The Hour of Lynching: Vigilante Violence in India (2019) dir. Amit Madheshiya, Shirley Abraham

A powerful and shocking story of a nation beset by communalism and majoritarian Hindu nationalism, The Hour of Lynching: Vigilante Violence in India exposes attacks against Muslim dairy farmers by Hindu vigilantes. These mobs have set themselves upon Muslims on the accusation of trafficking cows–a sacred symbol for Hindus–for slaughter. Since the election of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister of India in 2014, 47 people have been murdered in cow-related orchestrated hate crimes, 76 percent of which were Muslim. The Hour of Lynching: Vigilante Violence in India is a harrowing account of one family’s grief as the result of ‘cow vigilantism’ and their struggle for justice, amid terrorising Hindu nationalism – led and championed by the state apparatus.