India, Jan. 13 -- July, 2016. Incidents of lynching are on the rise. Newspapers, TV channels, and conversations with friends are getting increasingly more populated with the ethics, verifiability and the necessity of mob justice. Batman and Robin Hood are quickly overtaken by the new vigilantes in town: gau rakshaks (cow protectors).
All this in reference to a specific case: that of a family of seven from the Dalit community being flogged in public on the accusation of having killed cows. In Una, Gujarat, self-proclaimed gau rakshaks stripped, flogged and assaulted the Sarvaiya family for skinning a dead cow. This incident was recorded on video.
Leaders from the Dalit community took this up strongly and held protests across the state. The...