repeated in the years that followed, though the only documented 18th-century riots in Ahmedabad are of 1714.
19th century.
According to Mark Doyle, the first cow protection societies on the Indian subcontinent were started by Kukas of Sikhism, a reformist group seeking to purify Sikhism. The Sikh Kukas or Namdharis were agitating for cow protection after the British annexed Punjab. In 1871, states Peter van der Veer, Sikhs killed Muslim butchers of cows in Amritsar and Ludhiana, and viewed cow protection as a "sign of the moral quality of the state". According to Barbara Metcalf and Thomas Metcalf, Sikhs were agitating for the well-being of cows in the 1860s, and their ideas spread to Hindu reform movements.
According to Judith Walsh, widespread cow protection riots occurred repeatedly in British India in the 1880s and 1890s. These were observed in regions of Punjab, United Provinces, Bihar, Bengal, Bombay Presidency and in parts of South Myanmar (Rangoon). The anti-Cow Killing riots of 1893 in Punjab caused the death of at least 100 people. The 1893 cow killing riots started during the Muslim festival of Bakr-Id, the riot repeated in 1894, and they were the largest riots in British India after the 1857 revolt.
Riots triggered by cow-killings erupted in Lahore, Ambala, Delhi, United Provinces, Bihar and other places in the late 19th century. In Bombay alone, several hundred people were killed or injured in cow-related violence in 1893, according to Hardy. One of the issues, states Walsh, in these riots was "the Muslim slaughter of cows for meat, particularly as part of religious festivals such as Bakr-Id". The cow protection-related violence were a part of larger communal riots, religious disputes, and class conflicts during the colonial era.
Elsewhere, in 1893 there were riots in Azamgarh and Mau, in eastern Uttar Pradesh. The Azamgarh riots were born out of administrative disputes regarding cow slaughter. Reportedly an inexperienced British officer (Henry Dupernex) ordered Muslims to register with the police, if they wished to slaughter cows for Eid al-Adha. Many of the Muslims interpreted the order as an invitation to sacrifice.
In the town of Mau, there were riots in 1806, states John McLane, that had led to Sadar Nizamat Adawlat to prohibit cow sacrifices in 1808. The Hindus had interpreted this to mean a prohibition to all cattle slaughter. In early 19th-century the prohibition was enforced in a manner Hindu interpreted it. In the 1860s, the interpretation changed to Muslim version wherein cattle sacrifice was banned in 1808, but not cattle slaughter. This, states McLane, triggered intense dissatisfaction among Hindus. Mau, with nearly half of its population being Muslim, resisted Hindu interpretation. When a "local Muslim "zamindar" (landowner) insisted on sacrificing an animal for his daughter's wedding", a group of local Hindus gathered to object, according to McLane. Four thousand men from Ballia district and two thousand from Ghazipur district joined the Hindus in Mau to stop the sacrifice in 1893. They were apparently motivated by the belief that cows had not been killed in Mau since Akbar's time, but the British were now changing the rules to allow cow killing in new locations. The cow-protecting Hindus attacked the Muslims and looted a bazaar in Mau. The British officials estimated seven Muslims were killed in the riots, while locals placed the toll at 200.
20th century.
Cattle protection-related violence continued in the first half of the 20th century. Examples of serious cow protection agitation and riots include the 1909 Calcutta riot after Muslims sacrificed a cow in public, the 1912 Faizabad riots after a Maulvi taunted a group of Hindus about a cow he was with, the 1911 Muzaffarpur riot when in retribution for cow slaughter by Muslims, the Hindus threatened to desecrate a mosque. In 1916 and 1917, over the Muslim festival of Eid-ul-Adha, two riots broke out in Patna with widespread rioting, looting and murders in major cities of Bihar. The British officials banned cow slaughter during Muslim Id festival of sacrifice. According to British colonial records, Hindu crowds as large as 25,000 attacked Muslims on Id day, violence broke out at multiple sites simultaneously, and civil authorities were unable to cope with. Many serious anti cow slaughter and cow protection-related riots broke out between 1917 and 1928 across India particularly on Muslim festival of sacrifice, from Punjab through Delhi to Orissa, leading to the arrests of hundreds.
In the 1920s, over 100 riots, 450 deaths and 5,000 injuries were recorded in Bengal which was divided in 1947 into East Pakistan and West Bengal. Two primary causes of the violence, states Nitish Sengupta, were Hindus Durga Puja processions playing music which continued as they passed near Muslim mosques, and Muslims killing cows in open during Eid-ul-Adha.
In 1946, rumors spread in Bengal that Hindus had secretly conspired to stop cow sacrifice on Eid-ul-Adha by bringing in Sikhs and arms into their homes. On the day of Islamic festival of sacrifice (September 1946), states Batabyal, the rumor spread among the Bengali Muslims congregated in mosques. The crowd coming out of the mosques then raided a large number of Hindu homes trying to find the arms and the Sikhs. Violence continued for about a week with "frequent instances of stray killings" and looting.
After the 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent into Pakistan and India, frequent riots and fatal violence broke in newly created India over cow slaughter. Between 1948 and 1951, cow slaughter led to a spate of riots broke out in Azamgarh, Akola, Pilbhit, Katni, Nagpur, Aligarh, Dhubri, Delhi and Calcutta. Riots triggered by slaughter of cows continued in rural and urban locations of India in the 1950s and 1960s. According to Ian Copland and other scholars, it was the practical stop of cow sacrifice ritual as Islamic festivals after 1947 that largely led to a reduction in riots from the peak observed just before India's independence. The riots, the add, re-emerged in the 1960s, when a new generation of Muslims born after the independence reached adolescence, who were less aware of the trauma of religious violence in India of the 1940s, began to assert their rights.
In 1966, 100 members of Indian parliament signed a petition for a nationwide ban on cow slaughter. Hindu "sadhus" (monks) gathered in Delhi to protest against cow slaughter, launched "go-raksha" (cow protection) agitation and demanded a ban. During a huge procession that was walking towards the parliament to press their demand, before they could reach the parliament, some people began a disturbance and rioting started. These riots killed eight people. Indira Gandhi, the newly nominated Prime Minister, continued her father's policy of no national ban on cow slaughter.
21st century.
2002.
In 2002, five Dalit youths were killed by a mob in Jhajjar district, Haryana after accusations of cow slaughter. The mob were reportedly led by members of the Vishva Hindu Parishad, according to Human Rights Watch. According to People's Union for Democratic Rights, the Vishva Hindu Parishad and the Gauraksha Samiti have defended violent vigilantism around cow protection as sentiments against the "sin of cow-slaughter" and not related to "the social identity of the victims". Various groups, such as the families of the Dalits victims of cow-related violence in 2002, did not question the legitimacy of cow protection but questioned instead the false allegations.
2005.
In March, 2005 a Muslim cattle trader and his son, Hajabba and Hasanabba were stripped and assaulted in outskirts of Udupi by Cow vigilante.
References.
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