What is the issue?
- The country is witnessing a series of incidents of lynching and targeted mob violence against vulnerable groups.
- The causes behind and the threats it impose calls for bringing in an anti-lynching law.
How does it affect the vulnerable?
- Violence against those looking overtly Muslim is a noted phenomenon.
- 86% of those killed in lynching incidents in 2017 were Muslims.
- An overwhelming majority of these attacks are bovine related.
- Nevertheless, there are other reasons for anti-minority attacks too.
- Hate violence has also happened around festivals such as Ram Navami provocations over azaan and namaz.
- The victims in cases of lynching are almost entirely from poor families.
Why is the recent trend worrying?
- Small scale - South Asia has a long history of communal violence.
- But these were primarily big episodes of mass violence.
- However, this has now given way to a smaller-scale of conflict, targeted at individuals.
- Rumours - Most of the attacks are based on rumours on cow slaughter or smuggling.
- The rumours circulating on social media often take shape as communal stereotypes.
- Support - The perpetrators are emboldened by the political prioritisation of a crackdown on cow slaughter.
- Moreover, vigilante violence against individuals is being endorsed by state inaction.
- It is possibly an attempt to avoid public scrutiny that accompanies mass violence.
- Communalism - The rising trend is also related to the intensification of communal polarisation.
- There is an increasing instrumentalisation of prejudice for political ends.
- Eventually, these have acquired a certain degree of legitimacy in the public mind.
- Popular anger, outrage and violence have become normal phenomena.
- Threat - Each event of violence has hardened the community boundaries.
- It has widened the divide between Hindus and Muslims.
- Unless checked, it can cause irreversible harm to the social fabric of the Indian society.
- It also impacts the political processes, especially electoral processes and the rule of law.
What are the legal shortfalls?
- Prevention and punishment of the perpetrators of mass violence and/or lynchings is weak.
- The police often stand by, careful not to interfere with the actions of the majority community.
- Both mobs and police have regularly treated victims of cow vigilantism as suspects.
- The law enforcement agencies act mostly against the victims themselves.
- They book them for violating cow protection laws, which act as a legitimate cover.
- As hate crimes grow, the sense of impunity also keeps growing.
- Lack of justice for victims further reinforces the vicious cycle of impunity.
What is the way forward?
- Supreme Court, earlier, directed all State governments to take measures to prevent vigilantism in the name of cow protection.
- However, public lynching or vigilante violence has not subsided.
- Preventing further atrocities requires respect for the rule of law and legal institutions.
- Strong prosecutions and expeditious punishments are essential.
- The recurring incidents of lynching are a call to enact an anti-lynching law.
Source: The Hindu