Vigilantism and Palghar lynching, paralyzing the legal system of India

“A hanging typically occurs after someone is found guilty in the eyes of the law and irredeemable in the eyes of society. A lynching is the killing of an individual for how they look and what they represent to a vigilante mob.”

According to Hobbes, man in state of nature is selfish, brutal and short. By social contract theory, state was made for giving protection to man's security of life and property. The very first duty of the state is to save the lives of people and provide security to them.

Theories of political science states that Laws are binding only when they are supported by the general will of the people. If state fails to perform its duty then we can say that the social contract was breached and in consequence to this, humans will reversed to their true nature which is violence, anger, selfishness etc and give birth to uncivilised society which leads to “vigilantism”, means the practice of ordinary people in a place taking unofficial action to prevent crime or to catch and punish people believed to be criminals without legal system or due process of law.

For example, if we see the Hyderabad rape incident, police took law in to their own hands by engaging in vigilantism and killed all four alleged accused (suspects) and refer this as an encounter. Police engaged in vigilantism to serve justice to the rape victim which certainly failed the concept of society because police doesn’t have power to serve justice under rule of law, judiciary does, and this leads to breach of social contract and cardinal principle of separation of power.

Palghar mob lynching:-

In the current Palghar mob lynching which had lead to the death of 2 Hindu priests (sadhus) and their driver. They are on their way to Surat to attend a funeral. They apparently didn’t have a lockdown travel pass. Police didn’t give permission to further travel and so they were returning back by shortcut which was going through Palghar village.

There, they became a victim of false rumours which were going around in that village during the last few weeks. It was the clear result of social media rumours of thieves (organ harvesting gang) operating in the area during the country wide corona virus lockdown.

Well, if we see the history of this village for the past few weeks then the last week before the lynching, an incident took place in which the doctor and his team were attacked by villagers who were there to relief distribution. Police was also got attacked twice before the lynching incident.

The sad point of this incident is that there were 12 policemen present on sight when this horrible act caused death to victim occurred and none of them performed their duty. So I would say they were also the passive participant to the mob. Did they just forget their oath which they took by swearing the constitution while joining police force or humanity has come to an end? It is not the mob lynching which leads the death of two Hindu sadhus and a driver, neither it was the legal system, it is the death of “suffering humanity” and here suffering humanity means humanity is just about under the Sword of Damocles because in the current time it becomes a tool of politicians. They are constantly poisoning it by creating the climate of impunity, spreading the hatred between the communities. Here, in this case, it was also said by various politicians and party spokesperson that it is a clear case of Muslim lynched two Hindu sadhus or community conflict. But if we do digging in the facts related to this incident, there was no Muslim living in that village; all the arrested persons are Hindus. Even Maharashtra CM said in an interview that there is no communal angle to this lynching incident. The biggest shock in this incident is 9 juvenile were also arrested who were part of the mob.

It can be said that the seed of poison is planted without much notice and this cancer affects the soul, curbs the development of the individual (minor) and constrains personality. Fear and aggression get ingrained in the psyche which exposes them to violent and brutality and they tend to take murder as a way of life. Their belief in the established legal system is subverted. The cases of mob lynching and people taking the law into their own hands prove the point.

It was well said that “Education is discovering your full potential and flourishing that potential for the benefit of the humanity.” For not engaging in such horrible acts and boost the concept of humanity rather than creating chaos among people or being a part of mob lynching one must be educated.

Vigilantism and legal system: A face off-

Mob lynching is an example of vigilantism; in which mob serve the justice by taking law in to their own hand and result of failure of the state to give security of life to people. Mostly 80-90% of lynching has been taken place in India in the cases of cow slaughter, on the name of religion or any other spread of rumours.

In this context, the Supreme Court in 2018 described lynching as a “horrendous act of mobocracy” and laid down guidelines for the Centre and State governments to frame laws specifically to deal with the crime of lynching.

But there is no befitting statute at national level which talks about to stop the lynching and penalize the culprits. There are only few states that have passed the anti lynching act under the umbrella of the guidelines given by SC.

It is very first principle of human right that all humans are equal and we should treat them equally regardless of their cast, place of birth, gender, religion etc., or any defined community under art 14 and 15, which is protected by fundamental rights. Well, lynching, an example of vigilantism, is directly violating the fundamental rights and most importantly the “rule of law”. For maintaining the rule of law, we have to promote solidarity and harmony and must not promote enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc. Rather we should act prejudicial to maintenance of harmony (Sec 153A of IPC).

So here we can say that lynching can’t be justified and it can never be right, because lynching itself means, “death by mob action without legal approval or permission to serve justice” even I must say it is very disgraceful to say the mob lynching is anywhere nearer to justice.

From 1882 to 1968, in USA a total no of lynching cases were 4742, in which 3445 cases were against black and rest is against the liberals or secularists, who were stand against the lynching and said that it was wrong. By learning from its mistake, USA was first to introduced a bill on anti lynching in 1918 and passed anti lynching law over 100 years after its first attempt in 2018.

Lynching defined by the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) is that:

1) There must be evidence that a person was killed;

2) The person must have met death illegally;

3) A group of three or more persons must have participated in the killings; and

4) The killing is carried out in public.

In India, it is one of the biggest setbacks of our legal system that we haven’t able to stop mob lynching yet. Neither we have defined the word lynching and what’s its scope nor learn from mistakes of other countries as well as not from our own incidents. Vigilantism is like a blot on the face to the legal system. If there is no law to stop mob lynching then it will stimulate more vigilantism and people consider themselves as a God to pass judgement on criminals to serve justice.

It’s very well said “When the Rule of Law disappears, we are ruled by the whims of men”. To avoid this situation, we have to promote the legal way to serve justice. Vigilante justice system is paralyzing the very concept of rule of law. If we want to serve justice, we have to go through the procedure established by law or due process but in any case we should not hold the law to serve justice.

                                         [The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author, and doesn't intend to harm any community, group of persons etc.]