The views expressed in this column are the individualu2019s and donu2019t represent those of the paper I ndiau2019s definition of its culture as non- violent seemed a fiction at every lynching undertaken in the name of the cow over the last six years. The fiction resembled a charade as those barbaric killings failed to spark a popular outrage.

The charade turned into a cruel joke as Bharatiya Janata Party leaders resorted to the rhetoric of violence in their campaign for the Delhi Assembly elections, a testament to the partyu2019s belief that Indians do not necessarily recoil from hate and gore.