India: ‘Beef Lynching’ in India: Exploring the Causes of Religiously Motivated Violence
by Suparna Banerjee Ever since its foundation in 1980, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) propagated Hindu nationalism in India claiming that the Hindu majority is in danger. Muslims, the largest minority, were targeted because this political rhetoric required an ‘enemy’ to legitimize the narrative. Part of the ideology of Hindutva, which aims at creating a Hindu nation, is its polarizing strategy of pitting the two communities against each other. Lynchings of Muslims became the most visible outcome where the broader Hindutva ideology began to be accepted as a righteous instrument to deal with the ‘enemy.’2 The consumption of beef by Muslims is one of the main reasons for lynching. Hindus consider cows their sacred animal. This article aims to contribute to understanding the rise in lynching of Muslims by contextualizing the political rhetoric of the BJP and subsequently suggests ways to address it. Table 1 demonstrates the steady rise in cow-related violence during...
