going blind

i reached jaisalmer, in the thar desert, one day before a city-wide strike was called by the government. why a strike? according to the first man i asked, 37 cows in a nearby village had been killed. how? the government had done it. they had made the cows run really fast and the cows died. one cow gave birth to a dead cow as a result of having to run. whaaaaa? i asked someone else. what happened? 25 cows were killed. how? the muslims. oh, not this bullshit again. . . i asked another, what happened? 18 cows were killed. how? someone drove a tractor really fast behind the cows and they died? excuuuuse me? i asked someone else, what happened? holy cows were killed. how? by the muslims. after a few more answers like this i got tired of the racist reasoning that often accompanies such events in india and stopped asking. the only seeming truth is that cows were dead and a strike was called (in solidarity with the cows? as anti-muslim sentiment? i don't know). i soon learned that as backlash for the killing of the cows, muslim villages in the area had been razed, possibly with government support. the BJP (hindu nationalist party- "india for hindus" bullshit ideology) is the state government in the state of Rajasthan. cow violence was responded to with racist violence (or possibly used as an excuse to perpetrate violence against muslims? i don't know) i was told not to leave my hotel on the day of the strike, because it might get dangerous with the thousands of men (and only men) chanting, marching, and angry. i did leave my hotel without consequence. it is odd, though, that i should feel in possible danger as a result of a potential backlash against violence. and moreso, that a whole group of people should be targetted for violence as a result of actions for which noone in particular has been identified. and the world continues to go blind. . . blind. . .