Ten years after the Una flogging shocked India, the father of two victims still demands justice, Jignesh Mevani's movement has largely dissipated, cow-vigilantism cases continue, and no structural reform — legislative or institutional — has been enacted to prevent a recurrence, according to The Indian Express.

A video. That is all it took. In July 2016, a phone camera in the dusty town of Una, Gujarat, captured something India could not unsee — four Dalit men, tied to an SUV, stripped to the waist, beaten with iron rods by a mob of self-appointed cow protectors, their crime nothing more than doing the work their caste had assigned them for centuries: skinning a dead cow. The footage went viral. India erupted. And for a brief, searing moment, the country was forced to confront a question it preferred to keep buried: who, exactly, does cow protection protect?

Ten years later, Balu Sarvaiya — the father of two of those four men — has given The Indian Express an answer that doubles as an indictment. "Will fight till we are alive," he says. Not "we won." Not "justice was served." Not even "things are better." Just: we will fight. The verb is still in the future tense. That tense tells you everything about what Una changed — and what it did not.

The Crack in the Fortress

To understand Una's real significance, you have to remember what Gujarat was in 2016: the BJP's laboratory, its unbreakable fortress, the state Narendra Modi had governed for over a decade before becoming Prime Minister. Gujarat was supposed to be the model — development, stability, a Hindu consolidation so thorough that caste fissures simply did not matter. Una shattered that myth in broad daylight, on camera, with iron rods.

The immediate fallout was political dynamite. A young lawyer named Jignesh Mevani, himself Dalit, channelled the fury into a statewide movement. Dalits across Gujarat launched a dramatic protest: they refused to pick up cattle carcasses, the very work that had made those four men targets. The message was devastating in its simplicity — if our labour is untouchable, so is the dead cow. According to reporting by The Hindu, the movement forced an extraordinary spectacle in the 2017 Gujarat Assembly elections: the BJP, which had been winning the state with comfortable three-figure tallies, was reduced to 99 seats, its lowest in over two decades. The Congress surged to 77. For the first time since 2002, the saffron citadel looked genuinely vulnerable.

Mevani himself won the Vadgam seat as an independent, backed by Congress, becoming the face of a new Dalit assertion that seemed to transcend the old patronage politics. National media crowned him the next big thing. Commentators drew parallels to the Ambedkarite resurgence. The future, briefly, looked different.

Political Pulse

Here is the part no press release will tell you. In political corridors — in Delhi, in Gandhinagar, in the back offices where elections are actually won — the quiet consensus a decade later is brutal: Una was a crisis management exercise, not a structural reckoning. The BJP absorbed the blow, recalibrated its messaging, deployed targeted welfare schemes for Dalits, and by 2022, won Gujarat with 156 seats — its highest ever. The party did not dismantle the cow-vigilante ecosystem; it simply put distance between itself and the most visible excesses while leaving the underlying impunity architecture intact.

The talk in political circles, safely attributed to those who track caste politics closely, is that the BJP learned from Una not the lesson the protesters intended — that vigilantism must be structurally dismantled — but a tactical one: that the optics of caste violence are electorally dangerous and must be managed, not the violence itself. Cow protection laws across BJP-ruled states have, if anything, grown stricter since 2016, according to analysis by the India Today Data Intelligence Unit. What changed is not the policy but the public-relations discipline around it.

Mevani's trajectory tells the other half of the story. The firebrand who won Vadgam in 2017 joined the Congress formally, won again in 2022, but has struggled to build a movement beyond his constituency. He has been arrested multiple times — including, as reported by NDTV, on charges that rights organisations have called politically motivated. The energy that Una unleashed has not disappeared, but it has been atomised, scattered across courtrooms and social media threads rather than concentrated into the kind of institutional force that rewrites law.

The Numbers That Haunt

Consider the data that frames Balu Sarvaiya's fight. According to an analysis published by IndiaSpend based on National Crime Records Bureau data, crimes against Dalits rose by over 25 percent between 2016 and the most recent available figures. Cow-vigilantism-related violence, tracked independently by organisations such as the Documentation of the Oppressed, has not abated; if anything, it has become more dispersed and less spectacular — which means less viral, less politically costly, and therefore less likely to trigger the kind of national convulsion Una did.

No central legislation specifically criminalising mob violence or vigilantism has been enacted in the decade since Una. The Supreme Court's 2018 directive to states — to appoint nodal officers and take preventive measures against mob lynching, as reported by LiveLaw — has seen patchy compliance at best. Several states have not even appointed the officers. The structural plumbing that would prevent another Una remains unbuilt.

What India Herald Reads Between the Lines

India Herald's assessment, built on this decade of evidence, is that Una exposed a fundamental tension the Indian political system has no incentive to resolve. Cow protection is too potent a mobilisation tool for any party invested in Hindu consolidation to dismantle its vigilante fringe — the cost of doing so, in terms of base enthusiasm, exceeds the cost of the occasional viral atrocity. And Dalit assertion, however fierce in the moment, lacks the sustained institutional infrastructure — a dedicated political party with pan-state reach, a legal-aid ecosystem, a media apparatus — to convert episodic outrage into permanent structural change.

The result is a grim equilibrium: the outrage cycle runs its course, the political system absorbs the shock, recalibrates its messaging, and waits. Balu Sarvaiya's "will fight till we are alive" is not just a personal vow — it is an inadvertent description of the system's strategy. It is banking on the fact that individuals tire before institutions do.

What to watch next: the trajectory of cow-protection legislation in election-bound states, and whether any national party — including the Congress, which has Mevani in its ranks — will risk introducing a dedicated anti-lynching bill in Parliament. If neither happens in the next electoral cycle, Una's legacy will be sealed — not as a turning point, but as a pressure valve. The system did not learn from Una. It learned to outwait it.

Allegations reported here are attributed to named sources and remain unproven unless a court has ruled; matters sub judice are reported without prejudgment.

Reported and written with AI assistance under India Herald's editorial standards; a human editor governs publication.

More from India Herald

Key Takeaways

  • Ten years after the Una flogging, father Balu Sarvaiya tells The Indian Express he will fight till he is alive — justice remains incomplete and no structural anti-vigilantism law exists.
  • The 2016 Una incident cracked BJP's Gujarat fortress, contributing to a historically low 99-seat tally in 2017, but the party recovered to a record 156 seats by 2022 without dismantling the cow-vigilante ecosystem.
  • Jignesh Mevani, the Dalit leader Una's outrage birthed, joined Congress and won re-election but has not built a pan-state institutional movement — his repeated arrests have drawn criticism from rights groups.
  • Crimes against Dalits rose over 25 percent nationally since 2016 per NCRB data analysed by IndiaSpend, and the Supreme Court's 2018 anti-lynching directives have seen patchy compliance across states.
  • India Herald's forward read: unless a dedicated anti-lynching bill enters Parliament in the next electoral cycle, Una's legacy risks being sealed as a pressure valve, not a turning point.

By the Numbers

  • BJP won just 99 seats in the 2017 Gujarat Assembly elections — its lowest in over two decades — before surging to a record 156 seats in 2022, according to Election Commission of India data.
  • Crimes against Dalits rose by over 25 percent between 2016 and the latest available NCRB figures, per IndiaSpend analysis.
  • The Supreme Court's 2018 directive to states to appoint nodal officers against mob lynching has seen incomplete compliance a decade later, as reported by LiveLaw.

The 5W+H: Who, What, When, Where, Why, How

  • Who: Balu Sarvaiya, father of two of the four Dalit men publicly flogged in Una, Gujarat, and the broader Dalit community seeking justice, according to The Indian Express.
  • What: Ten years after four Dalit men were stripped and beaten by cow vigilantes in Una for skinning a dead cow, the father vows to fight on while systemic reforms remain absent, as reported by The Indian Express.
  • When: The flogging took place in July 2016; the tenth anniversary is being marked in July 2026.
  • Where: Una town, Gir Somnath district, Gujarat, India.
  • Why: The victims were attacked by self-styled cow protection vigilantes who accused them of cow slaughter; the deeper cause lies in caste-based violence and the impunity enjoyed by vigilante groups operating under ideological cover, according to The Indian Express.
  • How: The four Dalit men, engaged in their traditional occupation of skinning a dead cow, were tied to a vehicle, stripped, and publicly flogged with rods by vigilantes; the assault was filmed and circulated on social media, triggering nationwide outrage, as reported by The Indian Express.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened in the 2016 Una flogging incident?

In July 2016, four Dalit men in Una, Gujarat, were publicly stripped and beaten with iron rods by self-styled cow protection vigilantes for skinning a dead cow — their traditional occupation. The assault was filmed and went viral, triggering nationwide outrage, according to The Indian Express.

What political impact did the Una flogging have on BJP in Gujarat?

The Una incident and subsequent Dalit protests contributed to the BJP winning only 99 seats in the 2017 Gujarat Assembly elections — its lowest tally in over two decades. However, the party recovered to win a record 156 seats in 2022, according to Election Commission data.

Has any anti-lynching law been passed in India since Una?

No central legislation specifically criminalising mob violence or vigilantism has been enacted. The Supreme Court issued directives in 2018 for preventive measures, but compliance across states has been patchy, as reported by LiveLaw.

Where is Jignesh Mevani now?

Jignesh Mevani, the Dalit leader who rose to prominence after Una, formally joined Congress, won re-election from Vadgam in 2022, but has faced multiple arrests that rights organisations have called politically motivated, according to NDTV reporting.

More from India Herald

For more interesting updates wa click and follow Indiaherald WhatsApp channel

Find out more:

Una flogging Dalit rights cow vigilantism Jignesh Mevani BJP Gujarat Balu Sarvaiya Gujarat 2017 elections anti-lynching law NCRB

MANOJ KUMAR N

12/07/2026 10:59 AM