Cow vigilante violence in India

Cow protection-related violence is perpetrated by individuals or groups for the purposes of protecting cows and related cattle from slaughter or theft. Self-styled "cow protection" groups emerged in India in the 19th-century, starting with Sikh Kukas. The 1880s and 1890s witnessed many instances of cow protection-related violence. The cow-killing riots of 1893 were the most intense civil disturbance in the Indian subcontinent after the 1857 revolt.

Cow slaughter is banned in most parts of India. Beef production and exports from India, particularly those sourced from buffalo has been rising. Cow protection groups have emerged, with many of these groups perpetrating violence claiming to be protecting cattle. These groups have accused some Indian Muslims and Dalits of cattle theft or slaughter, and then targeted violence against them. The cow protection groups describe themselves as gau rakshak (meaning "cow protection"). Cow-protection groups see themselves as preventing theft, protecting the cow or upholding Indian laws banning cow slaughter. According to media reports, cow protection-related violence has increased after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government came to power in Delhi in 2014. Many cow vigilante groups say they feel "empowered" by the victory of the Hindu nationalist BJP in the 2014 election. The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has denounced the vigilantes, saying they were not legitimate "gau rakshaks" (cow protection volunteers).

Background

Cattle slaughter

See also: Cattle slaughter in India

Cattle slaughter is a controversial topic in India because of the cattle's traditional status as an endeared and respected living being to many in Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism, in contrast to cattle being considered as a religiously acceptable source of meat by many in Islam, Christianity as well as some in Hinduism and other Indian religions. More specifically, the cow's slaughter has been shunned because of a number of reasons such as being associated with god Krishna in Hinduism, cattle being respected as an integral part of rural livelihoods and an essential economic necessity. Historically, cattle slaughter has also been opposed by various Indian religions because of the ethical principle of Ahimsa (non-violence) and the belief in the unity of all life.

There can be little doubt, states Peter van der Veer, "that protection of the cow already had a political significance before the British period". The Mughal emperor Akbar banned the killing of cow. After the collapse of the Mughal Empire, cow slaughter was a capital offense in many Hindu and Sikh ruled regions of the subcontinent. The East India Company continued the ban on cow slaughter in many domains. Henry Lawrence, after the British annexed Punjab, banned cattle slaughter in it in 1847, in order to win the popular Sikh support. In the 1857 revolt, the Muslim emperor Bahadur Shah II threatened to blow any Muslim caught sacrificing a cattle during Bakr-Id. The independence leader of India, Mahatma Gandhi, championed cow protection.

Article 48 of the Constitution of India mandates the state to prohibit the slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle. On October 26, 2005, the Supreme Court of India, in a landmark judgement upheld the constitutional validity of anti-cow slaughter laws enacted by different state governments in India. 24 out of 29 states in India currently have various regulations prohibiting either the slaughter or sale of cows. Kerala, West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim are the states where there are no restrictions on cow slaughter.

The laws governing cattle slaughter in India vary greatly from state to state. The "Preservation, protection and improvement of stock and prevention of animal diseases, veterinary training and practice" is Entry 15 of the State List of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, meaning that State legislatures have exclusive powers to legislate the prevention of slaughter and preservation of cattle. Some States allow the slaughter of cattle with restrictions like a "fit-for-slaughter" certificate which may be issued depending on factors like age and gender of cattle, continued economic viability etc. Others completely ban cattle slaughter, while there is no restriction in a few states. On 26 May 2017, the Ministry of Environment of Indian Central Government led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) imposed a ban on the sale and purchase of cattle for slaughter at animal markets across India, under Prevention of Cruelty to Animals statutes.

Illegal slaughterhouses and cattle theft

According to media reports, India has numerous illegal slaughterhouses. For example, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, the officials in 2013 reported over 3,000 illegal slaughterhouses. Cattle are traditionally left to freely roam streets and graze in India. These are easy prey to thieves, state Rosanna Masiola and Renato Tomei. According to The New York Times, the organized mafia gangs pick up the cattle they can find and sell them to these illegal slaughterhouses. These crimes are locally called "cattle rustling" or "cattle lifting". In many cases, the cows belong to poor dairy farmers who lack the facility or infrastructure to feed and maintain the cows, and they don't traditionally keep them penned. According to Masiola and Tomei, the increasing meat consumption has led to cows becoming a target for theft.

The theft of cattle for slaughter and beef production is economically attractive to the mafias in India. In 2013, states Gardiner Harris, a truck can fit 10 cows, each fetching about 5,000 rupees (about US$ 94 in 2013), or over US$900 per cattle stealing night operation. In a country where some 800 million people live on less than US$2 per day, such theft-based mafia operations are attractive. Many states have reported rising thefts of cattle and associated violence, according to The Indian Express.

According to Triloki Nath Madan, Muslim groups have been accused of stealing cattle as a part of larger violence against non-Muslims. Cattle theft, states David Gilmartin, was a common crime in British India.

According to The Daily Star, some of cattle theft operations move the cattle stolen in India across the border into Bangladesh, ahead of festivals such as Eid-ul-Azha when the demand for meat increases. The criminals dye the white or red cows into black, to make identifying the stolen cow difficult. The Border Guard Bangladesh in 2016 reported of confiscating stolen cattle, where some of cattle's original skin color had been "tampered with". According to Zahoor Rather, trade in stolen cattle is one of the important crime-related border issues between India and Bangladesh.

Contemporary "cow protection" groups

As of 2016, cow protection vigilante groups were estimated to have sprung up in "hundreds, perhaps thousands" of towns and villages in northern India. There were an estimated 200 such groups in Delhi-National Capital Region alone. Some of the larger groups claim up to 5,000 members.

One kind of cow protection groups are gangs who patrol highways and roads at night, looking for trucks that might be "smuggling" cows across the state borders. These gangs can be armed; they justify this by claiming that "cow smugglers" themselves are often armed. The Haryana branch of Bhartiya Gau Raksha Dal described to the The Guardian that it had exchanged gunfire with alleged smugglers, killed several of them and lost several of its members too. The gangs have been described as "unorganized", and gang leaders admit that their members can be hard to control.

The gangs consist of volunteers, many of whom are poor laborers. The volunteers often tend to be young. According to a gang leader, "it’s easy to motivate a youth". Often the youth are given "emotional" motivation by being shown graphic videos of animals being tortured. One member said that cow vigilantism had given him a "purpose in life".

The vigilantes often have a network of informers (consisting of cobblers, rickshaw drivers, vegetable vendors etc.) who alert them to suspect anti-cow activities. The gang members and their network often use social media to circulate information. Their relationship with the police is disputed: some vigilantes claim to work with the police, while others claim the police is corrupt and incompetent and they must take matters into their own hands.

Many vigilantes believe their actions are approved by the government and Hindus of India. For example, the vigilante group "Gau Rakshak Dal", formed in Haryana in 2012, believe it is acting on government mandate.

The Economist argues that cow vigilantism can sometimes be a profitable business. It pointed to an Indian Express investigation that found that vigilantes in Punjab charge cattle transporters 200 rupees ($3) per cow in exchange for not harassing their trucks.

Economic importance of cattle

According to Marvin Harris, the importance of cattle to Hindus and other Indian religious groups is beyond religion, because the cattle has been and remains an important pillar of rural economy. In the traditional economy, states Harris, a team of oxen is "Indian peasant's tractor, thresher and family car combined", and the cow is the factory that produces those oxen. The cattle produce nutritious milk, their dung when dried serves as a major cooking fuel, and for the poor the cattle is an essential partner in many stages of agriculture. A natural loss of a cattle from untimely death can cripple a poor family, and thus slaughtering a creature so useful and essential is unthinkable.

Historical violence

See also: Cow protection movement

1800s

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. 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.

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.

1900–1947

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 Bakri-Id, 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.

1947–2014

In 1966, eight people were killed in riots outside the Indian Parliament in Delhi, while demanding a national ban on cow slaughter.

In 2002, five Dalit youths were killed by a mob in Jhajjar district, Haryana. The mob were reportedly led by members of the Vishva Hindu Parishad in the presence of local police officials, following false rumors that the Dalits had killed a cow. The local leader of the VHP, Acharya Giriraj Kishore said he had no regrets over the incident, and that the life of a cow was worth more than the lives of five Dalits. Kishore's comments were condemned by Indian newspapers.

In 2010, a mob attacked Muslims in Nerwa (Chaupal), Shimla, after alleged cow slaughter. The mob vandalized Muslim-owned shops and mosques, and some buildings were set on fire.

In 2012, some Dalit students organized a "beef festival" on the Osmania University campus in Hyderabad. They were opposed by a Hindu student group. In the resulting clashes, one student was stabbed, five others were injured and many vehicles were burnt.

2014–present

The BJP has run the Indian federal government since its election in 2014. Following Narendra Modi's rise to power, extremist Hindu groups have led attacks across the country that have targeted Muslim and Dalit communities. These attacks have been carried out with the stated intention of protecting cows. Dalit groups are particularly vulnerable to such attacks, as they are frequently responsible for disposing cattle carcasses and skins. The perpetrators of these attacks, described as "vigilantism" by Human Rights Watch, have stated that they are protecting the rights of Hindus, and that the police do not adequately deal with cow slaughter. Scholar Radha Sarkar has argued that "cow vigilantism itself is not new in India, and violence over the protection of cows has occurred in the past. However, the frequency, impunity, and flagrance of the current instances of cow-related violence are unprecedented."

In 2015 Business Insider reported that vigilante attacks on trucks carrying cattle had increased in Maharastra. In 2017, Bloomberg reported that according to the meat industry representatives, cow vigilantes have been stopping vehicles, extorting money and stealing valuable livestock.

Cow vigilante activity also increased during the run up to Bihar Legislative Assembly election, 2015. BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi said the election was "a fight between those who eat beef and those who are against cow slaughter".

The Economist argues that cow vigilantism can sometimes be a profitable business. It pointed to an Indian Express investigation that found that vigilantes in Punjab charge cattle transporters 200 rupees ($3) per cow in exchange for not harassing their trucks.

"Cow protection" groups

As of 2016, cow protection vigilante groups were estimated to have sprung up in "hundreds, perhaps thousands" of towns and villages in northern India. There were an estimated 200 such groups in Delhi-National Capital Region alone. Some of the larger groups claim up to 5,000 members.

One kind of cow protection groups are gangs who patrol highways and roads at night, looking for trucks that might be "smuggling" cows across the state borders. These gangs can be armed; they justify this by claiming that "cow smugglers" themselves are often armed. The Haryana branch of Bhartiya Gau Raksha Dal described to the The Guardian that it had exchanged gunfire with alleged smugglers, killed several of them and lost several of its members too. The gangs have been described as "unorganized", and gang leaders admit that their members can be hard to control.

The gangs consist of volunteers, many of whom are poor laborers. The volunteers often tend to be young. According to a gang leader, "it’s easy to motivate a youth". Often the youth are given "emotional" motivation by being shown graphic videos of animals being tortured. One member said that cow vigilantism had given him a "purpose in life".

The vigilantes often have a network of informers (consisting of cobblers, rickshaw drivers, vegetable vendors etc.) who alert them to suspect anti-cow activities. The gang members and their network often use social media to circulate information. Their relationship with the police is disputed: some vigilantes claim to work with the police, while others claim the police is corrupt and incompetent and they must take matters into their own hands.

Laws, state support, and legal issues

The BJP government has placed a number of restrictions on the slaughter of cattle. In May 2017 it banned the slaughter of cattle for purpose of exporting beef. This restriction threatened an Indian beef export industry worth $4 billion annually.

Indian states have been passing stricter laws. For example, in March 2015, Maharashtra passed stricter legislation with regards to cow slaughter. Cow vigilantes have also been emboldened by these laws, and attack Muslims suspected of smuggling cattle for slaughter.

Some Indian states have been accused of having laws that enable cow protection groups. In April 2017 the Supreme Court asked the governments of six states: Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh; to respond to a plea asking for a ban against cow-protection related vigilantism, due to the violence perpetrated by these groups.

Many vigilantes believe their actions are approved by the government and Hindus of India. For example, the vigilante group "Gau Rakshak Dal", formed in Haryana in 2012, believe it is acting on government mandate. Scholar Radha Sarkar has stated that the bans on beef "tacitly legitimize vigilante activity." Cow protection groups formed in Haryana in 2012 see themselves to now be "acting upon the mandate of the government." Such groups across the country have "[taken] it upon themselves to punish those they believe to be harming the cow." Such incidents of violence have occurred even in situations in which no illegal actions have occurred, such as in the handling of dead cattle. According to Sarkar, cow protection groups have taken actions that they know to be illegal, because they believe that the have the support of the government.

In November 2016, the BJP-led Haryana government has decided to provide ID cards for cow vigilantes. However they were not issued despite collecting the details of vigilantes.

According to Russia Today and Human Rights Watch, many cow protection vigilante groups are allied with the BJP. According to BBC News, many cow-protection vigilantes attend training camps organized by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which is BJP's parent organization.

Mukul Kesavan, in The Telegraph, accused BJP officials of justifying vigilantism. He pointed out that after some vigilante attacks, the BJP officials tried to get the police to charge the victims (or their family) for provoking the assault.

Incidents of violence

A number of incidents of violence have occurred since 2014. 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". Human Rights Watch has reported that there has been a surge in cow vigilante violence since 2015. The surge is attributed to the recent rise in Hindu nationalism in India. Many vigilante groups say they feel "empowered" by the victory of the Hindu nationalist BJP in the 2014 election. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been emboldened by the fact that the Prime Minister of India is also one of its members. The RSS has a history of launching vigilante campaigns, including cow protection groups.

• May 30 2015, Rajastan: a 60-year old man who ran a meat shop was beaten to death by a mob with sticks and iron rods.
• August 2 2015, Uttar Pradesh: according to Human Rights Watch, "purported animal rights activists allegedly belonging to People for Animals" beat three men to death, after the victims were found carrying buffaloes.
• Dadri mob lynching refers to case of mob lynching in which a mob of villagers attacked the home of a Muslim man Mohammed Ikhlaq, with sticks and bricks, who they suspected of stealing and slaughtering a stolen cow calf, on the night of 28 September 2015 in Bisara village near Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, India. 52-year-old Mohammad Akhlaq Saifi (Ikhlaq according to some sources) died in that attack and his son, 22-year-old Danish seriously injured.
• October 9, 2015, Jammu and Kashmir: a right-wing Hindu mob in Udhampur district threw gasoline bombs at an 18-year-old trucker. The mob had incorrectly suspected the trucker of transporting beef.
• October 14, 2015, Himachal Pradesh: a mob beat a 22-year old to death, and injured four others, after suspecting them of transporting cows. Police immediately arrested the victims of the attack, accusing them of cow slaughter. Later police said they would investigate if Bajrang Dal was behind the attack.
• Jharkhand mob lynching 2016 Jharkhand mob lynching refers to the case of lynching of two Muslim cattle traders by allegedly Cattle-Protection Vigilantes in Balumath forests in Latehar district in Jharkhand on 18 March 2016. The attackers killed 32 years old Mazlum Ansari and 15 years old Imteyaz Khan who were found hanging from a tree.
• Alwar mob lynching refers to the attack and murder of Phelu Khan, a dairy farmer from Nuh district of Haryana by a group of 200 cow vigilantes affiliated with right-wing Hindutva groups in Alwar, Rajasthan, India. Six others who were with Phelu Khan were also beaten by the cow vigilantes.
• April 24, 2017, Jammu and Kashmir: a family of five, including a 9-year old girl, were attacked and injured; police arrested 11 so-called cow vigilantes in connection with the attack.
• April 20, 2017, Assam: two men, in their 20s, were allegedly killed by a mob of cow vigilantes, after being accused of trying to steal cows for slaughter.
• June 23 2017, Delhi-Ballabhgarh train: four Muslims were lynched allegedly over rumors of beef eating. According to the police, the victims had arguments over meat with their co-passengers who attacked them with knife.
• On 1st May 2017, two Muslim men were lynched in Nagaon district of Assam on suspicion of stealing cows. While the police managed to rescue the men, both of them died of their injuries.
• June 22, 2017, West Bengal: Three Muslim men were lynched in Islampur, Uttar Dinajpur for allegedly trying to steal cows. A police complaint was made by the mother of the deceased Nasir Haque. According to SP Amit Kumar Bharat Rathod, they had arrested 3 people named Asit Basu, Asim Basu and Krishna Poddar and conducting further investigation.

Responses

After an attack on four Dalits in Gujarat in July 2016, thousands of members of the Dalit community took to the streets to protest what they saw was "government inaction". The protests spread across the state. In clashes with the police, one policeman was killed and dozens of protesters were arrested. At least five Dalit youth attempted suicide, one of whom died.

While some have accused Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of supporting cow vigilantism in India, the BJP has denied this. In May 2017, Union Minister and BJP leader Smriti Irani has said that the BJP does not support cow protection vigilantes. Siddharth Nath Singh has denied allegations that the BJP administration condones vigilantism and said illegal attacks would be punished.

In August 2016, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that cow vigilantism made him angry and condemned it. Modi has been criticized for not doing enough to end the violence. Zafarul Islam Khan says that Modi has condemned vigilante attacks on Dalits but not vigilante attacks on Muslims. The New York Times stated that Modi is partly to blame, as he has stoked inflammatory rhetoric over cow slaughter.