The Lynching and the Castration were equally wrong

A State cannot be considered to be governed by the rule of law if vigilantes continue to deliver their brand of 'justice'.

Last week witnessed two cases of violence grab the media spotlight in the country. Both were in two different states far apart from each other and were starkly different from each other in their details.

But no matter what the circumstances, these were both cases where people involved decided to deliver what they believed to be justice. And those who have defended these acts have described them as the deliverance of 'justice'.

Irrespective of what those who are defending them say, these were both wrong and both should have never happened. And they both reflect the failure, of not only those involved but a larger one, that of the State.

Though the underlying cause cannot be described except anything but the failure of the state, how this failure acted out had little if any, similarities between them.

The lynching in Jharkhand

The first of the two incidents involved seven men in Jharkhand who were surrounded by a mob of people which beat them to death.

But sadly, this is just the latest event in the recent past were groups of people have taken law into their own hands and inflicted violence on others, and in some cases even beaten them to death, when they assumed the victims of being complacent in actions that the group considered wrong.

While many reasons both justifying and criticising such actions have been given, a look at them shows that these were cases of failure of the State no matter what the intention of those who committed them.

The Jharkhand incident, especially the one involving four victims of the minority community, took place in the presence of the police personnel who were either not able to, or not willing, to stop the act which cannot be described as anything but a lynching.

It all started with a WhatsApp message, which was widely circulated, and warned about the presence of people, not from the area, who were child abductors. The message quickly spread and people from the area formed a mob, picked up weapons, and started looking at all not familiar to them with suspicion.

What happened next were incidents of frantic calls made by the victims asking relatives to save their lives, begging the mob that had surrounded them to spare their lives while pleading their innocence. But all their efforts ended in vain and with their death. As it ended up, the WhatsApp message as many before them was a fake but ended up with real people losing their lives.

The presence of police at the scene, which has come out in reports following the incident, point to a clear dereliction of duty and like other such cases show a clear apathy of the police administration towards victims of violence. And this is how the State failed those who died in this incident and similar incidents reported in other parts of the country especially those targeting people transporting cattle.

The inaction of the police, like in previous cases, allowing a mob to turn violent, was nothing but the truest form of the failure of the state which was compounded by the fact that even if the victims were guilty of what they were accused of, it was the duty of the police to take them to the police station and act according to law and investigate.

The castration in Kerala

The second incident was a case of violence of another kind. No mob was involved, no WhatsApp message was circulated. It involved one person who called himself a 'godman' and a young woman who had been allegedly raped by him for eight years.

The 23-year-old law student, after years of being the victim, decided to take action on her own and used a knife to chop off the godman's genitals.

Actions of the girl have ben lauded by many including those on the social media and by no less than the Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who said that such an attack would send a message to future perpetrators and act as a deterrent.

Other senior leaders such as Sashi Tharoor, the Congress member of parliament from the state, have come forward and said something that has met with stiff apprehension by most. Talking about the incident Tharoor said that the girl instead of taking the extreme step should have gone to the police and filed a complaint against the alleged rapist.

And this decision of the young woman not to do what the MP has suggested, and instead, trying to deliver justice on her own is the failure of the State, as in the terrible incidents of Jharkhand, but there exists a difference in on how the State failed in this case.

This incident points to a failure which is not only something seen in Kerala but throughout the country. The slow speed with which justice is delivered in cases such as rapes and murders, that is if they reach the courts, is something that is a sad reality in India. And cases of rape which go unregistered for various reasons, and others where victims have to wait years, if not decades, to see perpetrators of such crimes punished, are extensively reported.

This along with the details of the conditions and questioning of victims of heinous crimes such as rape are well documented, and in this instance of the refusal of the victim's mother to act even though she knew about the alleged multiple rapes, according to various reports, gives a clear indication to why a young woman in Kerala decided to take such an extreme step instead of going to the police in order to get what she felt was the justice she delivered.

The legal maxim 'Justice delayed is justice denied,' is what seems to have pushed the girl to act in the manner she did. Sadly in this case as in Jharkhand, no one but the State can be seen as the main party to be held guilty along with the individuals involved.

Who is to Blame?

Both cases, probably would not have happened if the law and order system of the country had been functioning with even a semblance of efficiency that it expected to, or if the people had the hope that it would.

The men in Jharkhand would not have picked up sticks and the victims would not have lost their lives. The Kerala girl would not have had to become a part of such a gruesome act, and the alleged rapist would have been in jail instead of a hospital.

The 'innocent until proven guilty' principle of justice seems to be the biggest victim in these cases, as it came head to head with the legal maxim of 'Justice delayed is justice denied.' It is the failure of the state that instead of these concepts working side by side, they seem to have been pitted against each other.

No matter who is accused, whether innocent or guilty, deserve a fair trial, and it is the State through the police and judiciary which plays the first and most important role in providing this basic right of every individual. As well as bringing in the belief among the public that judicial cases would reach their logical end.

Until this happens, though it may be claimed that the rule of the law is what governs the land, it will not hold true if vigilantes are allowed to deliver their brand of 'justice'.

OneIndia News