In 2014, the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party won an outright majority of seats in the Indian parliament. India has a highly fragmented multi-party system with multiple regional and national parties fielding candidates for election, this meant the BJP could achieve this majority with only 31% of the votes cast. The election brought Narendra Modi to power as Prime Minister, he was previously CM for the western state of Gujarat. Modi was notoriously prevented from visiting the US by the state department based on his government's suspected complicity in the 2002 Gujarat riots which led to the death of over a thousand people, most of them Muslim. The restriction was lifted as it became clear Modi's party was headed towards electoral victory. Modi visited the US last month, addressed Indian-American crowds and made highly-visible visits to Facebook, Google, Tesla and Apple.

Back home in India, Mr. Modi and his party are engaged in more prosaic efforts, including appeasing their right wing, Hindu-nationalist base. One such measure involves a nationwide campaign to ban the slaughter of cows and consumption of beef. This has been a pet project of some in India for decades, and been the source of sectarian strife for longer. The cattle trade is run mostly by Muslim traders and though cows are considered sacred by most Hindus, India is the largest exporter of beef and a major consumer since it has the largest cattle herd in the world. The ban on cow slaughter has threatened the livelihood of farmers who rely on proceeds from the sale of older bulls to fund the purchase of younger farm animals. Muslim, Christian and certain Hindu communities eat beef, and some Hindu sects sacrifice cows. Hinduism is such a heterodox collection of beliefs and cultural practices that some hesitate to call it a religion. Numerous observers have noted that Hindus at various time in the past ate beef and some Hindu scriptures sanction it. Detailed historical analysis, interesting though it may be, has never stopped a mob.

On September 30th, a Hindu mob killed a Muslim blacksmith in a village 30 miles outside of the capital, New Delhi. His son was seriously injured in the attack. The mob descended on Mohammed Akhlaq's house following a rumor that the family was eating beef. The Akhlaq family insist the meat in their fridge is mutton, which local authorities confirmed with forensic analysis. The exact contents of Mr. Akhlaq's refrigerator are significant to the state government which is led by the regional Samajwadi party which occasionally allies with the left of center Congress party in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). If Mr. Akhlaq did not have beef in his fridge, it becomes much easier for the BJP's opponents to claim the campaign against beef is endangering public order and even those "completely innocent" of eating cows. Within the warped Indian context, the incident becomes far less potent if it turns out Mr. Akhlaq did eat beef. Uttar Pradesh, the state this incident occurred in, bans cow slaughter and has a population over 200 million. As if things weren't murky enough, the village of Dadri is meant to form one end of India's first high-speed rail link between Delhi and Mumbai, and is the scene of rampant land speculation.

More below the orange plough.