Non-violent vegetarianism, holy cows and other myths

IN SEPTEMBER LAST YEAR, a 72-year-old Muslim man was taunted and beaten by young Hindu men on a train in the state of Maharashtra for carrying meat. Just days earlier, a 19-year-old Hindu boy died after being shot by cow vigilantes who chased him down on a highway near Delhi on the suspicion that he was a beef trader. Around the same time, hardline Hindutva groups in Rajasthan attacked Muslim shops and homes after a severed cow’s tail was discovered near a temple. These are only some of the latest instances in the resurgence of vigilante attacks following the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party’s coming to power in India in 2014. Led by self-styled cow-protection groups linked to militant Hindutva outfits, many of which have ties with the BJP, cow vigilante campaigns target Muslim and Dalit communities under the pretext of their alleged production, sale or consumption of beef.

With the Narendra Modi-led BJP government’s re-election for a third successive term in June 2024, the intensity and frequency of these attacks have continued unabated, with one report by the rights group Citizens for Justice and Peace noting a surge in such attacks in July and August last year. A 2019 report by Human Rights Watch documented 44 deaths caused by cow-protection groups between 2015 and 2018.