Whataboutry comes into question when the front-runners of the recent award-wapsi campaign have some political connection with the opposition parties, some even campaigned for the opposition parties during the last LS election, some campaigned against Modi, some even hold posts in opposition parties. The protesting individuals were protesting against Modi & BJP government before the LS election and they are continuing to do so after the election, it is their political stand for years...and their protest need not get more importance than what the political oppositions get in a functioning democracy.
Whataboutry also comes into question when we see pictures of the protesting eminent writers smilingly sticking their necks out to accept medals from someone like Jagdish Tytler, a man accused of leading the Shikh genocide on the ground in 1984. These are powerful pictures that are bound to raise eyebrows, and questions.
These protesters will calm down and everything will be back to normalcy after the final phase of voting in Bihar. Before the Delhi election it was Church attacks (that mostly were not communal in nature, but general criminal acts), now we don't hear much about that and Christians don't seems to be getting persecuted in the country, at least not anymore.
While the Dadri incident is really unfortunate, but communal (and caste based) clashes are rather regular affair in the most lawless state called UP, for example, a murder from another community happened in UP during the Durga Puja Visharjan. Now being the PM of all Indians, should he start issuing specific statements for every communal incident in the country? Wouldn't a statement like "A Muslim was killed over beef, and a Hindu was killed over Durga Puja Visharjan" etc. by the PM himself fuel the communal tension further? The number of communal clashes are in thousands every year in our country, it has been so, unfortunately. PM has given statements twice already for maintaining communal harmony.
However, it is true that the PM should take steps to control certain rabid motor mouths, certain sadhu and sadhwi to be specific, and apparently he is working on it, but BJP is not a family run party like the Congress and most other regional parties, he doesn't have absolute control over all the state units...a similar example would be CPM, where state CMs are/were not in absolute control of all affairs of the party, a PM is not the boss of CMs, but only the first among the equals in a federal state like India. There isn't any anti-minority steps taken by the central government so far, not anything I know of, but the rabid Hindutavadi elements in the party are a problem, but these elements were always like that...what is important is that they are not getting to formulate policies and dictate the government, remember that RSS has a "Swadeshi" agenda also, but Modi is pursuing the opposite path. Much of the current hyperbole is politics and media creation, but as per our media aren't we going to war against Pakistan and China every other day?