On 26 June, hundreds
of thousands of people in more than fifty cities across India gathered together
to protest against yet another lynching. Tabrez Ansari, a twenty- four-year-old
Muslim was brutally attacked and killed by yet another murderous mob. This
horrific incident took place in Jharkhand on the night of 17/18 June. Videos of
the lynching clearly show how Ansari was tied to a telephone pole, after being
accused of stealing a motorcycle. As he was being mercilessly beaten by the
mob, he was forced by them to say “Jai Sri Ram” and “Jai Hanuman”.
As these unbelievable
videos began growing viral on social media, online users expressed their horror
and disgust at the frightening regularity at which lynching was taking place in
India. The lack of prompt and effective police intervention was top of the
concerns of the protesters. Posters with
the face of Tabrez were creatively made. The hashtag #JusticeForTabrez began
trending number one in the country. The protestors were vehement in their call
that the attackers of Tabrez are brought to book expeditiously and that the
Government demonstrates a political will to halt all lynching immediately!
Protests
were held in several other cities across the globe particularly in the US and
the UK. The online portal ‘twocircles.net’ reports on the protests in the US,
“Concerned citizens also protested in Chicago to demand immediate action
against the perpetrators of lynchings as well as the politicians encouraging
them. They said,
“We, the concerned citizens of India and of Indian Origin
living in US condemn such lackadaisical attitude of the government towards
mobocracy and therefore, encouraging Law of Jungle and demand that the country
be saved from falling into a dark era where mobocracy takes over”.
People
of all ages and faith held posters and banners that expressed, outrage, grief
and a demand for justice. One poster read
“Punish criminal political
patronage to lynching”, while other one had the names –
“Akhlaq, Pehlu,
Afrazul, Junaid… Tabrez. Stop before it is you”
“It
is a matter of grave concern for all people to raise their voices against this
attack on Right to Be of a section of people and individuals. It is an attack
on all people and is a form of state terrorism carried out by the ruling elite
to attack, divert and divide people, who are struggling hard to find solutions
to basic problems such as food, water, shelter, safety and security which are
caused by the rule and plunder of a handful few. We must not let this pass,”
said Jaspal Singh who lives in
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
A poet
present in the group read a poem written in remembrance of Tabrez and how Ram’s
name is being used to spread fear and hatred. University students, doctors,
scientists, workers, teachers and many others were part of the gathering in the
famous Harvard Square”.
On expected lines
most of India’s so-called mainstream media hardly gave the recent lynching and
the subsequent widespread protests the attention it deserved. Matters of no
consequence to the ordinary citizen of India once again hogged prime time! That
the average Indian citizen (and those in the diaspora) is concerned about what
is happening in the country today should have merited headlines. But sadly, it
is not happening! Mainstream media (now owned by corporate and political
bosses) are certainly culpable in not playing a responsible and more active
role in arresting lynching, and every form of mob and other violence which
seems to become the DNA of the nation today!
One
does not need to have too much of an intelligence to realise that lynching has
become the new normal in India! There is no doubt about that: it is visible, it
is violent and (thanks to the videos from smart phones) it goes viral! The victims,
as one can ascertain from
https://lynch.factchecker.in/
,
are invariably from
minority and marginalized communities; someone regarded as an ‘outsider’ who is
not ‘one of us’. The tragedy of lynchings in India today – is that they
apparently have the official sanction by the Government of the day; in fact,
some of the central ministers have publicly anointed and garlanded those
responsible for these bloody murders.
‘Lynching’ is nothing new in the world! It can be best
described as “
premeditated
extrajudicial killing
by a group. It is most often used to
characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged
transgressor, or to intimidate a group. It is an extreme form of informal group
social control and often conducted with the display of a public spectacle for
maximum intimidation
”. Lynching must
be considered as an act of terrorism and punishable by law. Instances of
lynchings and similar mob violence can be found in every society. However, the
lynchings in India, particularly in the last five years, (according to
https://lynch.factchecker.in/ there
have been 175 major assaults due to cow-related violence only causing 47
deaths)
must surely give the country the pride
of place among the violent nations of the world today.
In November 1984, in
the wake of the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the
country witnessed mobs going around in Delhi and other parts of North India
singling out Sikh men and brutally murdering them. Much of this was documented
however; most of the big perpetrators were allowed to go scot-free. Sadly, after
so many years many of the victims still do not have the comfort of experiencing
a sense of closure to that terrible chapter of India’s history.
The Gujarat Carnage
of 2002 apparently provided lynching with the aura and legitimacy with which it
holds sway today. Rampaging and rapacious mobs murdered, raped, assaulted,
looted, and burnt innocent and hapless Muslims all over the State. It is
evidenced knowledge today that those who presided over these heinous crimes and
instigated the unfettered mob violence were those who ruled the State. There
were also two State Ministers in the police control room who were apparently
issuing orders to the frenzied mobs. The police stood aside as mute spectators
and sometimes even indulged in acts of violence.
“We have no orders to save
you!” was a retort from a police official to a Muslim victim desperately
pleading to be saved.
Unofficial estimates
state that more than two thousand Muslims were killed, many more injured and
several thousand displaced in the bloodiest chapter of post-independent India.
Thanks to the dogged efforts of several individuals and groups like the
‘Citizens for Justice and Peace’ (
www.cjp.org.in
) several of the perpetrators have been convicted and
some have even been given life imprisonment. The plain truth is that the
masterminds, the ‘big fish’ still remain free, roam the land with impunity, and
have even managed to cloak themselves with immunity. That so many (and
specially the powerful) could get away undoubtedly serves as a motivating
factor to those anonymous individuals who are easily manipulated by the hate
rhetoric, gossip and rumours that often fuel mob violence.
The horrible incident
of March 2015 will never be forgotten! Thousands of people broke into the
Central Jail in Dimapur and dragged out one Syed Khan, who was apparently
arrested on rape charges. They stripped him; they beat him up, tied him to a
motor cycle and dragged him for seven kilometres. He died on the way. The
murderous mob then hung his body in full public view. Police reports state that
it was not rape but that he had consensual sex with a local tribal woman and
apparently paid her for it.
Exactly a year ago on 3 July 2018, the Supreme Court of
India stated that violence in the name of cow vigilantism was not acceptable
.
“This is a law and order issue and each state have to be responsible. These
kinds of incidents cannot occur. It cannot be accepted in remotest sense. It is
obligation of the states to ensure that such incidents do not occur,” a
said a three-member bench headed by the Chief Justice of India. “
Whether a
lynching happens as a result of cow vigilantism or because people believe
someone is a child abductor, it does not matter — lynching is a crime, period.
Who will stop cow vigilantes? Some mechanism has to be there to prevent
violence indulged in by these groups. This must stop. Some kind of planned and
well-coordinated action is required by the governments so that vigilantism does
not grow,” the bench observed. The court warned against linking mob
violence to religion
“a victim is a victim” and asserted,
“this is
crime. This is actually mob violence. Nobody can take law into their own hands
and nobody can wash off their hands from their duty,”
A couple of weeks
later, on 17 July 2018, in a landmark judgment Supreme Court of India condemned
the lynching incidents across the country. The Bench headed by Chief Justice
Dipak Misra said the horrendous acts of mobocracy could not be allowed to
become a new norm in the Country.
“
The
horrendous acts of mobocracy cannot be permitted to inundate the law of the
land. Earnest action and concrete steps have to be taken to protect the
citizens from the recurrent pattern of violence which cannot be allowed to
become
“the new normal”...The State cannot turn a deaf ear to the
growing rumblings of its People, since its concern, to quote Woodrow Wilson,
‘must ring with the voices of the people.’ The exigencies of the situation
require us to sound a clarion call for earnest action to strengthen our
inclusive and all-embracing social order, which would, in turn, reaffirm the
constitutional faith. We expect nothing more and nothing less”
The
Supreme Court had hardly given its order, when the then Central Minister Jayant
Sinha garlanded and felicitated eight men convicted of lynching a Muslim coal
trader in a case of alleged cow vigilantism; earlier Gyan Ahuja the Alwar BJP
MLA justified the murder of Pehlu Khan a dairy farmer who was also beaten to
death by cow vigilantes; Union Minister Mahesh Sharma identified with the
family of one of the accused in the Dadri lynching case. Several other BJP
leaders have been spewing venom through their hate speeches be it crying hoarse
that Muslim women should be raped or that minorities are not “patriotic”. All
these provocative statements certainly inflame passions. The lumpen elements,
the frenzied mobs (here read:
often poor and unemployed youth) go doing
their job with a fierce passion. This would not happen if their leaders had not
goaded them on to act or provided them with ‘Godse’ as an icon to be emulated! All
these are not aberrations, of a few ‘black sheep’ but a carefully orchestrated
manner of the Government with the fascist ideology they espouse, in providing
legitimacy to these heinous crimes against humanity.
The regularity
of the lynching cases has led to a demand for an anti-lynching law. There are
enough provisions in the Indian Penal Code, for example, Sections 302 (murder),
304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 307 (attempt to murder), 34
(Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), to tackle
such incidents. These need to be implemented strongly and effectively. In
September 2017, the Supreme Court had asked states to take strong measures,
including appointing nodal officers at district level, to curb such instances
of violence in the name of cow protection, but absolutely nothing has happened
to date. In some states, the Government and the law and order mechanisms are
blatantly in connivance with the murderous mobs. Last week, Madhya Pradesh was
the first state in the country to introduce a bill to deal with lynching
providing stringent punishment to those who indulge in mob violence. This bill
will be introduced in the monsoon session of the Assembly and will soon become
law! However,
merely having a
new ‘special
anti-lynching’ law will not easily quell the murderous mobs. The Central Government
has to make it clear, as per the directives of the Supreme Court, that lynching
and mobocracy will not be tolerated; the only way it can demonstrate their
commitment to this ‘zero tolerance’ is to first effectively punish the ‘Godses’
and other murderers within its own ranks!
If the Prime Minister and the Government is serious about
controlling the lynching, they should first book their Ministers, their leaders
and others of their ilk who through hate speeches target the minorities, the
poor and the marginalized of the country. They should dismiss them from their
party and lodge a case against them. Sadly, there is a complete dearth of political
will to deal with the mob violence. As
the country celebrates the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi,
our leaders need to pay extra heed to his words,
“spirit”. Not
just lip-service but
through tangible action!
(The writer is a
human rights and peace activist. Contact:
cedricprakash@gmail.com)
