Scary Mumbai?: Cow vigilantes get suspicious over leather bag, ask auto traveler if a cow was slaughtered

Barun Kashyap

By A Representative
In a scary incident which has sent a shock wave in Mumbai, a middle-class writer and director associated working in a communications firm was harassed by what he terms as “self-proclaimed cow protectors” just because he happened to carry a leather bag.
The incident is particularly important, as it comes close on the heels of Prime Minister Narendra Modi calling 80 per cent cow vigilantes as “fake” and “anti-social”, asking them to shoot him instead of “killing” a Dalit brother or sister.
Posting on his Facebook timeline, Barun Kashyap points out how, on Friday, morning, like everyday, he started off from his home to work in an auto and how he was sought to be harassed on way by the auto driver in alliance with a few cow protectors.
The autodriver, says Kashyap, got suspicious on seeing his long hair. “I must say the autowala was quited curious and intrigued by my long hair and nose piercing right from the beginning. He asked me in english where do I hail from”, Kashyap says on Facebook.
He adds, “It took him a moment to locate Assam in his mind map, later confirmed it as the state near Bangladesh. At a traffic signal, when all vehicles stopped, he turned around again and saw my leather bag.”
Things did not stop here. The auto driver “leaned to touch” his bag and “concluded” that it was made of cow leather. “I refuted and said it;s made of camel leather which I got from Pushkar”, Kashyap says.
“The answer didn't satisfy him”, Kashyap says, adding, “As the traffic light turned green, the auto moved forward and so did his remarks on how because of people like me cow slaughter is encouraged. I asked him to mind his own business and drive me to the destination.”
“To my horror”, Kashyap says, the auto driver “stopped the auto near a small temple on the way to my office.” Before he could say anything, he saw the auto driver “signaling at three men sitting in front of the temple smoking.”
“All three men with red Tilak mark worn on the forehead approach the auto and start conversing in Marathi which I could not decipher”, Kashyam says.
“When I protested, the three men asked me to step out of the auto which I refused”, Kashyam notes, adding, “When I was busy protesting, one of the guys came to the other side of auto and started checking my bag.”
“One of the guys then asked my name... 'Barun' I replied”, Kashyap notes, adding, the guy further asked him full name was the next question. This made Kashyap to say it was ''Barun Kashyap Bhuyan''.
“The guy looked at the other two and said something in Marathi out of which I could only understand the word ' Brahmin'. Maybe hearing Kashyap, they thought I am a Brahmin”, Kashyap says, adding, “They left the site after bidding farewell to the autowala, the fellow cow protector.”
At the next signal, Kasyap says, he got off from the auto, noted the number of the auto, and asked for his phone number of the auto driver, “which he proudly gave to me saying 'aaj toh bach gaye'.”
The Facebook post ends with the remark, “Planning to go to the police station once done with work”, with commentators seeking the number of the auto so that it could be avoided. One of his Facebook friends commented, “I am just thinking, what if your name was Mohammad!”

Comments

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

India's health workers have no legal right for their protection, regrets NGO network

Counterview Desk In a letter to Union labour and employment minister Santosh Gangwar, the civil rights group Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI), writing against the backdrop of strike by Bhabha hospital heath care workers, has insisted that they should be given “clear legal right for their protection”.

Uttarakhand tunnel disaster: 'Question mark' on rescue plan, appraisal, construction

By Bhim Singh Rawat* As many as 40 workers were trapped inside Barkot-Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi after a portion of the 4.5 km long, supposedly completed portion of the tunnel, collapsed early morning on Sunday, Nov 12, 2023. The incident has once again raised several questions over negligence in planning, appraisal and construction, absence of emergency rescue plan, violations of labour laws and environmental norms resulting in this avoidable accident.

Job opportunities decreasing, wages remain low: Delhi construction workers' plight

By Bharat Dogra* It was about 32 years back that a hut colony in posh Prashant Vihar area of Delhi was demolished. It was after a great struggle that the people evicted from here could get alternative plots that were not too far away from their earlier colony. Nirmana, an organization of construction workers, played an important role in helping the evicted people to get this alternative land. At that time it was a big relief to get this alternative land, even though the plots given to them were very small ones of 10X8 feet size. The people worked hard to construct new houses, often constructing two floors so that the family could be accommodated in the small plots. However a recent visit revealed that people are rather disheartened now by a number of adverse factors. They have not been given the proper allotment papers yet. There is still no sewer system here. They have to use public toilets constructed some distance away which can sometimes be quite messy. There is still no...

Women's rights leaders told to negotiate with Muslimness, as India's donor agencies shun the word Muslim

By A Representative Former vice-president Hamid Ansari has sharply criticized donor agencies engaged in nongovernmental development work, saying that they seek to "help out" marginalizes communities with their funds, but shy away from naming Muslims as the target group, something, he insisted, needs to change. Speaking at a book release function in Delhi, he said, since large sections of Muslims are poor, they need political as also social outreach.

Sardar Patel was on Nathuram Godse's hit list: Noted Marathi writer Sadanand More

Sadanand More (right) By A Representative In a surprise revelation, well-known Gujarati journalist Hari Desai has claimed that Nathuram Godse did not just kill Mahatma Gandhi, but also intended to kill Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Citing a voluminous book authored by Sadanand More, “Lokmanya to Mahatma”, Volume II, translated from Marathi into English last year, Desai says, nowadays, there is a lot of talk about conspiracy to kill Gandhi, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, but little is known about how the Sardar was also targeted.

Bihar’s land at ₹1 per acre for Adani sparks outrage, NAPM calls it crony capitalism

By A Representative The National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) has strongly condemned the Bihar government’s decision to lease 1,050 acres of land in Pirpainti, Bhagalpur district, to Adani Power for a 2,400 MW coal-based thermal power project.

Counterview

Search This Blog