In the wake of a spurt in lynching cases in India, President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday hit out at those killing in the name of gau raksha and asked whether the society is vigilant enough to save the basic tenets of the country.
“When mob lynching becomes so uncontrollable, we have to pause and reflect, are we vigilant enoughIJ,” Pranab said at the release of commemorative publication of the National Herald.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who returned to India after 18 days long vacation abroad, too were present on the occasion where a host of top political and media personalities were in attendance.
Pranab’s comments on violence against minorities came two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the “cow vigilantes” to task. Modi broke his silence at Sabarmati Ashram and said killing people in the name of gau bhakti (devotion to the cow) is not acceptable.
The President also commended the role of media in nation building and said, “I do believe that citizens and media’s vigilance can act as the biggest deterrent to forces of darkness and backwardness.”
Speaking on the occasion of launch of the National Herald — the paper due to which both Sonia and her son, Rahul Gandhi, are in trouble — the Congress chief said the country has come a long way since 1947, but while we celebrate the achievements of our past, we must also look within so that we can shape a better future.
Sonia said the newspaper Nehru founded reflected what that generation stood for. “While today we find ourselves increasingly divided in the name of class and caste, religion and region, the National Herald is a testament to those great leaders who rose beyond individual ambition to project and protect the very soul of this land. Unity, peace and justice, not division and conflict, were the lights that guided them, in thought as well as action,” Sonia said.