User:Ms Sarah Welch/sandbox/cow-related violence

Cow protection-related violence is perpetrated by individuals or groups for the purposes of protecting cows and related cattle from slaughter or theft. Cow protection (gau rakshak) groups emerged in British India in the 19th-century, starting with Sikhs of Punjab in 1860s. The earliest recorded instances of violence in the colonial era India are from 1870s. The cow protection movement spread thereafter, and the 1880s and 1890s witnessed many instances of major cow-related violence. The cow-killing riots of 1893 were the most intense civil disturbance in the Indian subcontinent after the 1857 revolt. Numerous cow-related Hindu-Muslim riots broke out between 1900 and 1947, in different parts of British India, particularly on Islamic festival of sacrifice called Bakri-id, killing hundreds. After the Partition of the Indian subcontinent into a Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan, one of the significant triggers of riots, the killings of Hindus and Muslims, and other violence in the 1950s and 1960s was cow slaughter.

Many Hindus consider cows as sacred. They and followers of other Indian religions such as Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism oppose cow slaughter for several reasons, including the principle of ahimsa towards all living beings. By contrast, Muslims sacrifice cows or other animals on Islamic festivals such as Bakri-Id and consume beef. Some Hindus, Christians and followers of other religions also consume beef. After India gained independence, cow slaughter became illegal in many states of India in the 1950s and 1960s.

There has been a rise in cow protection related violence since the election of the Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party in 2014. Narendra Modi has denounced the violence. The violence has included notable killings, such as the lynchings at Dadri, Jharkand and Alwar. According to the Human Rights Watch, the post-2014 violence has included instances of assault, harassment, extortion, and it has targeted Muslims and lower-caste Hindus. According to a Reuters report, citing IndiaSpend analysis, a total of "28 Indians – 24 of them Muslims – have been killed and 124 injured", between 2010 and June 2017 in cow-related violence.

Before 1800s
Cow slaughter has been punishable by death in many instances in Indian history. Under the Scindia of Gwalior state and the Sikh Empire, people were executed for killing cows.

The "Holi Riot" of 1714 in Gujarat was in part cow-related. A Hindu had attempted to start the spring festivities of Holi by burning a public Holika bonfire, a celebration that his Muslim neighbors objected to. The Muslims retaliated by slaughtering a cow in front of Hindu's house. The Hindus gathered, attacked the Muslims, seized the Muslim butcher's son and killed him. The Muslims, aided by the Afghan army, sacked the neighborhood, which led Hindus across the city to retaliate. Markets and homes were burnt down. Many Hindus and Muslims died during the Holi riot. The cycle of violence continued for a few days devastating the neighborhoods in Ahmedabad. The cow-related violence and riots repeated in the years that followed, though the only documented 18th-century riots in Ahmedabad are of 1714.

1800s
According to Mark Doyle, the first cow protection societies on the Indian subcontinent were started by Kukas of Sikhism, a reformist group seeking to purify Sikhism. The Sikh Kukas or Namdharis were agitating for cow protection after the British annexed Punjab. In 1871, states Peter van der Veer, Sikhs killed Muslim butchers of cows in Amritsar and Ludhiana, and viewed cow protection as a "sign of the moral quality of the state". According to Barbara Metcalf and Thomas Metcalf, Sikhs were agitating for the well-being of cows in the 1860s, and their ideas spread to Hindu reform movements.

According to Judith Walsh, widespread cow protection riots occurred repeatedly in British India in the 1880s and 1890s. These were observed in regions of Punjab, United Provinces, Bihar, Bengal, Bombay Presidency and in parts of South Myanmar (Rangoon). The anti-Cow Killing riots of 1893 in Punjab caused the death of at least 100 people. The 1893 cow killing riots started during the Muslim festival of Bakr-Id, the riot repeated in 1894, and they were the largest riots in British India after the 1857 revolt.

Riots triggered by cow-killings erupted in Lahore, Ambala, Delhi, United Provinces, Bihar and other places in late 19th-century. In Bombay alone, several hundred people were killed or injured in cow-related violence in 1893, according to Hardy. One of the issues, states Walsh, in these riots was "the Muslim slaughter of cows for meat, particularly as part of religious festivals such as Bakr-Id". The cow protection-related violence were a part of larger communal riots, religious disputes, and class conflicts during the colonial era.

Elsewhere, in 1893 there were riots in Azamgarh and Mau, in eastern Uttar Pradesh. The Azamgarh riots were born out of administrative disputes regarding cow slaughter. Reportedly an inexperienced British officer (Henry Dupernex) ordered Muslims to register with the police, if they wished to slaughter cows for Eid al-Adha. Many of the Muslims interpreted the order as an invitation to sacrifice.

In the town of Mau, there were riots in 1806, states John McLane, that had led to Sadar Nizamat Adawlat to prohibit cow sacrifices in 1808. The Hindus had interpreted this to mean a prohibition to all cattle slaughter. In early 19th-century the prohibition was enforced in a manner Hindu interpreted it. However, in 1860s, the interpretation changed to Muslim version wherein cattle sacrifice was banned in 1808, but not cattle slaughter. This, states McLane, triggered intense dissatisfaction among Hindus. Mau, with nearly half of its population being Muslim, resisted Hindu interpretation. When a "local Muslim zamindar (landowner) insisted on sacrificing an animal for his daughter's wedding", a group of local Hindus gathered to object, according to McLane. Four thousand men from Ballia district and two thousand from Ghazipur district joined the Hindus in Mau to stop the sacrifice in 1893. They were apparently motivated by the belief that cows had not been killed in Mau since Akbar's time, but the British were now changing the rules to allow cow killing in new locations. The cow-protecting Hindus attacked the Muslims and looted a bazaar in Mau. The British officials estimated seven Muslims were killed in the riots, while locals placed the toll at 200.

1900–1947
Cattle protection-related violence continued in the first half of the 20th century. Examples of serious cow protection agitation and riots include the 1909 Calcutta riot after Muslims sacrificed a cow in public, the 1912 Faizabad riots after a Maulvi taunted a group of Hindus about a cow he was with, the 1911 Muzaffarpur riot when in retribution for cow slaughter by Muslims, the Hindus threatened to desecrate a mosque. In 1916 and 1917, over the Muslim festival of Bakri-Id, two riots broke out in Patna with widespread rioting, looting and murders in major cities of Bihar. The British officials banned cow slaughter during Muslim Id festival of sacrifice. According to British colonial records, Hindu crowds as large as 25,000 attacked Muslims on Id day, violence broke out at multiple sites simultaneously, and civil authorities were unable to cope with. Many serious anti cow slaughter and cow protection-related riots broke out between 1917 and 1928 across India particularly on Muslim festival of sacrifice, from Punjab through Delhi to Orissa, leading to the arrests of hundreds.

In the 1920s, over 100 riots, 450 deaths and 5,000 injuries were recorded in Bengal which was divided in 1947 into East Pakistan and West Bengal. Two primary causes of the violence, states Nitish Sengupta, were Hindus Durga Puja processions playing music which continued as they passed near Muslim mosques, and Muslims killing cows in open during Bakri-id.

In 1946, rumors spread in Bengal that Hindus had secretly conspired to stop cow sacrifice on Bakri Id by bringing in Sikhs and arms into their homes. On the day of Islamic festival of sacrifice (September 1946), states Batabyal, the rumor spread among the Bengali Muslims congregated in mosques. The crowd coming out of the mosques then raided a large number of Hindu homes trying to find the arms and the Sikhs. Violence continued for about a week with "frequent instances of stray killings" and looting.

1947–2014
After the 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent into Pakistan and India, frequent riots and fatal violence broke in newly created India over cow slaughter. Between 1948 and 1951, cow slaughter led to a spate of riots broke out in Azamgarh, Akola, Pilbhit, Katni, Nagpur, Aligarh, Dhubri, Delhi and Calcutta. Riots triggered by slaughter of cows continued in rural and urban locations of India in the 1950s and 1960s. According to Ian Copland and other scholars, it was the practical stop of cow sacrifice ritual as Islamic festivals after 1947 that largely led to a reduction in riots from the peak observed just before India's independence. However, they add, the riots re-emerged in 1960s, when a new generation of Muslims born after the independence reached adolescence, who were less aware of the trauma of religious violence in India of the 1940s, began to assert their rights.

In 1966, 100 members of Indian parliament signed a petition for a nationwide ban on cow slaughter. Hindu sadhus (monks) gathered in Delhi to protest against cow slaughter, launched go-raksha (cow protection) agitation and demanded a ban. During a huge procession that was walking towards the parliament to press their demand, before they could reach the parliament, some people began a disturbance and rioting started. These riots killed eight people. Indira Gandhi, the newly nominated Prime Minister, continued her father's policy of no national ban on cow slaughter.

In 2002, five Dalit youths were killed by a mob in Jhajjar district, Haryana. The mob were reportedly led by members of the Vishva Hindu Parishad in the presence of local police officials, following false rumors that the Dalits had killed a cow. The local leader of the VHP, Acharya Giriraj Kishore said he had no regrets over the incident, and that the life of a cow was worth more than the lives of five Dalits.

According to PUDR, the VHP, a Hindu group, and the Gauraksha Samiti have defended violent vigilantism around cow protection as sentiments against the "sin of cow-slaughter" and not related to "the social identity of the victims". Various groups, such as the families of Dalits who were victims of a mob violence linked to cow-slaughter in 2002, did not question the legitimacy of cow protection.

Laws, state support, and legal issues
In 1955, a senior Congress member of parliament Seth Govind Das drafted a bill for India's parliament for a nationwide ban on cow slaughter, stating that a "large majority of the party" was in favour. India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru opposed this national ban on cow slaughter, and threatened to resign if the elected representatives passed the bill in India's parliament. The bill failed by a vote of 95 to 12. Nehru declared that it was individual states to decide their laws on cow slaughter, states Donald Smith, and criticized the ban on cow slaughter as "a wrong step". However, Nehru's opposition was largely irrelevant, states Steven Wilkinson, because under India's Constitution and federal structure laws such as those on cattle slaughter has been an exclusive State subject rather than being a Central subject. State legislatures such as those of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh enacted their own laws in the 1950s.

In 1958, Muslims of Bihar petitioned the Supreme Court of India that the ban on cow slaughter violated their religious right. The Court unanimously rejected their claim.

Some Indian states have expanded their cattle slaughter bans. For example, in March 2015, Maharashtra passed stricter legislation expanded its ban to the slaughter of bulls and bullocks. Cow vigilantes have also been emboldened by these laws, and attack Muslims suspected of smuggling cattle for slaughter.

The Supreme Court of India heard a case between 2004 and 2017. The case petitioned the Court to order a ban on the common illegal treatment of animals during transport and slaughter. In February 2017, the Court ordered a state governments to stop the illegal slaughterhouses and set up enforcement committees to monitor the treatment of animals used for meat and leather. The Court has also ruled, according to a Times of India report, that "it was evident from the combined reading of Articles 48 and 51- A(g) of the [Indian] Constitution that citizens must show compassion to the animal kingdom. The animals have their own fundamental rights. Article 48 specifically lays down that the state shall endeavour to prohibit the slaughter of cows and calves, other milch and draught cattle".

Many vigilantes believe their actions are approved by the government and Hindus of the country. For example, the vigilante group "Gau Rakshak Dal", formed in Haryana in 2012, believe it is acting on government mandate. Scholar Radha Sarkar has stated that the bans on beef "tacitly legitimize vigilante activity." Cow protection groups formed in Haryana in 2012 see themselves to now be "acting upon the mandate of the government." Such groups across the country have "[taken] it upon themselves to punish those they believe to be harming the cow." Such incidents of violence have occurred even in situations in which no illegal actions have occurred, such as in the handling of dead cattle. According to Sarkar, cow protection groups have taken actions that they know to be illegal, because they believe that the have the support of the government.

In November 2016, the BJP-led Haryana government has decided to provide ID cards for cow vigilantes. However they were not issued despite collecting the details of vigilantes.

According to Russia Today and Human Rights Watch, many cow protection vigilante groups are allied with the BJP. According to BBC News, many cow-protection vigilantes attend training camps organized by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has "umbilical ties with the ruling BJP", states Soutik Biswas.

Mukul Kesavan, in The Telegraph, accused BJP officials of justifying vigilantism. He pointed out that after some vigilante attacks, the BJP officials tried to get the police to charge the victims (or their family) for provoking the assault.

In April 2017 the Supreme Court asked the governments of six states – Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh – to respond within three weeks to a plea asking for a ban against cow vigilante groups.

Violence in Myanmar
The monks and Buddhist leader Wirathu of the Ma Ba Tha movement have campaigned Myanmar authorities to ban ritual slaughter of cows for the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha. According to some media reports, the Islamic sacrifice festival has become a flashpoint for Myanmar’s Buddhist nationalists. In 2016, three Muslim men were arrested for illegal procurement of nearly 100 cows for sacrifice. Islamic leaders allege that this discriminates against their religious right to sacrifice cows.

In the Irrawaddy Delta region of Myanmar, various Buddhist organizations such as 969, Ma Ba Tha, and others have purchased the license to slaughter cattle in the Delta, not to slaughter, but as a strategy to prevent their slaughter by Muslims. The Muslims continued their slaughter without permit and paid bribes to the municipal authorities to overlook their practice. Two members of 969 organization then proceeded to vigilante investigate the illegal operations. They visited a Muslim-owned cow slaughterhouse. Both monks were beaten up by the Muslims and hospitalized. The beating up of the monks became a social media topic and the news spread across the region. Rumors also spread that Muslims were going house-to-house killing people with knives. Leading 969 Buddhist monks from elsewhere gathered in the region, and the situation became tense. The situation normalized when Islamic leaders represented that they were unaware of the permit rules and agreed that Muslims would stop the cow slaughter. The Ma Ba Tha has collected donations from Myanmar's majority Buddhist population to buy cattle slaughter licenses and farmers who wish to sell their cows, and donated these cows to impoverished Buddhists in the north state affected by Buddhist-Muslim violence. The 969 vigilante Buddhists have conducted night raids into Muslim owned business to check complaince of cow slaughter restrictions in Myanmar.

According to media reports, "Buddhist nationalists", "firebrand leaders" and "hardline monks" in various anti-minority Myanmar Buddhist organizations have been campaigning for a complete prohibition of cattle slaughter and have been targeting Muslim cattle smugglers. According to a Myanmar Now report, the 969 organization of Buddhist monks in Myanmar is "extremist" in its attempt to protect the cows.

Laws, state support, and legal issues
Buddhist canonical texts teach compassion to animals and forbid their killing, participation in their slaughter, encouraging Buddhists to protect animal life just like human life. The 19th-century monk Ledi Sayadaw of Myanmar was an influential champion of cow protection, and his ideas written in Nwa Metta Sa to prevent cow slaughter have been influential in Myanmar.

Myanmar was a war front during the World War II, when Japanese troops invaded and controlled Myanmar. During the war, food supplies became limited. People ate locally produced rice and cattle meat. The slaughter of cattle, however, plumetted agriculture productivity because cattle was the "tractor" and an essential working animal in the farms of the Burmese people. As food supplies became rare, cattle slaughter accelerated further diminishing the Burmese people's ability to farm staple survival crops such as rice. After the war ended, the Burma government banned cattle slaughter as a means of recovering livestock population, rural economy and for local religious sentiments. Myanmar adopted Buddhism as a state religion, and political leaders demonstrated their Buddhist values by freeing wild life and cattle.

In predominantly Buddhist Myanmar, the Cattle Slaughter Act became the local law during the colonial era, and it restricted the killing of cattle. Permission was needed in advance, and violators were subject to prison terms. In 1956, after Buddhism was declared a state religion in the post-colonial nation, the reach of this Act was expanded to "include the possession of any quantity of beef" states Hiroko Kawanami. This law was opposed by the Muslims of Myanmar, who pressed that it is their religious right to make sacrifice offerings on Muslim festivals.

Pressed by radical Mujaheddins in its state bordering East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in the 1950s, seeking a separate Muslim majority nation in the northwest, Myanmar military started an intensive operation. The civil organizations such as monk associations in the 1950s began a campaign against cow slaughter and recognition of Islamic marriage laws (Sharia) when Muslim men married Burmese Buddhist women. After its first coup, the Burmese military's Revolutionary Council revoked the cattle slaughter law arguing that it wanted to separate and distance the state from interfering in religion. Democracy temporarily returned in Myanmar, and within days of returning to power, the political leaders of Myanmar re-enacted the anti-cow slaughter laws. The second coup again revoked these laws within days of assuming power, replacing it with a law that forbid slaughter only of cattle aged less than 10 year old. The Buddhist monk and nun community continued to campaign and protest cow slaughter.

Laws, state support, and legal issues
The Part II of Animals Act of Sri Lanka prohibits the slaughter of cow and cow-calves, allowing local governments to regulate the slaughter in exceptional conditions. The law was originally passed in 1958, amended in 1964.

The Sri Lankan lawmakers have tabled stricter laws on cow slaughter. In 2009, Sri Lankan parliament discussed an expanded Bill calling for a total ban on the slaughter of cattle. The Bill was introduced by Wijedasa Rajapakse, who added that a ban on cattle slaughter "would affect about 300 to 400 people engaged in the meat business, but would generate thousands of new job opportunities for local youth in the dairy industry", states the Sri Lankan newspaper The Sunday Time. Rajapakse said that the cattle slaughter practice in Sri Lanka was a source of bribery, corruption and fake licences and that its demand was responsible for cattle-theft in Sri Lanka, a big problem for its population where hundreds of cattle are stolen from rural areas.

Buddhist and Hindu activists in Sri Lanka have petitioned its parliament to protect the cow and enforce the ban on slaughter. Members of its Parliament such as Athuraliye Rathana Thero have called it a cause against a "sinful act" that is not only important to the religious sentiments of the Buddhists but also to the long term nutritional needs of Sri Lankan population.

India
Cattle slaughter is a controversial topic in India because of the cattle's traditional status as an endeared and respected living being to many in Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism, in contrast to cattle being considered as a religiously acceptable source of meat by many in Islam, Christianity as well as some in Hinduism and other Indian religions. More specifically, the cow's slaughter has been shunned because of a number of reasons such as being associated with god Krishna in Hinduism, cattle being respected as an integral part of rural livelihoods and an essential economic necessity. Historically, cattle slaughter has also been opposed by various Indian religions because of the ethical principle of Ahimsa (non-violence) and the belief in the unity of all life.

Ian Copland states that "cow slaughter has been a source of bitter contention in South Asia" since the medieval era, because Hindus revere it while Muslims eat it and sacrifice it for the Islamic festival of Id-ul-Adha. Peter van der Veer has stated that "[the] protection of the cow already had a political significance before the British period". The Mughal emperor Akbar banned the killing of cow. After the collapse of the Mughal Empire, cow slaughter was a capital offense in many Hindu and Sikh ruled regions of the subcontinent. The East India Company continued the ban on cow slaughter in many domains. Henry Lawrence, after the British annexed Punjab, banned cattle slaughter in it in 1847, in order to win the popular Sikh support. In the 1857 revolt, the Muslim emperor Bahadur Shah II threatened to blow any Muslim caught sacrificing a cattle during Bakr-Id. The independence leader of India, Mahatma Gandhi, championed cow protection.

Article 48 of the Constitution of India mandates the state to prohibit the slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle. On October 26, 2005, the Supreme Court of India, in a landmark judgement upheld the constitutional validity of anti-cow slaughter laws enacted by different state governments in India. 24 out of 29 states in India currently have various regulations prohibiting either the slaughter or sale of cows. Kerala, West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim are the states where there are no restrictions on cow slaughter.

The laws governing cattle slaughter in India vary greatly from state to state. The "Preservation, protection and improvement of stock and prevention of animal diseases, veterinary training and practice" is Entry 15 of the State List of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, meaning that State legislatures have exclusive powers to legislate the prevention of slaughter and preservation of cattle. Some States allow the slaughter of cattle with restrictions like a "fit-for-slaughter" certificate which may be issued depending on factors like age and gender of cattle, continued economic viability etc. Others completely ban cattle slaughter, while there is no restriction in a few states. On 26 May 2017, the Ministry of Environment of Indian Central Government led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) imposed a ban on the sale and purchase of cattle for slaughter at animal markets across India, under Prevention of Cruelty to Animals statutes.

Myanmar
The texts of Buddhism state ahimsa to be one of five ethical precepts, which requires a practicing Buddhist to "refrain from killing living beings". Slaughtering cow has been a taboo, with some texts suggest taking care of a cow is a means of taking care of "all living beings". Cattle is seen as a form of reborn human beings in the endless rebirth cycles in samsara, protecting animal life and being kind to cattle and other animals is good karma.

The Buddhist monk community in Myanmar has supported its cow protection movement. The 19th-century Ledi Sayadaw, for example, has been an influential champion of cow protection. His work published in 1885, titled Nwa Metta Sa (or The Letter on Cows) urged social action to protect cows from slaughter.

Sri Lanka
Cow is held in high regard and cow protection is an important part of Sinhala Buddhist culture of Sri Lanka. The Buddhists of Sri Lanka have campaigned for laws to protect the cow with "halal abolitionist movement" and "anti-cow slaughter movement". The Sri Lankan Buddhists believe that halal form of ritual killing of cattle by Muslims, where the cattle's throat is cut and it bleeds to death, and slaughter in general, is against the Buddhist teaching of compassion towards animals.

According to Richard Gombrich, many Sinhala Buddhist kings banned cow slaughter, and animal slaughter in general, driven by Buddhist ideas. The monastic community of Sri Lanka, in the 18th-century, pressured the Sri Lankan king to enforce the Buddhist prohibition on slaughter and meat consumption. Cow slaughter was totally forbidden, according to Sri Lankan texts.