Supreme Court On Lynching & Mobocracy
In reply to a petition the Supreme Court has said mobocracy cannot be tolerated and allowed to become a new norm. Indeed starting from beating to death of Akhlaq by a mob in 2015, lynching of muslims and even dalits are continuing unabatedly. Even before the ink could dry on the order of the highest court within two days another muslim man has been beaten to death on allegations of cow-smuggling. The attackers are displaying utter disregard for norms of justice based on generally accepted democratic principles or even the constitution or legal system of this country. Earlier the dalit skinners were also tied and pulled half-naked through the streets of Una and continually thrashed. Then we saw how brutally a poor, muslim migrant worker was hacked and burnt and those pictures circulated in video without any scruples. Now recently the main accused in Hapur lynching has arrogantly declared that he is ready to kill again, making a mockery of all laws and norms of whatever semblance of democracy exists in this country.
Supreme Court seeks an end to this. But to whom are they asking to stop this? The governments? Especially the BJP governments of Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, the hot-bed of such cases of lynching? Repeatedly it is being seen that the BJP governments and their hindutva organizations are working in tandem to shelter and glorify the culprits as heroes. They are mobilizing the local masses to give a hero?s welcome to the accused, often in the presence of BJP leaders and MPs, and even comparing them with nationalist martyrs like Bhagat Singh. The accused in Hapur lynching uninhibitedly put this in a very factual way by saying that they are not at all afraid to even go to jail, as after coming out of jail they are being welcomed by masses brought in trucks to honour them. In Rajasthan the accused persons had been greeted by putting up a saffron flag on the court building itself. In Jharkhand a BJP MP had arranged for a reception to honour them. On one hand, the state governments are passing unduly stringent laws to ban beef and cow slaughter in order to satisfy their hindutva agenda. And on the other hand the police are framing innocuous charges to ensure their quick acquittal. One such centrally proposed law on animal trading was even rejected by the Supreme Court. How can the promoters of this politics themselves act to stop the incidents of lynching as the Supreme Court demands?
Rather, the Supreme Court without mincing words should have stated clearly that behind these lynchings there is a planned campaign by the communal fascist forces that is breeding hatred. Muslims are their target, be it on the allegation of possessing beef, slaughtering or smuggling cow, love-jihad or anything else necessary for their communal agenda. That is why a BJP MP could openly declare in the parliament that these lynchings are ?bheer ki nyay? (judgement of the crowd) showing their endorsement for these killings. But instead of taking into account the hard facts of reality and questioning the governments? role and the communal-fascist politics of the ruling party and its varied hindutva organizations, the Supreme Court looked at only the mob lynchings isolated from the social and political factors promoting it.
The problem is not at all merely about a law and order issue. It is a far more alarming and deep-seated. All the attackers are not activists of hindutva organizations taking part as planned by them in these lynchings or assaults. But the continuous unopposed spreading of communal attacks is becoming possible due to the subtle support and acquiescence by the passivity of the masses. This is a dangerous sign of justifying and legitimizing the attacks. Further every such incident of brutal attack is creating increasing mutual hatred and enmity dividing the communities, its common masses further and tending to organize society, economy, politics on the basis of a bigoted religious-communal undertstanding. Moreover the backward masses with their religious prejudices, communal, casteist and gender-biased concepts are being involved, mobilized and drawn towards the fascist path and ideology in a planned manner. Thus an accused in Rajasthan?s Pehlu Khan lynching case described how he stopped the truck of Pehlu Khan, snatched his keys, raised a hue and cry about cow-smuggling to gather and instigate local people and left the place keeping Pehlu Khan at the hands of a frenzied mob to be beaten to death. In this way the blind destructive fascist army is being built from the masses paving the way for destroying whatever democracy prevails in a fragmented and fragile form, ushering in an extremely authoritarian undemocratic system of rule.
Then another kind of lynching is being seen to occur in different parts of the country in recent times. It is based on rumours being spread about child abduction. In reaction to it, brutal incidents of killing ?outsiders? on the basis of mere rumour and suspicion have occurred in Assam, Jharkhand, Andhra, Maharashtra. So far, there have been 13 incidents of lynching related to rumours circulated through WhatsApp about suspected child lifters and kidnappers - resulting in the murders of 27 people, in less than two months. Once again in these cases the gullibility of the backward masses, their growing insecurity living amidst a sea of uncertainty in dire poverty and hardship have led to their heightened expressions of suspicion of anyone unknown, anything new, as ?outsiders?. That is also being exploited to create a situation of another kind of blind frenzy and hatred.
As a result of such incidents social media is being made the villain of the piece. Control and restrictions on use of social media are being sought after. It is being said that fake pictures, videos and messages distributed through social media are whipping up frenzy in minutes. Undoubtedly continuous propagation of communal hatred and false or distorted ideas among other abuses of social media are doing the rounds. Trolling or attacking through use of filthy language by a group of people to divert or suppress the truth exposed byany posting or comment that is critical of the communal campaignhas become the practice these days. But can the social media be made responsible for this? All these are part of a concerted campaign of the hindutva forces used for drowning the voices of rationality and critical thinking and spreading the communal hatred and assaults on targeted sections of the people. Whether the social media is present or not, all this reveals the weakness of the democratic, secular forces and the vulnerability and inclination of the masses to such hate campaigns. The problem is within the society itself. In the case of lynchings on suspicion of being child-lifters a fake video distorted and prepared from one used in Pakistan have been used widely. Here also the backwardness of the masses remaining in isolated rural regions with superstitions, blind-faith, and growing insecurity and suspicion for outsiders have increased to such an extent that the rumours could successfully create havoc.
In their order the Supreme Court has also reminded us about the history of a series of lynching of black negroes in the US in the early 19th century, citing the famous writer Mark Twain who commented that the United States of America is becoming ?United States of Lyncherdom?. This example from history showed that the lynching of negroes by the white Americans was a reaction of white oppressors to the end of slavery of the blacks in the southern part of the country. This social contradiction was the cause for those lynching of blacks that still persists and no law has been able to eradicate it. Similarly the growing communal hatred targeting muslims in the form of lynching is also quite clearly visible in our country. Hence the more pertinent question that Supreme court has raised is, whether the ?populace of a great Republic like ours has lost the values of tolerance to sustain a diverse culture??. This is the reality that enmity and hatred has taken the place of tolerance for diverse culture. It is being expressed by the involvement and also the passive acquiescence of the common masses and on the other hand is more attackingly being utilized by the communal-fascist forces of hindutva for their goal of Hindu rashtra. The oppressor sections of society are using the masses as a tool to further their agenda of establishing a fascist authoritarian regime. And they are able to do this because of the backwardness of social and economic relations in which the masses are stuck up amidst a stagnant and impoverished life. In the case of the blind, violent lynching of child lifters merely on suspicion, there also the stagnation amidst backwardness, poverty is playing its part. Moreover, the lopsided development of globalization and liberalization, have resulted in gaping difference in lives of a small section of rich enjoying the major chunk of that development with large sections of masses remaining impoverished. In so many ways the poor are being duped and exploited, the natural resources from their places of inhabitance are being looted by this society?s handful of rich?the capitalists and traders. This social tension is also contributing to the blind reactions against ?outsiders? in the absence of a proper movement to arouse in them the hope of liberation from these oppressions and poverty. The outbursts are acting as vents for their disillusionment, frustration and anger with the present system, its law, the law-keepers.
Thus all these lynchings are not spontaneous reactions of masses who have suddenly become killers. Killers of muslims and dalits in one kind of lynching or killers of ?outsiders? on the suspicion of being child-lifters. In the first kind of lynching of muslims, the common, poor masses of the majority hindu community are repeatedly being fed with false, distorted news and information targeting muslims as the main source of all of their problems. A planned, concerted propaganda by communal and fascist organisations, reinforced by its revival as a result of frustration of the masses due to failure and loss of credibility of the other political parties and formations, is sweeping across the country, to instigate the masses in this direction.
In case of the lynching of the suspected child-lifters it is the situation of distrust that has been created against the system and the handful of rich getting richer with the masses remaining impoverished in backwardness for a long time. Naturally insecurity, repeated incidents of getting duped, exploited, blind beliefs and misgivings of the past haunts them. Even in some cases distrust due to domination of some communities at the regional level are also at play. In fact in many of such regions, like the tribal areas of Chattisgarh, child-lifting and trafficking has been a curse for a long time for. In such a backdrop the lynchings have been once again been a blind reaction, an expression of wrath to this, of course instigated and exploited by someone through the whatsapps etc.
Hence the real solution out of this lay in the wiping away of these backwardness, the vestiges of old, the material conditions in the form of remnants of feudalism, the religious-communal outlook based upon it. It lay in the awakening of the masses?the workers, peasants, toilers to come out of this backwardness, this sham, stunted, democracy, out of this development that only further enriches the rich making the poor further impoverished and pauperized. It actually means not merely waiting endlessly for the law and order to be improved by the governments but rising against the oppressors who have maintained this backwardness in society for their interests, rising in struggle against all kinds of old oppressions prevailing in society (it must be remembered that our society has a long history of other lynchings that occurs in a large scale for years in the name of witch-hunting of women of oppressed sections?-Dayin Pratha, and also different practices of killing of girl-child). It also means preparing for a united rise of the working class against increasing inequality and exploitation. In the presence of a real political party of the proletariat based on the class struggle and on the experience of class struggle also, the working class and toiling masses could clearly see that their real enemies are the capitalist and other exploiter classes. They could realize that their root cause of poverty and backwardness lie in the exploitation by these classes and not due to common, poor masses of muslims or other religions nor all or anyone of the ?outsiders. Without that the ?mobocracy? that the Supreme Court mentions about will bloom into a full-fledged fascist authoritarian state pushing the masses into more oppression, exploitation and attacks and killings within the common masses.
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