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Context
On June 8, two young men were lynched to death by a mob in karbi Anglong district of Assam
What is mob lynching?
- Mob Lynching means killing of someone by a mob for an alleged offence without following any principles of jurisprudence or due process of law.
- A lynching is a majority way of telling a minority population that the law cannot protect it.
- Lynching served the broad social purpose of maintaining superiority in economic, social, cultural and political sphere.
Reasons
- With modernity, there is growth of individualism and an erosion of associational life
- Associations encourage us to appreciate others culture and moderate our aggressive instincts.
- Mob has no face. This impunity leads mob to take extreme steps
- Weakening of civil society organizations and other organic institutional links.
- A culture of political mobilization that uses violence as a tool of politics.
- Indifferent attitude towards other cultures and religions.
- Indifferent attitude of Police leads people to take law in their own hands (e.g. Tamil Nadu Lynching)
- In 21% of the cases, the police filed cases against the victims/survivors. (India spend report)
- Rise in penetration of Social media and its usage to spread rumors and hatred (Bangalore Exodus of North east people)
- Growing Prevalence of Fake news and Hate News (Dadri Lynching). There are instances of organized hate campaigns as well.
- According to ‘India spend’ 52% of attacks in last 8 years is based on rumors.
- The silence of political class. They are ineffective to create deterrence through strong law.
- Ineffective and delayed justice (Assam Lynching of rape accused).
- High Unemployment rates leave millions of youth unengaged. (ManesarMaruti Plant Incident)
Impact
State
- It is against the values upheld in constitution of India.
- Every individual have certain fundamental rightsany violence would be curtailment of this right.
- No regard to law and order in society.
- This may lead to growth of feeling of sub-nationalism.
- Radical and extremists organisations such as ISIS etc could take leverage of atmosphere created by such incidents
Society
- This impact solidarity of society and idea of Unity in diversity
- This create an atmosphere of majority v/s minority
- It could aggravate caste, class and communal hatred.
- This may increase the extent of domestic conflict and subsequent militarization.
- Such acts shows loss of tolerance in the society and people are being swayed by emotions,prejudices etc.
Economy
- This impacts both foreign and domestic investment thereby adversely affecting sovereign ratings. Many International agencies warned India against mob lynching incidents.
- It directly hampers internal migration which in turn affects economy.
- Large resources deployed to tackle such menaces induces extra burden on state-exchequer.
- These incidents would led to selective distribution of investment which may impact regional balance.
Steps taken so far
- Government Launched Ek bharat shreshta bharat for sustained and structured cultural connect between citizens of different regions
- Civil society Launched ‘NOT IN MY NAME’ campaign: to protest against the cow vigilantism.
- Civil society also lunched National Campaign Against Mob Lynching (NCAML). It also known as ‘Masuka’, short for ManavSurakshaKanoon (law to protect humans).
- A draft of the proposed legislation is currently up on the Internet, awaiting suggestions from the public.
What needs to be done
- Government should criminalizes the act of mob violence.
- Awarding of penalties on public servants for failing to investigate properly due to malafide intentions or wilful neglect of their duties.
- Establishment of Special Courts for the trial of mob violence.
- Empowering local law enforcement officials to take pre-emptive action.
- There needs to be continued responsiveness on part of the local administration in dealing with anxiety and suspicion in local communities.
- Create a mechanism to insulate investigations of communal violence from political interference.
- Community Sensitisation and awareness through multi-media campaigns.Counter-information campaign to check fear-mongering and fake news.
- Strengthen civil society Organisation. This helps to nurture solidarity.
- Re-orient values and traditional principles towards enhancing compassion, empathy and fraternity among people.
- Find productive engagement avenues for large unemployed or under-employed youths.
- A targeted region specific approach is need of the hour as reasons for such acts vary widely across space.
- Police reforms are vital along with sensitization drive to make transformational changes in their behavioural and attitudinal approach towards tackling of crime.