Garlanded convicts posing with a Union minister is an image that can cause either horror or elation. But the opposing reactions would screen the complexities of the message that the image conveys. The eight men released on bail in Jharkhand have been convicted of lynching a member of the minority community last year for allegedly transporting cow meat. They are the first to have been convicted for killing in the name of gau raksha. In other words, this is the first instance in which people can see the law enforcement system in action against murderous gau rakshaks. At the same time, when Jayant Sinha, the minister of state for civil aviation and the Bharatiya Janata Party member of parliament from the region where the lynching took place, greets the convicts, garlands them and then discloses his doubts about the credibility of the fast-track justice system, it would seem that the dominant dispensation is determined to send out a different message. Those regarded as criminals by the justice system in place are really heroes; and a particular segment of the population is being invited to view them as such.

This sabotaging of the institutions of justice and equity and the celebration of violence are not accidental. After Mr Sinha was criticized for his action, Giriraj Singh, the minister of state for micro, small and medium enterprises and BJP MP from Nawada in Bihar, accused the government led by the Janata Dal (United), an ally of the BJP, of 'suppressing' Hinduism in the name of secularism. He was visiting in jail members of the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad arrested for having allegedly caused sectarian tension during Ram Navami. Once again, the action by the law-enforcing arm of the State, the police, is being assailed by an elected representative from the government in the name of religion, creating a confusion in which people must regard violent instigators as either criminals or heroes. This is exactly equivalent to the horror or elation choice for people looking at Mr Sinha's photograph with the convicts. It seems that every move of the government is aimed at polarization, while also, as in these cases, undermining the credibility of all institutions, of the law, of justice and the moral understanding of criminality. But the BJP remains spotless: the State is acting against perceived wrongdoing, while individual leaders are supporting those who enact their declared or undeclared tendencies.