The heart-wrenching Hathras gang rape and maiming leading to the death of the Dalit victim sent shivers down the spine in all circles.
Not just for the macabre nature of the crime, what was even more horrendous, was the cover-up, blatant denial, harassment and role of the police and agencies in aiding the culprits in subverting the constitutional process of justice.
To further the agony of the victims family, some groups shamelessly rallied behind the culprits and even threatened the family with dire consequences.
Rattled by the outrage and the international coverage, the Uttar Pradesh government began to cry wolf and picked up its favourite punching bag – Popular Front of India (PFI) and some imaginary international organisations from Timbuktu.
No matter what happens, a PFI connection seems to spring up. Earlier it was ISI, later Al-Qaeda and now PFI. While the whole world was combating the COVID-19 pandemic, fascist forces used even a pandemic to leverage its communal rhetoric, pursuing a relentless witch hunt against anti-CAA activists. Anything connected with Islam and Muslim automatically become soft targets. Everyone is held responsible for the misery of the state, but not the state itself.
These outrageously ridiculous accusations by the UP government has even the staunchest allies fume with disgust and embarrassment. According to the NCRB-2019 report, 8 SC women are being raped daily in UP. Safeguarding the Hindu life and interest was a premise on which the BJP campaigned and rose to power, yet we see gross human rights violations against the Dalits. Aren’t Dalits Hindu enough? Perhaps children of a lesser God.
It appears impossible to fathom how anyone with a modicum of rational and empathy would downplay the gravity of the crime and collude with the criminals. Is this caste hegemony at play? Or a manifestation of a classic fascist state.
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Sameer Abdul Majeed is an analyst on historical and current affairs.
