Struggle to Stop Lynchings by Hindutva Mobs

Even after the nationwide outrage over the Hindutva-incensed mob lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri district of Uttar Pradesh in 2015 and over the series of such the brutal lynchings, up to that of Pehlu Khan in Alwar district of Rajasthan by the VHP affiliated goons, the mob violence against the Muslims and Dalits isn’t showing any sign of retreat. A clear sign of government’s complicity in these crimes, which is boldening the perpetrators of these heinous crimes.

In the recent instance of anti-Muslim mob lynching, a 16-year-old boy, Junaid, was stabbed to death by Bajrang Dal affiliated goons in Haryana just before the Muslim festival of Eid and at the same time Mamata Banerjee-ruled West Bengal experienced one of the most heinous mob lynchings in the country, where three Muslim youth were killed by Hindu Samhati and RSS supporters in Chopra, North Dinajpur, after being accused of cattle smuggling. In Jharkhand, a Muslim man was beaten by a Hindutva mob and his house was set on fire after he was accused of being a beef trader. The pattern is same throughout the country, target any particular Muslim and then lynch or beat them up by accusing them either of consuming beef or of smuggling cattle. It’s not surprising that the police is unable to nab the culprits in these cases, even after the accused are named in the FIRs – a clear sign of state-machinery’s endorsement of these murders.

The killers in most of these cases, barring that of West Bengal, are from upper-caste Hindu families and they are motivated to act with utmost disregard to law and order as the BJP government in the centre and different states, like Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh is providing immunity cover to these culprits, who act as the foot soldiers for the RSS’ in imposing majoritarian terror and theocratic Brahminical dictatorship over the people. Without any substantial political opposition and resistance, these acts of gruesome violence against the most vulnerable sections of the society will continue with more fanfare, as RSS is spending thousands of crore rupees every month to wean supporters from other right-wing parliamentary parties and to turn the huge pool of unemployed, frustrated upper-caste men into its reserve army (a highly paid one though) to carry forward the beacon of Hindutva terrorism.

While most of the parliamentary parties in the so-called opposition are busy in adorning the TV studios with their wide gamut of muddle-headed spokespersons, who amplify the banal debates on the most ubiquitous form of Hindutva fascism, the real resistance providers to the saffron terror are hounded by the state-machinery and are gagged, so that their voices remain unheard and their movements are thrown into complete disarray. This overall scenario is now boosting the courage of the rowdy elements and encouraging them to plunge into the foray of Hindutva politics as the latter seduce them with the promise of unabated power, incessant flow of money, liquor and gun power. They see it as an opportunity to fulfil their personal ambitions, while the RSS use them as pawns to implement its own terrorist plans using a “fringe” cover.

But this is just one side of the story. There is another part of the same story; a big part indeed, which not many media outlets would talk about.

The farmers of the country are now downpouring on the streets of the country, demanding an immediate end to the years of systematic abuse against them, the policy of showing utmost apathy towards their cause and they are demanding their right to a fair price for the crops they harvest with extreme hardship.

The farmers of Mandsaur, where a few months back the Bajrang Dal thrashed two Muslim women, are at the forefront of the struggle against the fascist Modi government and tearing off the mask of populism that the saffron camp and its toady corporate media has placed on Modi’s face. The anti-government agitation of the farmers is growing strongly in Barmer of Rajasthan, in parts of Haryana, and lastly in Maharashtra – where the police are firing pellets at the agitating farmers, giving them a chance to taste Kashmir.

Farmers’ and workers’ movement is something the RSS and the entire corporate-funded Hindutva brigade despise strongly because it’s something they are been paid to stop for the sake of the big feudal landlords and the big foreign and domestic corporations. The idea of spreading communal venom using vitriol against the Muslim community was to ensure that the unity between the Hindu and Muslim poor, i.e. the broad masses of workers and farmers, is wrecked and the majority of the Hindu community is used as a bulwark of reaction against the Muslim community to ensure a smooth and resistance-free reign to the corporate and feudal exploitation and plunder of Indian resources and labour power.

The RSS is spending nearly ₹3,000 crore annually to wean the vacillating Hindus from the middle-class and upper-caste segments as well as the politically backward, Dalits and Tribals from the poor sections of the society. It’s trying to portray itself as the sole organisation that will benefit the Hindus of the country and free them from a purported enslavement imposed by the Muslims and Christians. This is where they need both the lynch mobs for physical violence and the toady media for intellectual violence.

But the RSS’ plan is getting foiled, thanks to the militant farmers’ movement and the subsequent rise of a nationwide trade union movement that aims at stirring up the huge regiments of unorganised and casual labour force, the underpaid and overtly exploited modern slaves of the big corporations whose stakeholders regularly pay fat cheques to the RSS headquarters, with the demand for better pay, better rights and an end to the domination of foreign monopoly and finance capital.

A nationwide working class and farmers’ movement for political and economic demands that runs contrary to the sanctity of the neo-liberal economic order that is held dearly by the RSS stalwarts since ages, will of course be a catastrophe for the future plans of the Modi regime and its masters, the US-led foreign monopoly and finance capital bloc and its feudal allies. To thwart the possibility of such a working class and farmers’ movement, it became imperative for the RSS and its Hindutva allies to intensify the mob lynching campaign using the anti-Muslim and cow-protection propaganda as a weapon.

To ensure that the Indian workers and farmers don’t battle against the fascist Hindutva regime, but kill each other instead, the RSS has intensified the cow-protection movement since 2015. But the ROI of this movement is still not enough to pay the dividend to the corporate masters. Even after killing so many Muslims and even after terrorising so many Dalits throughout the country, the RSS has drastically failed in stopping the caravan of the working class’ struggle against big foreign monopoly and finance capital; it has failed to desist the farmers from joining the bandwagon of change as well.

A new equation is arising from all corners of the country against the Modi government’s divide and rule policy, the strong currents of working class’ struggle against the dilution of labour rights and the farmers’ demand for a better price for their crops and more economic security are not dying down.
These movements are showing their collective power to the Hindutva lynch mob and are vociferously asserting themselves as the true spirit of India and not the incensed riot mongers of the saffron bloc.

There is no guarantee that a Muslim man can return home from work unscathed in a Modi-fied India; there isn’t any guarantee of the security of Dalits and women, but there is one strong assurance that the rising movements of the working class and the farmers’ movement are giving us – the oppressors never spell the final verdict but the people do; the majority of the people – the working class and the farmers of the country will certainly spell the doom of the Hindutva fascist regime very soon.