It is an irony that the Madhya Pradesh Cabinet has decided to give compensation to the victims of mob lynching, without taking any serious measures to prevent the occurrence of such incidents and without putting in place a stringent law to punish those who promote, abet and indulge in mob lynching. Only four states in India have passed anti-lynching laws: West Bengal, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Manipur.  

As per media reports, the Madhya Pradesh government on September 9 announced the ‘Mob Lynching Victim Compensation Scheme.’ The financial compensation will be paid to families of individuals, who are killed in such incidents, it announced. The scheme also awards compensation to those who sustain injuries in a mob lynching incident.

“Under this scheme, mob lynching has been specified as the killing of any person or persons by a group of five or more persons on grounds of religion, caste, sex, place of birth, language, food habits, sexual orientation, political affiliation, ethnicity or other such ground or grounds,” reported The Hindu. As per the government sources, the decision to approve the scheme was taken in compliance with the Supreme Court directive issued in July 2018. It took more than five years for the Madhya Pradesh government to comply with the SC directive. 

The Supreme Court in July 2018 had said that “horrendous acts of mobocracy cannot be allowed to over-run the law of the land”. The court declared that the authorities of the States have the “principal obligation” to see that vigilantism, be it cow vigilantism or any other vigilantism of any perception, does not take place. According to the directives of the Supreme Court in 2018, compensation is only one of the measures. On July 17, 2018 the Supreme Court had given 11-point prescription in connection with the Tehseen Poonawala judgment to end mob lynching. The directives included preventive, remedial and punitive steps to deal with the crime as given below.  

1.    The state governments shall designate a senior police officer in each district for taking measures to prevent incidents of mob violence and lynching.

2.    The state governments shall immediately identify districts, sub-divisions and villages where instances of lynching and mob violence have been reported in the recent past.

3.     The nodal officers shall bring to the notice of the DGP any inter-district co-ordination issues for devising a strategy to tackle lynching and mob violence related issues.

4.    It shall be the duty of every police officer to cause a mob to disperse, which, in his opinion, has a tendency to cause violence in the disguise of vigilantism or otherwise.

5.    The Central and the state governments should broadcast on radio and television and other media platforms including the official websites that lynching and mob violence shall invite serious consequence. 

6.     Curb and stop dissemination of irresponsible and explosive messages, videos and other material on various social media platforms. Register FIR under relevant provisions of law against persons who disseminate such messages.

7.    Ensure that there is no further harassment of the family members of the victims. 

8.    State governments shall prepare a lynching/mob violence victim compensation scheme.

9.    Cases of lynching and mob violence shall be specifically tried by designated court/fast track courts earmarked for that purpose in each district. The trial shall preferably be concluded within six months.

10.    To set a stern example in cases of mob violence and lynching, the trial court must ordinarily award maximum sentence upon conviction of the accused person.

11.    If it is found that a police officer or an officer of the district administration has failed to fulfil his duty, it will be considered as an act of deliberate negligence.

It seems that many states did not take the directives of the Supreme Court seriously. Although there was a decrease in the number of mob lynching incidents since 2019, cow-related hate-related lynching continues, especially in the BJP-ruled states. In response to a petition filed in the Supreme Court by the National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW) in July 2023, the court asked the Ministry of Home Affairs and the governments of Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana an explanation for their “consistent failure” in the past five years to act against lynching and mob violence committed on Muslims by cow vigilantes. The petition had sought the court to direct the Centre and the States to disburse immediate interim compensation to the victims’ families. This could be the immediate reason for the Madhya Pradesh Cabinet’s decision to give compensation to the victims of mob lynching. 

In June 2023, a spate of violent incidents related to cow vigilantism took place in Maharashtra, claiming three lives, including a gau rakshak who died in an alleged attack by a group of cattle transporters. As reported in the Indian Express on July 2, 2023, Maharashtra Assembly speaker Rahul Narvekar directed police to ensure that gau rakshaks are not booked on false charges, and that FIRs be lodged and probed if they are threatened or attacked.  The   attitude of the BJP governments to cow vigilantism is evident from the statement of Maharashtra Speaker.  

When one analyses the causes for the spurt in cow related mob lynching, it can be traced to amending the cow protection laws and making them stringent with stricter punishments for cow slaughter by the BJP governments in many states since 2014. This has emboldened the right-wing Hindu nationalist organizations like Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad and other cow vigilante groups to attack minority groups, especially the Muslims under the guise of cow protection.  

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) doesn’t maintain separate data on cow related violence; therefore, it is difficult to get official figures in this regard. A New Delhi-based centre which has collated data on atrocities against minorities since 2014 has a category for cow-related violence. The Documentation Of The Oppressed (DOTO) database, which has been updated until August 2022, found 206 such instances of cow related violence involving more than 850 people, including Dalits, Christians and public servants. The overwhelming majority of the victims, though, are Muslims. 

According to an article published in The Tribune on May 31, 2023, an estimated 200 cow vigilante groups are active in the Hindi belt alone and some of them claim to have up to 5,000 members. They have a sound information system and some of them have adopted it as a profession.

The root cause of mob lynching related to cow protection appears to be the direct and indirect support given by political and religious leaders. From its inception the BJP has been using cow protection as a strategy to polarize Hindus and to target Muslims. The sudden spurt in cow related mob lynching since 2014 proves that the direct and the indirect support by the BJP governments has created an environment in which cow vigilantes could operate with impunity. 

In 2016, the Haryana government decided to give licenses to some cow protection groups to help the police keep a check on alleged cow smuggling. Group members were often seen patrolling the streets, especially highways, at night, stopping vehicles, checking them for cattle, intimidating drivers, and reacting with violence if they found cows. These vigilantes also physically assaulted legitimate cattle transporters even when they were transporting other animals, such as buffaloes.

Another example for the support of BJP governments to cow vigilantes is Haryana government’s decision to set up a state-level Special Cow Protection Task Force Committee and, under this committee to set up special cow protection task forces for every district, which include some nominated gau sevaks/rakshaks (cow caretakers). In reality, most of the gau rakshaks are cow vigilantes. For example, Monu Manesar, a notorious cow vigilante of Haryana, is a member of Gurugram Special Task Force. He is also a member of the civil defence team of the district administration in Manesar. It is reported that he leads a team of approximately 50 cow vigilantes or gau rakshaks in the Gurugram-Rewari-Nuh region. 

Recently Monu Manesar was arrested by Haryana Police for allegedly uploading “objectionable and inflammatory” posts under a fictitious name on social media which led to Nuh communal violence. He was handed over to the Rajasthan police, which was searching to nab him for his alleged role in the killing of two Muslim men from Bharatpur -- Nasir and Junaid -- on February 16 this year. Monu Manesar was named in an FIR lodged by the Rajasthan Police after Nasir and Junaid were found dead in a burnt car in Loharu in Haryana’s Bhiwani. The victims had been allegedly abducted, murdered and their bodies torched along with their vehicle to erase evidence.

As per an article published in The Wire on 16th February 2023 (‘How Violent Cow Vigilantism Made Monu Manesar an Icon’ by Shinjini Majumder), Monu Manesar worked closely with the police or was part of the district civil defence team. He was often awarded and felicitated by law enforcement authorities. The article had published a compilation of pictures wherein Monu is seen with police officials and bureaucrats. He can be seen receiving awards and mementos in several of these pictures.   

Any objective socio-political observer can easily understand that cow related mob lynching became a serious law and order issue because of the overt and covert support of the state governments and the state police, as this menace is found mostly in the BJP-ruled states. Using cow protection as a strategy to polarize Hindu votes by the BJP and the right-wing Hindutva organizations is at the root of this menace. With the prevalence of crimes like mob lynching, is it possible for India to become Vishwa Guru? 

A news item in Free Press on 20th September published a statement of Pakistan’s self-exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.  “Today Pakistan’s Prime Minister goes from country to country to beg for funds while India has reached the moon and it is holding G20 meetings. Why Pakistan couldn’t achieve the feats India did. Who is responsible for this?” Nawaz Sharif did not give an answer to his own question. The answer is simple: India is a democracy with secularism/pluralism and fundamental rights for its citizens, whereas Pakistan is a theocracy with Islam as state religion and shariat as the basis of its constitution. As an Islamic theocratic state, the political environment in Pakistan has been conducive to the proliferation of religion-based terrorism. While India is enjoying the benefits of a liberal pluralistic democracy, Pakistan is suffering from the burden of religious fundamentalism. 

The BJP and RSS have to rethink about converting India into Hindutva Rashtra, a theocratic country on the model of Pakistan. Mob lynching is only one of the bad omens, if India becomes a Hindutva Rashtra. Violent ethnic cleansing in Manipur with the alleged tacit support of the Centre and State governments is another sign. People who blindly support Hindutva ideology have to learn from the bitter experiences of Pakistan as a failed state.