The line between police and vigilante blurs

“Gai hamari mata hai, police hamari baap hai,” the two frightened men shout, wincing in pain in the viral video. The cow is our mother, police is our father. They stumble, fall and limp along as officers flog the two Muslims and parade them through the streets of Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh on March 3.

There is no other way of saying this: the act was medieval, illegal, and unconstitutional, playing out after Hindu fundamentalists accused the two men of cow slaughter. In case you thought it was an aberration, six days later, the police took a similar approach in the city of Damoh in the same state, beating five suspects and forcing them to chant a similar slogan.

Cow slaughter is illegal not just in Madhya Pradesh but in at least 20 of India’s 28 states. Had the suspects in Ujjain and Damoh slaughtered a cow? Even if they had, the police had no authority to parade and flog them. As it happened, Hindu vigilantes in Ujjain merely found them to be driving a pick-up truck with a cow – and that in new India, especially if you are Muslim, is justification for random violence.

In Damoh, the were accused of slaughtering cows, and their properties – in clear...

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