The Story Behind the Villagers Who Tried to March to Yogi Adityanath’s House With Cows
THE COW PROBLEM OF COW BELT Narendra Modi’s ascension to power brought a new phenomenon to India – cow vigilantism. A number of mob lynching incidents took place some resulting in loss of life for the victims who happened to be mostly Muslims. Dalits too took the beating. On the other hand, the aggressors hardly ever got punished. In fact, filing of First Information Report against the victim or his relatives, in case of his death, became a common occurrence under the Bhartiya Janata Party rule. As a result of this cow vigilantism, all sale and purchase of cows came to a halt. When the farmer could not afford to feed an old cow, bullock or the male calf they were let go free. These stray cattle became a menace in the villages. They started grazing crops standing in the fields. Earlier, the villagers were similarly tormented by neelgai or antelope. But neelgai would run away upon seeing human beings. The stray cattle which were earlier domesticated but now abandoned by villagers would not even run away on shooing. This has been a major cause of grief for farmers after Yogi Adityanath government came to power in Uttar Pradesh. How were they expected to pay the revenue for their crops which were eaten up by these cattle, a problem which was the creation of the ruling party’s political agenda and government policy. There is a practice of locking up the defaulters at Tehsil and confiscating their property in the case of inability to pay revenue. The villagers demanded a gaushala or cow shed in every village. However, the government was not able to meet this demand. It announced opening of some gaushalas. Pictures of Yogi Adityanath can be seen in government funded advertisements feeding jaggery to cows. The BJP runs a high profile campaign on cow protection. However, the ground reality is quite different. About 70 km from Lucknow in Lalamau Mawai village of Hardoi district villagers who were fed up with the freely roaming bovine decided to do something about this problem. They petitioned the district authorities. Somebody from…
