Mob Lynchings: Symphony Between the State and Perpertrators – II

(This news article is three-part series. Part-II is published today. Part-I can be read here.)

“The Mob is the Mother of Tyrants”

- Diogenes (d 328 BC)

The chapter titled ‘Introduction’ in Zafarul-Islam’s ‘Mob Lynching in India - A Record - 2014-24’ explains the background of the targeted killings of innocents by mob lynching and then a correlation between Narendra Modi’s ascent to power at the centre with a spurt in ‘incidence of hate crimes and cow vigilantism’, followed by increasing storm troopers of the various Hindutva outfits and affiliated organisations of the Sangh Parivar making the ‘lives of Muslims, Christians, Dalits as well as women miserable’. It adds, ‘Modi government is doing everything to marginalise India’s religious minorities’ (p. 18) and after talking about reasons for violence in India, it further elaborates on ‘some major reasons for mob violence in India’ under which it discusses dowry deaths, communal riots, human sacrifice, and witch killings. Figures presented by the author about witch killings are really disturbing:

The National Criminal Record Bureau reports that more than 2,000 women were killed in India following allegations of witchcraft between 2005-2015 (p. 20).

No doubt these are official figures, and actual figures would be higher. Although witch hunting - which is ‘lynching in every sense of the word’ (p. 19) - is practised in 12 states, only seven states have laws criminalising the practice.

What Fuels the Mobs

It further elaborates on the 'major reasons for mob violence', taking up the 'hounding of minorities' (p. 21). It observes that lynching 'has acquired a new meaning and acceptance under the present BJP government', where the state 'surrenders before murderous mobs', and cites 'credible reports which suggest that young Hindu men and women are being given arms training to target Muslims wherever and whenever it is possible.' It also notes controversial statements by 'extremist Hindu leaders who call upon their followers to kill the religious and social minorities and no action is taken against them' (p. 21). It then traces the history of such targeted killings in post-Independence India, from the Partition riots and the anti-Sikh riots (1984) to the burning alive of Australian Christian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons, Philip (aged 10) and Timothy (aged 6), by a Bajrang Dal Hindu militia as they slept in his station wagon (23 January 1999).

It also examines individual cases. These include the killing of Rajini, a Hindu inmate of a Christian orphanage (p. 23), and the lynching of Prof. H. S. Sabharwal, head of the Political Science Department in Ujjain, allegedly by members of the ABVP, the RSS's student wing (26 August 2006); his attackers were 'acquitted due to lack of evidence' (p. 24). Among other cases, it covers the lynching of five Dalits in Jhajjar, Haryana (2002), on suspicion of killing cows. It underlines the growing brazenness of the attackers, who record videos of their crimes and circulate them on social media, since 'those involved in these crimes against humanity have almost never been punished' (p. 25).

As per experts recording and uploading of such videos definitely indicates that

“There is some kind of symphony between state and the mob elements of civil society.” (p. 25)

Prof Irfan Ahmad, a senior research fellow at Max Planck Institute in Germany explains:

“These videos act as messages for the victims as well as the perpetrators. To the Muslims as a unified community, the message is mend your ways and behave as we tell you. To the Hindus as a unified community, the message is look what we did for our community.’

The author further elaborates the way the criminals, perpetrators involved in such killings, are glorified and lionised, ‘a disturbing trend that has crept into Indian society’ (p. 26) and it takes up two cases to illustrate the point.

In December 2017, Shambhu Lal Regar hacked Afrazul Khan – a Muslim worker - to death in Rajsamand (Rajasthan) and later burned him. Regar said he killed Khan to prevent an act of ‘love jihad’, where a Muslim man might seduce a Hindu woman. The brutal act was filmed. It circulated on WhatsApp groups around Rajsamand. It then spread through the country. The act should have been condemned by everyone. But it was not. Hundreds of people – many associated with the Bajrang Dal – came onto the streets to hail Regar as a hero. During Ramnavmi celebrations in Jodhpur, he was honoured with a tableau in which he sits on a throne-like chair with a pickaxe in his hand. A banner above the tableau reads, ‘Hindu brethren to protect their sisters and daughters and liberate the country from love jihad’.

Jaipur’s Kamal Didi, who led the attack on the Hayat Rabbani Hotel compared the alleged killers of Pehlu Khan, a Muslim dairy farmer from Haryana to Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Chandrasekhar Azad. This grotesque false equivalence is an insult to the memory of India’s national heroes. When one of the alleged killers – Vipin Yadav – met the Sadhvi Kamal Didi, she said to him, ‘The entire country is with you’. These are the heroes of the Hindutva fanatics.

No doubt the normalisation of violence against innocent people and the valorisation of their killers raises serious questions about the moral compass of our societies. Perhaps it is important to remember what philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote about Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi who organised the Holocaust:

The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.

Towards fifth stage of fascism?

The chapter ‘Lynching: The Normal in India’ begins by examining fascism in a cycle of five stages:

In his renowned work ‘The Anatomy of Fascism’, Robert Paxton has proposed to examine fascism in five stages 1. the creation of a movement, 2. its rooting in the political system, 3. its seizure of power, 4. the exercise of power, 5. And, finally, the long period during which the fascist regime chooses either radicalisation or entropy. (p. 37)

And it raises a question, in light of the violence unleashed since Modi’s ascent to power in May 2014, ‘is it time to ask whether we have stepped into fifth stage of fascism?’ (p. 37)

It later discusses the history of beef eating in ancient India, how the issue of ‘cow’ came up and discussed in the Constituent Assembly and how it came to a consensus that ‘there should be no national statute banning cow slaughter, instead it included it in the (non-binding) Directive principles of State Policy.’ (p. 38) and how Supreme Court ‘dragged its feet in 1958’.

As the issue of cow slaughter is still a live issue, perhaps it is important to remember what Mahatma Gandhi said about it and how Dr Ambedkar viewed it.

Gandhi said about banning cow slaughter on 25th July 1947, before India became formally independent:

“The Hindu religion prohibited cow slaughter for the Hindus, not for the world. The religious prohibition came from within. Any imposition from without meant compulsion. Such compulsion was repugnant to religion.” (p. 39)

Dr Ambedkar, legendary leader of the oppressed, in his seminal Untouchability, The Dead Cow and Brahmins noted that beef eating was at the heart of the taint of untouchability. His writings underline how the issue of cow’s flesh was viewed in ancient India.

As things stand today, a few BJP ruled states, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Haryana have toughened cow-related laws. Many of these laws are reported to have promoted vigilantism in the name of opposing cow slaughter. For example, the act enacted by the M.P. government states:

“any person, authorised by competent authority, has the power to enter, inspect and search any premises where he has a reason to believe that an offence has been committed or likely to be committed, to take any action” (p. 41)

The wording of the act makes it clear that it has given a free hand to private vigilante groups, who, ‘while posing as Gau Rakshaks (cow protectors), are engaging in the most heinous of crimes of assault, loot and murder.’ (p. 41) 

What has been further troubling to note that when widows of lynching victims Pehlu Khan, Nasir Khan, Rakbar Khan, Junaid and Umar filed a petition before the Supreme Court pleading to declare the laws prohibiting cow slaughter as ‘illegal’ or alter them to allow cow slaughter, - as they are promoting lawlessness and allowing some people to take law in their hands - the apex court refused to entertain their petition and asked them to approach high court, despite the plea by the petitioners’ lawyer Kapil Sibal underlining that ‘this issue is not limited to any single state but a national problem’. (p. 42)

Such targeted killings of innocents - especially belonging to social and religious minorities - and the way the government has let them happen, have been noted by the international media also.  Hindutva marauders indulging in hate crimes, police protecting them, and ministers embracing and garlanding them have drawn wide criticism at home and abroad, leading to one of them concluding that India is “giving way to the mob”.

When such killings besmirched India’s image abroad, mainstream Indian newspapers - who have sung praises to the ruling dispensation for more than a decade - were also forced to write strong editorials about the phenomenon of lynching.

The chapter also debunks the oft-repeated claim that the perpetrators who are found to be engaged in such targeted killing are ‘fringe elements’. It quotes Prof Apoorvanand, who teaches Hindi at Delhi University and never shies away from exposing these supremacist forces. According to him, ‘the spate of violent attacks are in no way spontaneous expressions of mob anger. They are the product of systematic incitement to violence by Hindu nationalists.’ (p. 44)

Hate Speeches and Impunity

Whether one wants to acknowledge it or not, the question which needs to be raised is whether India has finally metamorphosed into a “Lynchistan” now! (p. 47)

“Despite the gravity of the situation, the Indian state’s response to it does not seem encouraging at all.” Till date, it has not found it urgent to ‘enact a special law to deal with lynchings and mob violence ' until 2023 when a weak section was introduced in BNS.” (p. 71)

Added to it is the fact that

“Lynchings have not become an issue for political parties during 2019 and 2024 elections. Only some affected states have enacted laws, applicable to the boundaries of those particular states but that too was not allowed by the Union government to become operational.” (p. 71)

The chapter ends with findings of the research by the editors and researchers associated with this monumental work. It has noted “serious flaws in the working of the criminal justice system for victims of hate crimes.” Impunity of state and private actors in cases of hate crime, including lynchings and vigilante violence, as a result of the poor workings of the criminal justice system, ensures that hate violence persists. Impunity is also aided by the poor and illiterate victims’ disadvantaged position in seeking justice. They are too poor, unaware, unconnected and demoralised to pursue long-drawn legal cases strongly.

The protracted police processes, lack of transparency, and the long delays in courts mean only those who have the resources and the determination to get justice will pursue it through to the end. Among the families of those lynched, rarely any has either.

“As we go to the press, another disturbing piece of news regarding restraining, prosecuting hate speech has appeared in a section of the press. A contributing editor to Supreme Court Observer in a latest report to ‘The Wire’ has shared how the Delhi High Court has turned the Supreme Court’s hate speech restraint into a rule of closure’”

Looking at the fact that hate speeches not only vitiate the atmosphere but also promote violence against the ‘other’ and that many of the leading lights of the ruling dispensation had made similar polarising, hate speeches prior to the North East Delhi riots of 2020, the Supreme Court had asked the Delhi high court to decide expeditiously, “preferably within a period of three months”, a petition seeking criminal action against political leaders accused of making inflammatory speeches in the period surrounding the northeast Delhi riots.

“Despite the highest courts’ suggestion that the case be concluded expeditiously, the Delhi high court kept it pending for five years. And on Monday (October 5), the high court dismissed seven petitions, and its reasoning reaches well beyond them. The judgment converts the Supreme Court’s counsel of restraint on hate speech into a working rule of closure for writ courts.”

It refused to direct FIRs “against politicians accused of inflammatory speeches before the February 2020 violence in north-east Delhi. It also refused an independent probe into the Delhi Police’s conduct, and further orders on evidence and compensation.”

No doubt, “The six years for which the petitions remained pending counted against the petitioners instead of supporting their grievance” would be a warning of sorts for all future petitioners unless it is challenged once again in the highest court, so that the safeguard that the Supreme Court reserved for constitutional courts comes into play.

Time and again the role of hate speech in precipitating violence against the ‘others’ or spontaneous-sounding criminal assaults against the social, religious minorities has been underlined. This is a fact which a section of the judiciary has still failed to acknowledge, leading to tragic consequences.