While reminding about what had happened in 2014 and the runup to the series of lynchings in many parts of India, Senior Deputy Editor of The Hindu, Ziya us Salam, while speaking on “Lynching the Soul of India,” explained in detail the motives of the perpetrators, the moral support and patronage extended to them and the mindset behind these lynchings.
Author of The Lynch Files, and Of Saffron Flags and Skullcaps: Hindutva, Muslim Identity and the Idea of India, Ziya us Salam, during a public meet organised by Jamaat-e-Islami Hind at its headquarters on 6 July, said, the first thing that Narendra Modi after his victory in 2014 said was there would be a moratorium on communal riots and caste violence for ten years and people believed it without any doubt, and believing people without any doubt is generally bound to give jerks which we can now feel at regular intervals. We never anticipated the slogan Achhe Din was for whom. Hours after his declaration, Mohsin Shaikh was lynched and media took no notice of it as they were celebrating victory of Modi.
According to him, the lynching incident of Akhlaque in Dadri spoke volumes about the method and the madness behind it. It was the first incident where the investigating police was more concerned about the type of meat kept in the fridge than the man killed and about the killers at large. Right to life was not at all in the minds of the police during their investigation. The priorities the government had in 2015, the same priorities they have in 2019 which can be seen from one lynching incident to another. Surprisingly, the prime minster has never said a single word after all lynchings.
While elaborating how Ravin Sisodia, the Dadri Lynching accused was wrapped with the National Flag as a martyr and the manner in which Union Minister Jayant Sinha garlanded 8 lynching convicts which the people of India had witnessed for the first time since Independence, he underlined the fact that it was sufficient enough to understand the motive and the mindset at play and what they wanted to achieve out of it. The message was clear that the Hindus who would lynch Muslims in India would be honoured in the same manner the soldiers are honoured after they kill a Pakistani.
According to him, if the Muslims in the last 70 years had done what they were supposed to do in terms of Deen with their fellow citizens then certainly the situation could have been better now as compared to what we are witnessing today.