Cow Vigilantism: Crime, Community and Livelihood January 2016 to March 2018

From 2015 there has been a spate of incidents of violence and intimidation around issues of cow slaughter and beef. These ranged from the lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq for alleged cow theft, slaughter and eating beef in Dadri in Uttar Pradesh, to Zahid Ahmed being burnt alive on the Jammu and Kashmir highway on suspicion of transporting cow carcasses in his truck, to the shutting down of the Kerala Bhavan canteen in Delhi, on allegations of serving beef biryani. The draconian framework underlying punishments for alleged slaughter and smuggling necessarily enhances the power and importance of cow vigilantism in the name of protection. Given the political prominence of the issue, the task of documenting vigilantism becomes a necessary exercise for understanding repression in the name of the cow. It is against this political and legal background that the forms of attack against Muslims and Dalits whose livelihoods depend on cattle and beef are to be understood.