In this letter from the basement, we go back a year to look at the gruesome lynching of two sadhus and their driver in Palghar District of Maharashtra and examine what message that incident and what happened after that convey to Hindus living in India.
On 16th April 2020 hundreds of people armed with sticks, rods and other weapons assembled and brutally lynched to death two sadhus belonging to the Juna Akhada, Kalpavriksha Giri Maharaj and Sushil Giri Maharaj. Along with them their driver Nilesh Telgade was also killed. What makes this incident even worse is that it happened as the police simply stood by watching, like spectators. The police didn’t just fail in their duty to protect the sadhus. They in fact handed them over to the blood lusting mob. What happened in Palghar on that day is emblematic of how Hindus have been treated in India since 1947. We have been mobbed from every side by hostile forces. And the Indian state that we had empowered to give us equality and security has not just turned a blind eye but has become an active participant in our discrimination.