Holier than thou

India is not just another country, it's a different universe. Many great things have originated here. In tandem, many terrifying ideas and practices are accepted and even propagated in this country. Modernity is constantly clashing with draconian practices. It's a nation that is amongst the most diverse in the world in terms of ethnicity, cultural views and religious beliefs.

Hindus consider the cow holy and want everyone else to think so too. One of the latest proposals is to issue an ID card called the Adhaar card for every cow the same as is done for the citizens. The problem is that many Indian citizens of the human variety are given lesser value than the cows, especially women and members of communities from the 'lower castes' in the social hierarchy as deemed by Hindu beliefs.

This billboard was erected for a meeting of cow protectors (called Gaurakshaks in the Hindi language). These self appointed saviours aren't around when errant cows wander the streets, position themselves at traffic lights and block traffic or choke to death after eating plastic bags out of garbage heaps.

Instead the gaurakshaks harass, beat and have murdered those whom they consider 'guilty' of eating beef, mainly Muslim Indians. Unchecked by police and bystanders the gaurakshaks in a frenzy lynched an innocent man last year in front of his family without evidence of any wrongdoing. Bear in mind that eating beef is not wrong from a non-Hindu point of view. And the man hadn't in any case. Not satisfied with taking an innocent man's life, causing trauma to his wife and child who witnessed their brutality, the gaurakshaks then wanted a post mortem done on the body to look for evidence of beef.

More recently in April, a Muslim dairy farmer returning home with his sons after purchasing a milking cow was lynched by a mob of Hindu gaurakshaks.

Truth is stranger than fiction. You couldn't dream up of a dystopian world like this. Yet it exists right here.