Modi and India’s Dalits

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/opinion/modi-and-indias-dalits.html

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A protest in the Indian state of Gujarat’s largest city, Ahmedabad, on Sunday by thousands of Dalits — members of India’s lowest castes — has brought to a head the contradiction between Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise of economic opportunity for all and a politics of division driven by right-wing Hindu ideology.

The protest was called after four Dalits skinning a dead cow — a scorned task relegated to the long-oppressed group — were set upon by cow-protection vigilantes on July 11 near Una, Gujarat. The gang stripped the Dalits to the waist, chained them to a car, and beat them for hours while the police and others looked on.

The cow, sacred to Hindus, has become a lightning rod for the Hindu right under Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party government. Mr. Modi himself has exploited the cow slaughter issue at rallies. The B.J.P.’s president, Amit Shah, has boasted, “Wherever there is a B.J.P. government, there is a ban on beef.” On Sunday, a B.J.P. member of Parliament, Raja Singh, declared, “I extend my full support to all those who take it upon themselves to teach those few Dalits a valuable lesson.”

The result is lawless vigilantism. Last September, a Muslim man whose family was suspected of eating beef was killed by a mob. In March, two cattle traders were lynched in the state of Jharkhand.

Dalits have refused to handle dead animals, whose rotting carcasses are piling up, until they are given assurances that they will not be attacked and that their longstanding oppression will be addressed. Though aspirations and educational levels have risen among Dalits, they still face terrible prejudice. In January, a Dalit Ph.D. student committed suicide after caste-based hounding.

In 2014, Mr. Modi, who ran Gujarat for over 12 years, won India’s national election by a landslide on a promise to transform all of India on the Gujarat model of economic development. Protests last September by middle-class Patels, angered by a lack of jobs, indicated that even those who should be doing well in Gujarat are struggling.

On Monday, Mr. Modi’s handpicked successor, the Gujarat chief minister, Anandiben Patel, resigned, a sign of the B.J.P.’s concern that the turmoil in Gujarat will harm the party in state elections next year and national elections in 2019. That could very well happen if Mr. Modi does not break his shameful silence on cow vigilantes, and reset his political compass on a course of economic opportunity, dignity and justice.