Lynch Files: The Forgotten Saga of Victims of Hate Crime

Mohammed Akhlaq and Rakbar lynched in the name of cow protection. Chimma, a Dalit, lynched by the mob for entering a Hindu temple. In the recent years, the cases of mob lynching of Muslims and Dalits have increased to an alarming extent. These cases are discarded and forgotten without any justice served to the victims. The emergence of mobocracy from the roots of Hindutva and gau rakshaks has put India’s secularity and democratic constitution to test. Lynch Files pieces together the tragic stories of the people at the receiving end of mob violence and looks inside the mind of the lynchers who flout laws with impunity. Further, the book discusses the Supreme Court judgement against lynching and tries to restore faith in the court’s capacity to curb this violence.

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Jignesh Mevani Preface Acknowledgements File 1: Lynching A Substitute for Communal Riots Cow, a Sacred or a Political Animal? The Oft-present Political Hand Common Maximum Programme: Similarities in Lynching Incidents Gaurakshini Sabhas: Walk down to the Nineteenth Century Bhartiya Gau Raksha Dal: Part-time Professionals Mind of a Gau Rakshak: All Hate, No Love? File 2: Muslims: Easy Targets? Omen of Things to Come Dadri: Akhlaq Pune: Mohsin Shaikh The Gau Rakshaks of Rajasthan Alwar Lynchings Chittorgarh Lynchings Rajsamand: Afrazul Horrifying Mutilations in Haryana Ballabhgarh: Junaid on Delhi-Mathura Train Kurukshetra: Mustain Abbas Lynched and Filmed in Uttar Pradesh Hapur: Qasim and Samiuddin Hanged by the Mob in Jharkhand Ramgarh: Alimuddin Ansari Giridih: Usman Ansari Latehar: Mazloom Ansari and Imtiaz Killings in the Name of the Cow Jammu: Sammi Himachal Pradesh: Noman Normalizing Lynching Satna: Siraj Khan and Shakeel Delhi: Rizwan, Kamil and Ashfaq File 3: The Mob Now Targets Dalits At the Mercy of Upper Castes Hamirpur: Chimma Una: The Lynchings and the Dalit Uprising File 4: Lynched and Forgotten! When Tragedies Were Dismissed 10 States and Many More Lynchings File 5: Aftermath Supreme Court Shows the Way Desecrating Hate, Bigotry and Everything That Leads to Lynching

About the Author :
Ziya Us Salam is a noted literary and social commentator. A student of history from the University of Delhi, he is engaged in building bridges of commonality between communities through recourse to the Quran and the Vedas. He has been associated with The Hindu for almost two decades and has been its Features Editor for North India editions for 16 years. At present, he is an Associate Editor, Frontline, and writes on sociocultural issues for the magazine besides doing book reviews. A prolific and an acclaimed author, in 2019, he published Lynch Files, a take on victims of hate violence, and 365 Tales from Islam, a book that aims to introduce Islam to children. In the previous year, he had released Of Saffron Flags and Skull Caps, a take on the challenges to the idea of India, and Till Talaq Do Us Part, a study of various divorce options available in Islam. His book Delhi 4 Shows, a study of cinemas since the talkie era began, was released in 2016. His book Women in Masjid: A Quest for Justice was released recently. Ziya was a jury member of the International Film Festival of India (non-feature film, 2011), Best Writing on Cinema (2008) and Vatavaran.

Review :
‘Lynch Files is bound to make a sensitive reader feel the meaning of being born as Akhlaq or Mohsin  Shaikh in a non-secular/non-spiritual culture that allows the nasty politics of "gau rakshaks" to insult the foundations of a civilization nurtured by the likes of Kabir and Tagore. A must-read!’ ‘Lynching is an act of terror. It is a weapon of a psychological war waged against people, Muslims in particular, but also Dalits. It is to tell their youth that they are not safe and that the killers can pick anyone they wish to, anywhere, anytime. Lynching is not limited by geography and cannot be contained as a communal riot can be by bringing in the army. Ziya Us Salam’s timely study exposes the threat and the politics. For me, it is clear: If Muslims are not safe, no minority is safe, even if their youth are not being lynched.’ ‘Lynch Files makes for compulsory reading for anyone who wants to understand how the largest democracy in the world was coerced into maintaining stoic silence over the broad daylight lynching of its own citizens just because they belonged to a particular faith or caste confi guration. Ziya Us Salam succeeds in dissecting the ideological undercurrents behind these ghastly hate crimes and exposes their diabolical modus operandi. The author’s analysis about ‘lynching’ being the new substitute for‘ communal riots’ is veracious as these ‘low-profi le’ but ‘high-intensity’ incidents have achieved their sinister purpose of creating communal antagonism. A must-read for all concerned citizens of this nation.’ ‘Lynching is a word added to the national lexicon in the four years of the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Reports of people being lynched by mobs have become routine and no longer excite the moral imagination of India. The target of these lynchings have been primarily Muslims. What is special about the murders of Muslims by the mobs is that they cannot even protest as Muslims. While there have been cases of Dalits being killed by mobs and also some stray incidents of other kinds of lynching, there is no denying the fact that killing of Muslims in this manner has a genocidal tone to it.’ ‘Ziya Us Salam performs a painful duty of recording this episode in the history of independent secular India for us and for the posterity. The book very convincingly demonstrates that rather than being isolated and unconnected unfortunate incidents, these lynchings are an integral part of the genocidal project of the Bharatiya Janata Party directed mainly against the Muslims.’ "Ziya’s book pieces together heart wrenching stories…sends message to government-to take stern measures against the perpetrators of mob violence." "Oddly disturbing yet a ‘revealing text’, a real eye opener… social, political, and cultural."