The report demonstrates an annual increase in beef-related attacks since Prime Minister Modi took office in 2014.
The passage of restrictive beef legislation in various states are associated with driving the attacks upon Muslims and Dalits by emboldening people to take the law into their own hands enacting violence and death extra-judiciously upon innocent Muslims.
Often the beef-related attacks upon Muslims are premeditated and led by ultra- national Hindu groups wielding weapons such as knives, sticks and belts who act as judge and jury.
Amnesty International India has drawn a link between increasing cow legislation that predominantly targets Muslims and the growing trend of Islamophobia that must be stopped.
Reports and narratives indicate that many Muslims live in fear due to the increasing, volatile and unpredictable nature of beef lynching across various regions in India.
Officials and police are often implicated in beef related attacks, and impunity around attacks lends a sense of permissibility to an 'open hunting season' upon Muslims. Not only do attackers including those who murder, go uncharged for their crimes, in some cases they have been honored and rewarded for their crime by politicians from the BJP.
Gau rakshaks seize wealth in the form of cows from Muslims and give them to gaushalas (cow shelters) that have been found to pass them on to Hindus, thus redistributing the wealth of Muslims to Hindus in some cases.
More than half of beef related attacks were reportedly spread by rumors.
Ghar VaÃŒ"žpasiÃŒ"ž or forcing Muslims to become Hindu
Hindu nationalist groups have been able to operate such assertive Ghar VaÃŒ"žpasiÃŒ"ž campaigns targeting minorities for conversion with apparent impunity. These so-called 'homecomings' are justified by the RSS as 'reconversions' on the basis that their predecessors were themselves supposedly converted from Hinduism through proselytization or force by other 'foreign' religions, including Islam.
"Ghar vaÃŒ"žpasiÃŒ"ž has been touted as the return to authentic origins, the starting point, the abode of birth. It produces and enforces notions of a primordial religious identity, whereby all and everyone are declared Hindus. Thus states Praveen Togadia of the VHP: "At one point of time, the entire world was Hindu. There were seven billion Hindus, and now there are just one billion." The shift from the whole world to the Hindu nation is swift, as ghar vaÃŒ"žpasiÃŒ"ž denationalizes Islam and Christianity, facilitating their "othering."
There have been ongoing reports of Ghar VaÃŒ"žpasiÃŒ"ž ceremonies in 2017, although their number and nature were impossible to confirm. In 2014, following the BJP national victory, the RSS announced plans to "reconvert" thousands of Christian and Muslims families to Hinduism as part of a so-called Ghar VaÃŒ"žpasiÃŒ"ž (returning home) program, and began raising money to do so.
The Dharm Jagran Samiti (Religious Awakening Council) is an RSS-VHP affiliate dedicated to converting Muslims and Christians to Hinduism. According to a report by India Today, this organization said it would expedite its Ghar VaÃŒ"žpasiÃŒ"ž campaign: "Muslims and Christians don't have any right to stay here [in India]," one of its leaders said in December 2014. "Our target is to make India a Hindu nation by 2021" Muslims and Christians must convert to Hinduism "if they want to stay in this country".
This statement is connected to the organizations' claims that they converted 57 Muslim families to Hinduism in Uttar Pradesh. Such conversion ceremonies have led to panic among Muslims and the displacement of Muslim communities from their homes. However, after domestic and international outcry, the RSS postponed its plans. Nevertheless, in its annual report presented of 2015, the VHP claimed to have converted nearly 34,000 people to Hinduism over a year and "prevented" nearly 49,000 Hindus from converting to other religions.
These conversions and "preventions" were carried out in the states of Odisha, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Assam. The Dharm Jagran Samiti also distributed pamphlets for its fundraising drive where the cost of converting a Muslim was fixed at Rs. 500,000 ($7,500) and of converting a Christian at Rs. 200,000 ($3,000). BJP MP Satish Gautam welcomed the announcement. Smaller-scale forced conversions of religious minorities were also reported in 2016. In addition, in February 2016 the RSS reportedly placed signs in train stations throughout India that said Christians had to leave India or convert to Hinduism or they will be killed by 2021.
The attack and murder of Pehlu Khan, a dairy farmer
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