Lynch Mobs Are Ruling The Streets In India And Authorities Have Completely Failed To Stop Them

Lynching has become an all too common piece of news to wake up to, hasn't it? From lynching of Jammu and Kashmir DSP, Ayub Pandith, to the killing of a teenage youth and beating three others in a train in Haryana, mob culture is taking over law and order in most parts of the country. There seems to be no stopping to it.

Where does this desire to spread law and justice by going above both their values of the Indian constitution even stem from? Some will say it¡¯s because the current government is letting mobs act in lawlessness, while others will say that lawlessness stems from gaps in the social structure, where crime succeeds security.

Here are a some lynching incidents that have taken place this year:

1. May 18, 2017

Seven people were lynched near Jamshedpur as the police watched on. The mob decided to take the matter into their own hands following Whatsapp rumours of gangs organising kidnappings of children in the region. At least 30 policemen watched the mob beat four people.

News 18

2. May 2, 2017

A mob of Right-wing activists ¨C UP police later confirmed they were members of the Hindu Yuva Vahini ¨C lynched a man after he eloped with a woman from a different community. This happened in UP¡¯s Bulandshahr¡¯s district.

3. April 30, 2017

Two young men in their twenties were brutally assaulted in the Nagaon district of Central Assam on suspicion of them being cow thieves. They were chased by a crowd and beaten up.

BCCL

4. April 22, 2017

Four men in Delhi, who claimed to be from the animal rights group, People for Animals, stopped a truck and beat up people inside as they suspected them of being cattle smugglers.

5. April 21, 2017

In Jammu and Kashmir, cow vigilantes physically assaulted a family of five with a nine-year-old with iron rods. The family was herding their livestock when they were attacked.

6. April 1, 2017

BCCL

A mob of about 100 cow vigilante in Rajasthan¡¯s Alwar, beat up a 55-year-old Muslim man, who died two days later because of grave injuries. It was reported that the mob became violent because he was allegedly transporting cows, but it was later revealed that he was taking the cows for his dairy farm.

7. March 9, 2017

A Bangladeshi security guard was lynched to death in Tripura. It was alleged that he was a part of a group of robbers.

Mobs of cow vigilantes

There¡¯s no hiding that the number of lynching incidents, whether related to the ¡®holy¡¯ cow or not, have spiked since the BJP came to power in 2014. Though the current government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, may not be directly supporting cow vigilantes, their silence, however, is screaming of complicity. These mobs are not supported by the law, then why are they able to act in lawlessness and escape with impunity?

BCCL

"When the state starts tacitly supporting mob violence in the name of anything- be it religious sentiments or whatever- and lets the lynch mobs loose, it forgets that it also compromises on its very existential thread - of being the sole custodian of legitimate violence to curb crime,¡± says Avinash Pandey who works at the Asian Human Rights Commission.

The government needs to realise that these violent incidents may help in bludgeoning their vote banks, but they are also casting a dark, opaque shadow on the government. In keeping mum, BJP is alienating law-abiding citizens of the country, and people who believe in the law¡¯s authority.

Other mobs

If you think about it, people want very few basic things ¨C food, shelter, clothes and most importance, peace and happiness. Why then would ordinary people turn to violence over petty things like beating someone up for stealing cell phones?

Gail Super, a criminologist at the University of Cape Town, told Deutsche Welle that the huge economic gap between the rich and poor plays an equally huge part in forcing people to violence. He said, ¡°The problem comes in especially with rapid urbanisation and the migration of people. Vigilantism or mob justice is a traditional way of communities to deal with criminals or the high level of crime in the country.

Lynchings are more common in poor and informal settlements, where people are vulnerable to existentialist threats. Governments come to power after making a lot of promises such as creating jobs and economic prosperity, and when people, after year on year on year of living in status quo, realise that these promises were empty, they lose faith in the system. They see that when a system can¡¯t even alleviate them from their slum life to a one-bed house, then they see little hope in the system giving them justice.

Reuters

Avinash adds, ¡°Sadly, the compromise is unidirectional and irreversible - lynch mobs don't stop at the 'other', the enemy. The state might want it to be a controlled lynch mob focusing on beef, in reality it will fan out as did in the name of child theft rumours in Rajasthan, and the case in Mumbai".

Frustration manifests itself in the shape of violence and it¡¯s easier to attack weaker sections of society then choke people in power. Police authorities, who are supposed to uphold the law, are looking back at their silent political masters to take action, instead of doing their job. But can we blame them when they are underpaid and underappreciated?

Lynching isn¡¯t India¡¯s problem alone. In 2011, for the first time, the Kenyan police included ¡°lynching in its crime statistics. That year they recorded 543 victims. In 2014, 582 people died of lynching in Uganda, which equals to about 1.6 deaths a day.

The government has promises to keep, and if they don¡¯t, who knows who the next victim will be.