On March 5 people in Nagaland witnessed a terrific mob fury. Thousands of men and women barged into the central prison in Dimapur district of the state. As the helpless police watched on, the mob, which was clearly at an advantage in terms of number, pulled Syed Farid Khan out of his cell. They made him naked and dragged him though the city's road, stoning and abusing him all through the way, and eventually killed him.
Syed Farid Khan was arrested on February 24 following a complaint of rape lodged by a college girl. Khan, a scrap trader, was sent to judicial custody. The Assam Chief Minister has said that he has received reports that rape wasn't even committed. Much is being said about the incident and truth is yet to surface. What, however, led to the outrage on March 5 was that there were rumours that Khan was an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant. For long the state has been lurching under the ethnic and social problems between the aboriginals and the immigrants.
Such acts where a group of people take law into their own hands and act with vendetta should be unequivocally condemned. We are already witnessing instances of groups under the label of khap panchayats, moral police, etc. taking upon themselves few duties and functions of the State in matters of law and public order. What happened in Nagaland is comparable to the khaps to the extent that they feel that they are entitled to decide what is right and wrong and that they are entitled to award punishments and execute it.
While a vast majority of us condemn instances of khaps or moral policing, the responses to the Nagaland mob fury has, unfortunately, not been the same. We hear a lot of voices justifying the actions of the mob. The most glaring one has been a piece written by senior journalist Mr Kanchan Gupta for the Mid Day.
Titled "When law fails, mobs take over," Mr Gupta has written that the action of the mob "was at once an act of defiance by the masses, taunting the law of the land, and a meek acceptance by the Indian state that it has failed." He then wrote that "the state has allowed the criminal justice system to crumble and wither away, eroding people’s faith in the courts."
While he was not wrong on these, after finding fault with the judiciary by citing few examples, he surprisingly went on to endorse what the mob did. "Perfectly law-abiding citizens turn into vigilantes and endorse kangaroo courts and cheer the meting out of mob punishment, as they did in Dimapur, when the belief that courts will not deliver justice strikes root," he wrote.
All through the piece not once has he condemned the act. The maximum he was willing to accept was that the incident showed "how dangerously close we as a nation are to the precipice of frightening lawlessness." Even this "lawlessness" he did not condemn!
But Mr Gupta is not the only one. There are many out there who publicly and in private endorse what the mob in Dimapur did. All such people must understand that they are doing a disservice to the public institutions of law and justice and also to the existence of the Indian State. For, by not condemning such acts and at times even justifying them citing delay in legal justice, they are encouraging those people who are sitting on the fence, undecided whether mobocracy can take precedence over democracy, and to jump to the wrong side which may make India not different from our neighbour Pakistan.
Many public institutions have lost credibility, many of them work poorly. But they are ours, it is we who have to rectify it. We should trust democracy to render justice, and do nothing that makes the process difficult. Equally important is our character. "National character," said Rajaji "is the key stone on which rests the fate and future of our public affairs, not this or that ism." Let us not inject the virus of violence into people's character by not unequivocally condemning such acts.
Syed Farid Khan was arrested on February 24 following a complaint of rape lodged by a college girl. Khan, a scrap trader, was sent to judicial custody. The Assam Chief Minister has said that he has received reports that rape wasn't even committed. Much is being said about the incident and truth is yet to surface. What, however, led to the outrage on March 5 was that there were rumours that Khan was an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant. For long the state has been lurching under the ethnic and social problems between the aboriginals and the immigrants.
Such acts where a group of people take law into their own hands and act with vendetta should be unequivocally condemned. We are already witnessing instances of groups under the label of khap panchayats, moral police, etc. taking upon themselves few duties and functions of the State in matters of law and public order. What happened in Nagaland is comparable to the khaps to the extent that they feel that they are entitled to decide what is right and wrong and that they are entitled to award punishments and execute it.
While a vast majority of us condemn instances of khaps or moral policing, the responses to the Nagaland mob fury has, unfortunately, not been the same. We hear a lot of voices justifying the actions of the mob. The most glaring one has been a piece written by senior journalist Mr Kanchan Gupta for the Mid Day.
Titled "When law fails, mobs take over," Mr Gupta has written that the action of the mob "was at once an act of defiance by the masses, taunting the law of the land, and a meek acceptance by the Indian state that it has failed." He then wrote that "the state has allowed the criminal justice system to crumble and wither away, eroding people’s faith in the courts."
While he was not wrong on these, after finding fault with the judiciary by citing few examples, he surprisingly went on to endorse what the mob did. "Perfectly law-abiding citizens turn into vigilantes and endorse kangaroo courts and cheer the meting out of mob punishment, as they did in Dimapur, when the belief that courts will not deliver justice strikes root," he wrote.
All through the piece not once has he condemned the act. The maximum he was willing to accept was that the incident showed "how dangerously close we as a nation are to the precipice of frightening lawlessness." Even this "lawlessness" he did not condemn!
But Mr Gupta is not the only one. There are many out there who publicly and in private endorse what the mob in Dimapur did. All such people must understand that they are doing a disservice to the public institutions of law and justice and also to the existence of the Indian State. For, by not condemning such acts and at times even justifying them citing delay in legal justice, they are encouraging those people who are sitting on the fence, undecided whether mobocracy can take precedence over democracy, and to jump to the wrong side which may make India not different from our neighbour Pakistan.
Many public institutions have lost credibility, many of them work poorly. But they are ours, it is we who have to rectify it. We should trust democracy to render justice, and do nothing that makes the process difficult. Equally important is our character. "National character," said Rajaji "is the key stone on which rests the fate and future of our public affairs, not this or that ism." Let us not inject the virus of violence into people's character by not unequivocally condemning such acts.
