Beefed up for exclusion

For the past few weeks, Muslim peasants of the Mewat district in Haryana have been on the receiving end of vigilante groups as well as a collusive police force, both systematically destroying their biryani stalls on the unsubstantiated suspicion that they serve beef. Coming as it does almost a year after the lynching of a Muslim man on similar grounds following an Eid feast in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, Muslims celebrating Eid, especially in states where beef is banned, will have little reason to place their faith in the official security apparatus. Dadri and Mewat demonstrate that the ban on the slaughter of cows and bulls has less to do with the Directive Principles of State Policy (to ensure the health of livestock), and everything to do with beefing up a communal agenda for political gains.

The flogging of Dalits in Una, Gujarat, by upper caste men, ostensibly for killing a cow, suggests that casteism too plays a role. It is no coincidence that the principal consumers of beef are Muslims; the poorer among them as well as lower-caste Hindus are also the chief processors of livestock products. These groups have become the victims of vigilantism fostered by politicians and local strongmen and enforced with the help of unemployed youth and the state police machinery. The near impunity these law-breakers enjoy in India's slothful and corrupt justice system, where due process is an alien concept, adds to their enthusiasm.

Mewat combines the communal and the casteist nature of cow vigilantism and demonstrates how this impacts the livelihoods of the poor. This is one of Haryana's poorest districts, sorely in need of the "development" that was the centrepiece of the Bharatiya Janata Party's 2014 Lok Sabha campaign. Yet, in the months since a BJP government was elected in Haryana, this district has been the target of a study by a Hindutva-affiliated think tank that suggested - erroneously - that the number of Muslims has been expanding faster than Hindus; a proposed name change to "Nuh", from Meos, the Muslim tribe after which it is named; and attacks on those who supplement their meagre income from depleting agricultural activity with biryani sales ahead of Eid.

Last year, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had said the name change was to distinguish Mewat from similar districts in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, and promised schools and irrigation projects to the Mewatis. Instead, it is the incidents of rape and pillage that have come to light. Ironically, these are not the only victims of a beef ban: In Maharashtra's drought-hit Latur district, Hindu farmers were doubly distressed because they were unable to sell their cattle to compensate for a series of crop failures. The plight of millions of distressed cattle evicted by their hapless owners does not appear to have generated a similar level of fervour among the cow vigilantes. For the vulnerable population in India, whether Hindu or Muslim, Mewat's biryani politics holds ominous portents. It occurred within weeks of the prime minister's exhortation for restraint to gau rakshak groups, suggesting that the party has weak control over the lumpen elements within its fold. This implies that "development" is rapidly being substituted by a regressive social agenda that is out of sync with the idea of India.