The BBC has dedicated many articles on its website on what it terms “cow vigilantes” and lynchings. Some of their claims use IndiaSpend as a source of information and claim apparent lynching attacks on Muslims have been increased by cow protection groups.
The way IndiaSpend have gathered this data has been heavily scrutinised and commentators have questioned the validity of the data.
Their articles on the issue become more problematic because they fail to balance the story and focus only on the cow protection groups. The other side of the story is poor Indian farmers who suffer from cattle theft. Cattle livestock is their main source of income, that provides them with milk, grazing of land and manure for fuel.
Many Indian farmers reside in rural areas which can be lawless. Their livelihoods are being stolen with little assistance from the police available. This results in locals setting up vigilante groups to guard their livestock.
The BBC fails to cover the complex issues behind cow protection groups. We do not hear about the cow smugglers that are abusing animals and stealing cows from farmers. On occasions when the cow smugglers have been Muslim, the BBC narrative appears to show the smugglers being the actual victims.
Further balance is also missing from the BBC in coverage of lynchings in other countries. For example in Pakistan, allegations of blasphemy against non-Muslims are often used to justify lynchings. These incidents occur far more regularly and are even covered by Pakistani news outlets.
References for this article can be found in the full report.
