{"id":4820,"date":"2016-03-10T13:56:53","date_gmt":"2016-03-10T08:26:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=4820"},"modified":"2016-03-10T13:56:53","modified_gmt":"2016-03-10T08:26:53","slug":"the-hour-of-lynching-shirley-abraham-amit-madheshiya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=4820","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Hour of Lynching\u201d is a Haunting Potrait of Intolerance in India"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

T<\/span><\/p><\/div>

here\u2019s a scene, a dialogue to be precise, in <\/span>The Hour of Lynching<\/span><\/i>, an 18-minute documentary probing the business of cow vigilantisim in India, that underlines how Hindus exploit it as a tool to assert their dominance. At the funeral of 28-year-old dairy farmer Rakbar Khan, attacked in the dead of the night on suspicion of cow smuggling, a mourner makes an observation, \u201cThe life of Muslims is worth nothing. We\u2019re being killed like cats and dogs.\u201d The sentiment is punctured by the wails of Asmeena, Khan\u2019s widow. <\/span>\n\nIt\u2019s a chilling statement and the statistics in the opening slate of the documentary, echo that actuality: Since 2014 \u2013 the year that Narendra Modi became Prime Minister \u2013 47 people have been murdered in cow-related hate crimes. Seventy six per cent of these men were Muslims. In 2019, as Modi has been re-elected with a resounding majority, Rakbar Khan\u2019s life is merely a statistic, one that is easily discarded in an economy that brazenly endorses hate.<\/span>\n\nDirected by Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya, who previously made <\/span>The Cinema Travellers<\/span><\/i> (2016) and <\/span>Searching For Saraswati<\/span><\/i> (2018), <\/span>The Hour of Lynching<\/span><\/i> captures the aftermath of Khan\u2019s death. Divided in 10 chapters, the documentary expertly conflates the grief of a Muslim family whose sole breadwinner is lynched by an angry Hindu mob. <\/span>\n\nIn July last year, Khan, whose livelihood depended on cow\u2019s milk, ventured out in the evening in Rajasthan\u2019s Alwar district to buy two cows. He never made it back home. While returning, Khan was intercepted by a group of cow vigilantes, who were convinced that he was going to slaughter the cows. The accusation wasn\u2019t backed up by any evidence, just mere fear-mongering. (In one scene, a gau rakshak justifies the attack on Khan with \u201cWhy do they ferry cows only at night?\u201d) Yet Khan was mercilessly beaten with sticks and stones and as per his autopsy report, died in police custody due to the shock of his injuries and internal bleeding. <\/span>\n\nWhat captured the national consciousness was however, the chilling apathy toward his life: Khan was reportedly taken to the hospital three hours after he was attacked, despite it being<\/span> a 12 minute drive<\/span><\/a> away. The police first, dropped the \u201crescued cows\u201d to a local shelter and even took a tea break before deeming it fit to drop a seriously injured man to the hospital. By the time they reached, Khan was already dead. The incident, revealed an undeniable collusion between the police, tasked with maintaining the law of the land, and self-appointed \u201cgau rakshaks\u201d who take up the law in their own hands. <\/span>\n\nThe documentary presents that in real time: Days after Khan\u2019s death, Nawal Kishore Sharma, chief of the Vishnu Hindu Parishad\u2019s gau rakshak cell, addresses a rally that endorses mass murders of Muslims to \u201ccleanse\u201d the country. \u201cDraw your swords and behead them,\u201d he implores a packed crowd of old and young, who hang on to every word he utters. \u201cIf we (Hindus) lose our minds, we will sacrifice you 200 million,\u201d he warns, reminding the crowd of their superiority, \u201cWe are 1 billion.\u201d The crowd applauds as Kishore \u2013 angered by the fact that three men involved in Khan\u2019s death were arrested \u201con mere pretext of constitutional law\u201d \u2013 ends his speech with cries of \u201cJai Shri Ram\u201d. <\/span>\n\nAs <\/span>The Hour of Lynching<\/span><\/i> captures, the protection of cows are just a disguise to incite violence against Muslims. Kishore as much as suggests that by insisting that \u201cthe essence of Hinduism\u201d is disappearing. It\u2019s impossible then, to not view the documentary as a coda to the widespread legitimisation of the rising intolerance in the country. Abraham and Madheshiya document the fine line between hatred metamorphosing into a collective ideology, one that will be embedded in future generations. At a RSS youth camp, boys are trained to use swords and are told to \u201cfirst attack the head and then break it\u201d. <\/span>Not far away, Rakbar Khan\u2019s eldest daughter bears the brunt of that hatred: She has to give up school, resigned to mothering her six siblings and tending to her father\u2019s cows at the tender age of 14. <\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya\u2019s The Hour of Lynching follows the aftermath of the death of Rakbar Khan, a 28-year-old dairy farmer lynched on suspicion of smuggling cows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":4821,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop-culture"],"yoast_head":"\n\u201cThe Hour of Lynching\u201d is a Haunting Potrait of Intolerance in India<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya\u2019s The Hour of Lynching follows the aftermath of the death of Rakbar Khan, a 28-year-old dairy farmer lynched on suspicion of smuggling cows.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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